IT Strategy

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Success depends on IT initiatives clearly aligned to business goals.

Perform an Agile Skills Assessment

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  • Your organization is trying to address the key delivery challenges you are facing. Early experiments with Agile are starting to bear fruit.
  • As part of maturing your Agile practice, you want to evaluate if you have the right skills and capabilities in place.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Focusing on the non-technical skills can yield significant returns for your products, your team, and your organization. These skills are what should be considered as the real Agile skills.

Impact and Result

  • Define the skills and values that are important to your organization to be successful at being Agile.
  • Put together a standard criterion for measurement of the attainment of given skills.
  • Define the roadmap and communication plan around your agile assessment.

Perform an Agile Skills Assessment Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should perform an agile skills assessment. review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

1. Take stock of the Agile skills and values important to you

Confirm the list of Agile skills that you wish to measure.

  • Perform an Agile Skills Assessment – Phase 1: Take Stock of the Agile Skills and Values Important to You
  • Agile Skills Assessment Tool
  • Agile Skills Assessment Tool Example

2. Define an assessment method that works for you

Define what it means to attain specific agile skills through a defined ascension path of proficiency levels, and standardized skill expectations.

  • Perform an Agile Skills Assessment – Phase 2: Define an Assessment Method That Works for You

3. Plan to assess your team

Determine the roll-out and communication plan that suits your organization.

  • Perform an Agile Skills Assessment – Phase 3: Plan to Assess Your Team
  • Agile Skills Assessment Communication and Roadmap Plan
  • Agile Skills Assessment Communication and Roadmap Plan Example
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Workshop: Perform an Agile Skills Assessment

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

1 Define Agile Skills and Maturity Levels

The Purpose

Learn about and define the Agile skills that are important to your organization.

Define the different levels of attainment when it comes to your Agile skills.

Define the standards on a per-role basis.

Key Benefits Achieved

Get a clear view of the Agile skills important into meet your Agile transformation goals in alignment with organizational objectives.

Set a clear standard for what it means to meet your organizational standards for Agile skills.

Activities

1.1 Review and update the Agile skills relevant to your organization.

1.2 Define your Agile proficiency levels to evaluate attainment of each skill.

1.3 Define your Agile team roles.

1.4 Define common experience levels for your Agile roles.

1.5 Define the skill expectations for each Agile role.

Outputs

A list of Agile skills that are consistent with your Agile transformation

A list of proficiency levels to be used during your Agile skills assessment

A confirmed list of roles that you wish to measure on your Agile teams

A list of experience levels common to Agile team roles (example: Junior, Intermediate, Senior)

Define the skill expectations for each Agile role

Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable

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In many cases, the answer is to develop a cloud brokerage to manage the complexity. But what should your cloud broker be delivering, and how?

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • To avoid failure, you need to provide security and compliance, but basic user satisfaction means becoming a frictionless intermediary.
  • Enabling brokers provide knowledge and guidance for the best usage of cloud.
  • While GCBs fill a critical role as a control point for IT consumption, they can easily turn into a friction point for IT projects. It’s important to find the right balance between enabling compliance and providing frictionless usability.

Impact and Result

  • Avoid disintermediation.
  • Maintain compliance.
  • Leverage economies of scale.
  • Ensure architecture discipline.

Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable Research & Tools

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

1. Build a Cloud Brokerage Deck – A guide to help you start designing a cloud brokerage that delivers value beyond gatekeeping.

Define the value, ecosystem, and metrics required to add value as a brokerage. Develop a brokerage value proposition that aligns with your audience and capabilities. Define and rationalize the ecosystem of partners and value-add activities for your brokerage. Define KPIs that allow you to maximize and balance both usability and compliance.

  • Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable Storyboard
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Further reading

Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable

Considerations for implementing an institutional-focused cloud brokerage.

Your Challenge

Increasingly, large institutions and governments are adopting cloud-first postures for delivering IT resources. Combined with the growth of cloud offerings that are able to meet the certifications and requirements of this segment that has been driven by federal initiatives like Cloud-First in Canada and Cloud Smart in the United States, these two factors have left institutions (and the businesses that serve them) with the challenge of delivering cloud services to their users while maintaining compliance, control, and IT sanity.

In many cases, the answer is to develop a cloud brokerage to manage the complexity. But what should your cloud broker be delivering and how?

Navigating the Problem

Not all cloud brokerages are the same. And while they can be an answer to cloud complexity, an ineffective brokerage can drain value and complicate operations even further. Cloud brokerages need to be designed:

  1. To deliver the right type of value to its users.
  2. To strike the balance between effective governance & security and flexibility & ease of use.

Info-Tech’s Approach

By defining your end goals, framing solutions based on the type of value and rigor your brokerage needs to deliver, and focusing on the right balance of security and flexibility, you can deliver a brokerage that delivers the best of all worlds.

  1. Define the brokerage value you want to deliver.
  2. Build the catalog and partner ecosystem.
  3. Understand how to maximize adoption and minimize disintermediation while maintaining architectural discipline and compliance.

Info-Tech Insight

Sometimes a brokerage delivery model makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t! Understanding the value addition you want your brokerage to provide before creating it allows you to not only avoid pitfalls and maximize benefits but also understand when a brokerage model does and doesn’t make sense in the first place.

Project Overview

Understand what value you want your brokerage to deliver

Different institutions want brokerage delivery for different reasons. It’s important to define up front why your users need to work through a brokerage and what value that brokerage needs to deliver.

What’s in the catalog? Is it there to consolidate and simplify billing and consumption? Or does it add value further up the technology stack or value chain? If so, how does that change the capabilities you need internally and from partners?

Security and compliance are usually the highest priority

Among institutions adopting cloud, a broker that can help deliver their defined security and compliance standards is an almost universal requirement. Especially in government institutions, this can mean the need to meet a high standard in both implementation and validation.

The good news is that even if you lack the complete set of skills in-house, the high certification levels available from hyperscale providers combined with a growing ecosystem of service providers working on these platforms means you can usually find the right partner(s) to make it possible.

The real goal: frictionless intermediation and enablement

Ultimately, if end users can’t get what they need from you, they will go around you to get it. This challenge, which has always existed in IT, is further amplified in a cloud service world that offers users a cornucopia of options outside the brokerage. Furthermore, cloud users expect to be able to consume IT seamlessly. Without frictionless satisfaction of user demand your brokerage will become disintermediated, which risks your highest priorities of security and compliance.

Understand the evolution: Info-Tech thought model

While initial adoption of cloud brokerages in institutions was focused on ensuring the ability of IT to extend its traditional role as gatekeeper to the realm of cloud services, the focus has now shifted upstream to enabling ease of use and smart adoption of cloud services. This is evidenced clearly in examples like the US government’s renaming of its digital strategy from “Cloud First” to “Cloud Smart” and has been mirrored in other regions and institutions.

Info-Tech Insights

To avoid failure, you need to provide security and compliance.

Basic user satisfaction means becoming a frictionless intermediary.

Exceed expectations! Enabling brokers provide knowledge and guidance for the best usage of cloud.

  • Security & Compliance
  • Frictionless Intermediation
  • Cloud-Enabling Brokerage

Define the role of a cloud broker

Where do brokers fit in the cloud model?

  • NIST Definition: An entity that manages the use, performance, and delivery of cloud services and negotiates relationships between cloud providers and cloud consumers.
  • Similar to a telecom master agent, a cloud broker acts as the middle-person and end-user point of contact, consolidating the management of underlying providers.
  • A government or institutional cloud broker (GCB) is responsible for the delivery of all cloud services consumed by the departments or agencies it supports or that are mandated to use it.

Balancing governance and agility

Info-Tech Insight

While GCBs fill a critical role as a control point for IT consumption, they can easily turn into a friction point for IT projects. It’s important to find the right balance between enabling compliance and providing frictionless usability.

Model brokerage drivers and benefits

Reduced costs: Security through standardization: Frictionless consumption: Avoid disinter-mediation; Maintain compliance; Leverage economies of scale; Ensure architecture discipline

Maintain compliance and ensure architecture discipline: Brokerages can be an effective gating point for ensuring properly governed and managed IT consumption that meets the specific regulations and compliances required for an institution. It can also be a strong catalyst and enabler for moving to even more effective cloud consumption through automation.

Avoid disintermediation: Especially in institutions, cloud brokers are a key tool in the fight against disintermediation – that is, end users circumventing your IT department’s procurement and governance by consuming an ad hoc cloud service.

Leverage economies of scale: Simply put, consolidation of your cloud consumption drives effectiveness by making the most of your buying power.

Info-Tech Insights

Understanding the importance of each benefit type to your brokerage audience will help you define the type of brokerage you need to build and what skills and partners will be required to deliver the right value.

The brokerage landscape

The past ten years have seen governments and institutions evolve from basic acceptance of cloud services to the usage of cloud as the core of most IT initiatives.

  • As part of this evolution, many organizations now have well-defined standards and guidance for the implementation, procurement, and regulation of cloud services for their use.
  • Both Canada (Strategic Plan for Information Management and Information Technology) and the United States (Cloud Smart – formerly known as Cloud First) have recently updated their guidance on adoption of cloud services. The Australian Government has also recently updated its Cloud Computing Policy.
  • AWS and Azure both now claim Full FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) certification.
  • This has not only enabled easy adoption of these core hyperscale cloud service by government but also driven the proliferation of a large ecosystem of FedRAMP-authorized cloud service providers.
  • This trend started with government at the federal level but has cascaded downstream to provincial and municipal governments globally, and the same model seems likely to be adopted by other governments and other institution types over time.

Info-Tech Insight

The ecosystem of platforms and tools has grown significantly and examples of best practices, especially in government, are readily available. Once you’ve defined your brokerage’s value stance, the building blocks you need to deliver often don’t need to be built from scratch.

Address the unique challenges of business-led IT in institutions

With the business taking more accountability and management of their own technology, brokers must learn how to evolve from being gatekeepers to enablers.

This image This lists the Cons of IT acting as a gatekeeper providing oversight, and the Pros of IT acting as an Enabler in an IT Partnership.  the Cons are: Restrict System Access; Deliver & Monitor Applications; Own Organizational Risk; Train the Business.  The Pros are: Manage Role-Based Access; Deliver & Monitor Platforms; Share Organizational Risk; Coach & Mentor the Business

Turn brokerage pitfalls into opportunities

The greatest risks in using a cloud broker come from its nature as a single point of distribution for service and support. Without resources (or automation) to enable scale, as well as responsive processes for supporting users in finding the right services and making those services available through the brokerage, you will lose alignment with your users’ needs, which inevitably leads to disintermediation, loss of IT control, and broken compliance

Info-Tech Insights

Standardization and automation are your friend when building a cloud brokerage! Sometimes this means having a flexible catalog of options and configurations, but great brokerages can deliver value by helping their users redefine and evolve their workloads to work more effectively in the cloud. This means providing guidance and facilitating the landing/transformation of users’ workloads in the cloud, the right way.

Challenges Impact
  • Single point of failure
  • Managing capacity
  • Alignment of brokerage with underlying agencies
  • Additional layer of complexity
  • Inability to deliver service
  • Disintermediation
  • Broken security/compliance
  • Loss of cost control/purchasing power

Validate your cloud brokerage strategy using Info-Tech’s approach

Value Definition

  • Define your brokerage type and value addition

Capabilities Mapping

  • Understand the partners and capabilities you need to be able to deliver

Measuring Value

  • Define KPIs for both compliant delivery and frictionless intermediation

Provide Cloud Excellence

  • Move from intermediation to enablement and help users land on the cloud the right way

Define the categories for your brokerage’s benefit and value

Depending on the type of brokerage, the value delivered may be as simple as billing consolidation, but many brokerages go much deeper in their value proposition.

This image depicts a funnel, where the following inputs make up the Broker Value: Integration, Interface and Management Enhancement; User Identity and Risk Management/ Security & Compliance; Cost & Workload Efficiency, Service Aggregation

Define the categories of brokerage value to add

  • Purchasing Agents save the purchaser time by researching services from different vendors and providing the customer with information about how to use cloud computing to support business goals.
  • Contract Managers may also be assigned power to negotiate contracts with cloud providers on behalf of the customer. In this scenario, the broker may distribute services across multiple vendors to achieve cost-effectiveness, while managing the technical and procurement complexity of dealing with multiple vendors.
    • The broker may provide users with an application program interface (API) and user interface (UI) that hides any complexity and allows the customer to work with their cloud services as if they were being purchased from a single vendor. This type of broker is sometimes referred to as a cloud aggregator.
  • Cloud Enablers can also provide the customer with additional services, such as managing the deduplication, encryption, and cloud data transfer and assisting with data lifecycle management and other activities.
  • Cloud Customizers integrate various underlying cloud services for customers to provide a custom offering under a white label or its own brand.
  • Cloud Agents are essentially the software version of a Contract Manager and act by automating and facilitating the distribution of work between different cloud service providers.

Info-Tech Insights

Remember that these categories are general guidelines! Depending on the requirements and value a brokerage needs to deliver, it may fit more than one category of broker type.

Brokerage types and value addition

Info-Tech Insights

Each value addition your brokerage invests in delivering should tie to reinforcing efficiency, compliance, frictionlessness, or enablement.

Value Addition Purchasing Agent Contract Manager Cloud Enabler Cloud Customizer Cloud Agent
Underlying service selection

Standard Activity

Standard Activity Standard Activity Standard Activity Common Activity
Support and info Standard Activity

Common Activity

Standard Activity Standard Activity Common Activity
Contract lifecycle (pricing/negotiation) Standard Activity Common Activity Standard Activity
Workload distribution (to underlying services) (aggregation) Common Activity Standard Activity Standard Activity Standard Activity
Value-add or layered on services Standard Activity Common Activity
Customization/integration of underlying services Standard Activity
Automated workload distribution (i.e. software) Standard Activity

Start by delivering value in these common brokerage service categories

Security & Compliance

  • Reporting & Auditing
  • SIEM & SOC Services
  • Patching & Monitoring

Cost Management

  • Right-Sizing
  • Billing Analysis
  • Anomaly Detection & Change Recommendations

Data Management

  • Data Tiering
  • Localization Management
  • Data Warehouse/Lake Services

Resilience & Reliability

  • Backup & Archive
  • Replication & Sync
  • DR & HA Management
  • Ransomware Prevention/Mitigation

Cloud-Native & DevOps Enablement

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
  • DevOps Tools & Processes
  • SDLC Automation Tools

Design, Transformation, and Integration

  • CDN Integration
  • AI Tools Integration
  • SaaS Customizations

Activity: Brokerage value design

Who are you and who are you building this for?

  • Internal brokerage (i.e. you are a department in an organization that is tasked with providing IT resources to other internal groups)
    • No profit motivation
    • Primary goal is to maintain compliance and avoid disintermediation
  • Third-party brokerage (i.e. you are an MSP that needs to build a brokerage to provide a variety of downstream services and act as the single point of consumption for an organization)
    • Focus on value-addition to the downstream services you facilitate for your client
    • Increased requirement to quickly add new partners/services from downstream as required by your client

What requirements and pains do you need to address?

  • Remember that in the world of cloud, users ultimately can go around IT to find the resources and tools they want to use. In short, if you don’t provide ease and value, they will get it somewhere else.
  • Assess the different types of cloud brokerages out there as a guide to what sort of value you want to deliver.

Why are you creating a brokerage? There are several categories of driver and more than one may apply.

  • Compliance and security gating/validation
  • Cost consolidation and governance
  • Value-add or feature enhancement of raw/downstream services being consumed

It’s important to clearly understand how best you can deliver unique value to ensure that they want to consume from you.

This is an image of a Venn diagram between the following: Who are you trying to serve?; Why and how are you uniquely positioned to deliver?; What requirements do they have and what pain points can you help solve?.  Where all three circles overlap is the Brokerage Value Proposition.

Understand the ecosystem you’ll require to deliver value

GCB

  • Enabling Effectiveness
  • Cost Governance
  • Adoption and User Satisfaction
  • Security & Compliance

Whatever value proposition and associated services your brokerage has defined, either internal resources or additional partners will be required to run the platform and processes you want to offer on top of the defined base cloud platforms.

Info-Tech Insights

Remember to always align your value adds and activities to the four key themes:

  • Efficiency
  • Compliance
  • Frictionlessness
  • Cloud Enablement

Delivering value may require an ecosystem

The additional value your broker delivers will depend on the tools and services you can layer on top of the base cloud platform(s) you support.

In many cases, you may require different partners to fulfil similar functions across different base platforms. Although this increases complexity for the brokerage, it’s also a place where additional value can be delivered to end users by your role as a frictionless intermediary.

Base Partner/Platform

  • Third-party software & platforms
  • Third-party automations & integrations
  • Third-party service partners
  • Internal value-add functions

Build the ecosystem you need for your value proposition

Leverage partners and automation to bake compliance in.

Different value-add types (based on the category/categories of broker you’re targeting) require different additional platforms and partners to augment the base cloud service you’re brokering.

Security & Config

  • IaC Tools
  • Cloud Resource Configuration Validation
  • Templating Tools
  • Security Platforms
  • SDN and Networking Platforms
  • Resilience (Backup/Replication/DR/HA) Platforms
  • Data & Storage Management
  • Compliance and Validation Platforms & Partners

Cost Management

  • Subscription Hierarchy Management
  • Showback and Chargeback Logic
  • Cost Dashboarding and Thresholding
  • Governance and Intervention

Adoption & User Satisfaction

  • Service Delivery SLAs
  • Support Process & Tools
  • Capacity/Availability Management
  • Portal Usability/UX

Speed of Evolution

  • Partner and Catalog/Service Additions
  • Broker Catalog Roadmapping
  • User Request Capture (new services)
  • User Request Capture (exceptions)

Build your features and services lists

Incorporate your end user, business, and IT perspectives in defining the list of mandatory and desired features of your target solution.

See our Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process blueprint for information on procurement practices, including RFP templates.

End User

  • Visual, drag-and-drop models to define data models, business logic, and user interfaces
  • One-click deployment
  • Self-healing application
  • Vendor-managed infrastructure
  • Active community and marketplace
  • Prebuilt templates and libraries
  • Optical character recognition and natural language processing

Business

  • Audit and change logs
  • Theme and template builder
  • Template management
  • Knowledgebase and document management
  • Role-based access
  • Business value, operational costs, and other KPI monitoring
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Consistent design and user experience across applications
  • Business workflow automation

IT

  • Application and system performance monitoring
  • Versioning and code management
  • Automatic application and system refactoring and recovery
  • Exception and error handling
  • Scalability (e.g. load balancing) and infrastructure management
  • Real-time debugging
  • Testing capabilities
  • Security management
  • Application integration management

Understand the stakeholders

Hyperscale Platform/Base Platform: Security; Compliance and Validation;Portal/Front-End; Cost Governance; Broker Value Add(s)

Depending on the value-add(s) you are trying to deliver, as well as the requirements from your institution(s), you will have a different delineation of responsibilities for each of the value-add dimensions. Typically, there will be at least three stakeholders whose role needs to be considered for each dimension:

  • Base Cloud Provider
  • Third-Party Platforms/Service Providers
  • Internal Resources

Info-Tech Insights

It’s important to remember that the ecosystem of third-party options available to you in each case will likely be dependent on if a given partner operates or supports your chosen base provider.

Define the value added by each stakeholder in your value chain

Value Addition Cost Governance Security & Compliance Adoption and User Satisfaction New Service Addition Speed End-User Cloud Effectiveness
Base platform(s)
Third party
Internal

A basic table of the stakeholders and platforms involved in your value stream is a critical tool for aligning activities and partners with brokerage value.

Remember to tie each value-add category you’re embarking on to at least one of the key themes!

Cost Governance → Efficiency

Security & Compliance → Compliance

Adoption & User Satisfaction → Frictionlessness

New Service Addition Responsiveness → Frictionlessness, Enablement

End-User Cloud Effectiveness → Enablement

Info-Tech Insights

The expectations for how applications are consumed and what a user experience should look like is increasingly being guided by the business and by the disintermediating power of the cloud-app ecosystem.

“Enabling brokers” help embrace business-led IT

In environments where compliance and security are a must, the challenges of handing off application management to the business are even more complex. Great brokers learn to act not just as a gatekeeper but an enabler of business-led IT.

Business Empowerment

Organizations are looking to enhance their Agile and BizDevOps practices by shifting traditional IT practices left and toward the business.

Changing Business Needs

Organizational priorities are constantly changing. Cost reduction opportunities and competitive advantages are lost because of delayed delivery of features.

Low Barrier to Entry

Low- and no-code development tools, full-stack solutions, and plug-and-play architectures allow non-technical users to easily build and implement applications without significant internal technical support or expertise.

Democratization of IT

A wide range of digital applications, services, and information are readily available and continuously updated through vendor and public marketplaces and open-source communities.

Technology-Savvy Business

The business is motivated to learn more about the technology they use so that they can better integrate it into their processes.

Balance usability and compliance: accelerate cloud effectiveness

Move to being an accelerator and an enabler! Rather than creating an additional layer of complexity, we can use the abstraction of a cloud brokerage to bring a wide variety of value-adds and partners into the ecosystem without increasing complexity for end users.

Manage the user experience

  • Your portal is a great source of data for optimizing user adoption and satisfaction.
  • Understand the KPIs that matter to your clients or client groups from both a technical and a service perspective.

Be proactive and responsive in meeting changing needs

  • Determine dashboard consumption by partner view.
  • Regularly review and address the gaps in your catalog.
  • Provide an easy mechanism for adding user-demanded services.

Think like a service provider

  • You do need to be able to communicate and even market internally new services and capabilities as you add them or people won't know to come to you to use them.
  • It's also critical in helping people move along the path to enablement and knowing what might be possible that they hadn't considered.

Provide cloud excellence functions

Enablement Broker

  • Mentorship & Training
    • Build the skills, knowledge, and experiences of application owners and managers with internal and external expertise.
  • Organizational Change Leadership
    • Facilitate cultural, governance, and other organizational changes through strong relationships with business and IT leadership.
  • Good Delivery Practices & Thinking
    • Develop, share, and maintain a toolkit of good software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices and techniques.
  • Knowledge Sharing
    • Centralize a knowledgebase of up-to-date and accurate documentation and develop community forums to facilitate knowledge transfer.
  • Technology Governance & Leadership
    • Implement the organizational standards, policies, and rules for all applications and platforms and coordinate growth and sprawl.
  • Shared Services & Integrations
    • Provide critical services and integrations to support end users with internal resources or approved third-party providers and partners.

Gauge value with the right metrics

Focus your effort on measuring key metrics.

Category

Purpose

Examples

Business Value – The amount of value and benefits delivered. Justify the investment and impact of the brokerage and its optimization to business operations. ROI, user productivity, end-user satisfaction, business operational costs, error rate
Application Quality – Satisfaction of application quality standards. Evaluate organizational effort to address and maximize user satisfaction and adoption rates. Adoption rate, usage friction metrics, user satisfaction metrics
Delivery Effectiveness – The delivery efficiency of changes. Enable members to increase their speed to effective deployment, operation, and innovation on cloud platforms. Speed of deployment, landing/migration success metrics

Determine measures that demonstrate the value of your brokerage by aligning it with your quality definition, value drivers, and users’ goals and objectives. Recognize that your journey will require constant monitoring and refinement to adjust to situations that may arise as you adopt new products, standards, strategies, tactics, processes, and tools.

Activity Output

Ultimately, the goal is designing a brokerage that can evolve from gatekeeping to frictionless intermediation to cloud enablement.

Maintain focus on the value proposition, your brokerage ecosystem, and the metrics that represent enablement for your users and avoid pitfalls and challenges from the beginning.

Activity: Define your brokerage type and value addition; Understand the partners and capabilities you need to be able to deliver; Define KPIs for both delivery (compliance) and adoption (frictionlessness); Output: GCB Strategy Plan; Addresses: Why and when you should build a GCB; How to avoid pitfalls; How to maximize benefits; How to maximize responsiveness and user satisfaction; How to roadmap and add services with agility.

Appendix

Related blueprints and tools

Document Your Cloud Strategy

This blueprint covers aligning your value proposition with general cloud requirements.

Define Your Digital Business Strategy

Phase 1 of this research covers identifying value chains to be transformed.

Embrace Business-Managed Applications

Phase 1 of this research covers understanding the business-managed applications as a factor in developing a frictionless intermediary model.

Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process

This blueprint provides information on partner selection and procurement practices, including RFP templates.

Bibliography

“3 Types of Cloud Brokers That Can Save the Cloud.” Cloud Computing Topics, n.d. Web.

Australian Government Cloud Computing Policy. Government of Australia, October 2014. Web.

“Cloud Smart Policy Overview.” CIO.gov, n.d. Web.

“From Cloud First to Cloud Smart.” CIO.gov, n.d. Web.

Gardner, Dana. “Cloud brokering: Building a cloud of clouds.” ZDNet, 22 April 2011. Web.

Narcisi, Gina. “Cloud, Next-Gen Services Help Master Agents Grow Quickly And Beat 'The Squeeze' “As Connectivity Commissions Decline.” CRN, 14 June 2017. Web.

Smith, Spencer. “Asigra calls out the perils of cloud brokerage model.” TechTarget, 28 June 2019. Web.

Tan, Aaron. “Australia issues new cloud computing guidelines.” TechTarget, 27 July 2020. Web.

The European Commission Cloud Strategy. ec.europa.eu, 16 May 2019. Web.

“TrustRadius Review: Cloud Brokers 2022.” TrustRadius, 2022. Web.

Yedlin, Debbie. “Pros and Cons of Using a Cloud Broker.” Technology & Business Integrators, 17 April 2015. Web.

Industry-Specific Digital Transformation

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  • Parent Category Name: Innovation
  • Parent Category Link: /innovation

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

Infographic

Embrace Business-Managed Applications

  • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}179|cart{/j2store}
  • member rating overall impact: 9.0/10 Overall Impact
  • member rating average dollars saved: $64,999 Average $ Saved
  • member rating average days saved: 18 Average Days Saved
  • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
  • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy
  • The traditional model of managing applications does not address the demands of today’s rapidly changing market and digitally minded business, putting stress on scarce IT resources. The business is fed up with slow IT responses and overbearing desktop and system controls.
  • The business wants more control over the tools they use. Software as a service (SaaS), business process management (BPM), robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and low-code development platforms are all on their radar.
  • However, your current governance and management structures do not accommodate the risks and shifts in responsibilities to business-managed applications.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • IT is a business partner, not just an operator. Effective business operations hinge on high-quality, valuable, fit-for-purpose applications. IT provides the critical insights, guidance, and assistance to ensure applications are implemented and leveraged in a way that maximizes return on investment, whether it is being managed by end users or lines of business (LOBs). This can only happen if the organization views IT as a critical asset, not just a supporting player.
  • All applications should be business owned. You have applications because LOBs need them to meet the objectives and key performance indicators defined in the business strategy. Without LOBs, there would be no need for business applications. LOBs define what the application should be and do for it to be successful, so LOBs should own them.
  • Everything boils down to trust. The business is empowered to make their own decisions on how they want to implement and use their applications and, thus, be accountable for the resulting outcomes. Guardrails, role-based access, application monitoring, and other controls can help curb some risk factors, but it should not come at the expense of business innovation and time-sensitive opportunities. IT must trust the business will make rational application decisions, and the business must trust IT to support them in good times and bad.

Impact and Result

  • Focus on the business units that matter. BMA can provide significant value to LOBs if teams and stakeholders are encouraged and motivated to adopt organizational and operational changes.
  • Reimagine the role of IT. IT is no longer the gatekeeper that blocks application adoption. Rather, IT enables the business to adopt the tools they need to be productive and they guide the business on successful BMA practices.
  • Instill business accountability. With great power comes great responsibility. If the business wants more control of their applications, they must be willing to take ownership of the outcomes of their decisions.

Embrace Business-Managed Applications Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should embrace business-managed applications, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

  • Embrace Business-Managed Applications – Phases 1-3
  • Business-Managed Applications Communication Template

1. State your objectives

Level-set the expectations for your business-managed applications.

  • Embrace Business- Managed Applications – Phase 1: State Your Objectives

2. Design your framework and governance

Identify and define your application managers and owners and build a fit-for-purpose governance model.

  • Embrace Business-Managed Applications – Phase 2: Design Your Framework & Governance

3. Build your roadmap

Build a roadmap that illustrates the key initiatives to implement your BMA and governance models.

  • Embrace Business-Managed Applications – Phase 3: Build Your Roadmap

[infographic]

Workshop: Embrace Business-Managed Applications

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

1 State Your Objectives

The Purpose

Define business-managed applications in your context.

Identify your business-managed application objectives.

State the value opportunities with business-managed applications.

Key Benefits Achieved

A consensus definition and list of business-managed applications goals

Understanding of the business value business-managed applications can deliver

Activities

1.1 Define business-managed applications.

1.2 List your objectives and metrics.

1.3 State the value opportunities.

Outputs

Grounded definition of a business-managed application

Goals and objectives of your business-managed applications

Business value opportunity with business-managed applications

2 Design Your Framework & Governance

The Purpose

Develop your application management framework.

Tailor your application delivery and ownership structure to fit business-managed applications.

Discuss the value of an applications committee.

Discuss technologies to enable business-managed applications.

Key Benefits Achieved

Fit-for-purpose and repeatable application management selection framework

Enhanced application governance model

Applications committee design that meets your organization’s needs

Shortlist of solutions to enable business-managed applications

Activities

2.1 Develop your management framework.

2.2 Tune your delivery and ownership accountabilities.

2.3 Design your applications committee.

2.4 Uncover your solution needs.

Outputs

Tailored application management selection framework

Roles definitions of application owners and managers

Applications committee design

List of business-managed application solution features and services

3 Build Your Roadmap

The Purpose

Build your roadmap to implement busines-managed applications and build the foundations of your optimized governance model.

Key Benefits Achieved

Implementation initiatives

Adoption roadmap

Activities

3.1 Build your roadmap.

Outputs

Business-managed application adoption roadmap

 

Application Development Throughput

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  • Parent Category Name: Applications
  • Parent Category Link: /applications

The challenge

  • As we work more and more using agile techniques, teams tend to optimize their areas of responsibility.
  • IT will still release lower-quality applications when there is a lack of clarity around the core SDLC processes.
  • Software development teams continue to struggle with budget and time constraints within their releases.
  • Typically each group claims to be optimized, yet the final deliverable falls short of the expected quality.

Our advice

Insight

  • Database administrators know this all too well: Optimizing can you perform worse. The software development lifecycle (SDLC) must be optimized holistically, not per area or team.
  • Separate how you work from your framework. You do not need "agile" or "extreme" or "agifall" or "safe" to optimize your SDLC.
  • SDLC optimization is a continuous effort. Start from your team's current capabilities and improve over time.

Impact and results 

  • You can assume proper accountability for the implementation and avoid over-reliance on the systems integrator.
  • Leverage the collective knowledge and advice of additional IT professionals
  • Review the pitfalls and lessons learned from failed integrations.
  • Manage risk at every stage.
  • Perform a self-assessment at various stages of the integration path.

The roadmap

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

Get started.

Read our executive brief to understand our approach to SDLC optimization and why we advocate a holistic approach for your company.

Document your current state

This phase helps you understand your business goals and priorities. You will document your current SDLC process and find where the challenges are.

  • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 1: Document the Current State of the SDLC (ppt)
  • SDLC Optimization Playbook (xls)

Find out the root causes, define how to move forward, and set your target state

  • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 2: Define Root Causes, Determine Optimization Initiatives, and Define Target State (ppt)

Develop the roll-out strategy for SDLC optimization

Prioritize your initiatives and formalize them in a roll-out strategy and roadmap. Communicate your plan to all your stakeholders.

  • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 3: Develop a Rollout Strategy for SDLC Optimization (ppt)
  • SDLC Communication Template (ppt)

 

Gain Control of Cloud Integration Strategies Before they Float Away

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  • Parent Category Name: Enterprise Integration
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  • IT is typically backlogged with tasks while the business waits to implement key solutions to remain competitive. In this competitive space, Cloud solutions offer attractive benefits to business stakeholders especially around agility and cost.
  • Moving to the Cloud involves more than outsourcing a component of the technology stack. Roles, processes, and authentication technologies need to be redefined to fit a distributed stack where parts of the IT solution space reside on-premise while the rest are in the Cloud.
  • Cloud integration means accepting loss of control in product development. A Cloud vendor will address the needs of most constituents and any high degree of customization which counteracts their business model. This makes integration a complex initiative involving two separate parties trying to align.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Cloud integration is a fundamental commitment to change within the organization as it deeply impacts roles, processes, and technologies.
  • Be prepared to lose some degree of control of SLA management. IT will have to manage multiple Cloud SLAs and deliver a lowest common approach to the business. This may mean lowering the SLA standards previously set with on-premise solutions.
  • Cloud integration isn’t just about the technology. It is a dedication to establish solid relationships with the Cloud vendor. Understanding where the cloud solution is moving and what issues are being addressed are critical to creating an organizational road map for the future.

Impact and Result

  • Develop a Cloud integration strategy by proactively understanding the impact of Cloud integration efforts to the organization.
  • Realize that Cloud integration will be an ongoing process of collaboration with the business, and that the initial implementation does not constitute an end.
  • Implement an integrated support structure that includes on-premise and cloud stacks.

Gain Control of Cloud Integration Strategies Before they Float Away Research & Tools

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

1. Understand the impacts of Cloud computing on Data, Application, Access, and Service Level Agreement integration

Assess your current level of Cloud adoption and integration, focusing on solutions that are emerging in the market and the applicability to your IT environment.

  • Storyboard: Gain Control of Cloud Integration Strategies Before they Float Away
  • Cloud Integration Checklist
  • None
[infographic]

Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture

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  • Parent Category Name: Secure Cloud & Network Architecture
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  • Organizations do not have a solid grasp on the complexity of their infrastructure and are unaware of the overall risk to their infrastructure posed by inadequate security.
  • Organizations do not understand how to properly create and deliver value propositions of technical security solutions.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • The security architecture is a living, breathing thing based on the risk profile of your organization.
  • Compliance and risk mitigation create an intertwined relationship between the business and your security architecture. The security architecture roadmap must be regularly assessed and continuously maintained to ensure security controls align with organizational objectives.

Impact and Result

  • A right-sized security architecture can be created by assessing the complexity of the IT department, the operations currently underway for security, and the perceived value of a security architecture within the organization. This will bring about a deeper understanding of the organizational infrastructure.
  • Developing a security architecture should also result in a list of opportunities (i.e. initiatives) that an organization can integrate into a roadmap. These initiatives will seek to improve security operations and strengthen the IT department’s understanding of security’s role within the organization.
  • A better understanding of the infrastructure will help to save time on determining the correct technologies required from vendors and therefore cut down on the amount of vendor noise.
  • Creating a defensible roadmap will assist with justifying future security spend.

Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a right-sized security architecture, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

1. Identify the organization’s ideal security architecture

Complete three unique assessments to define the ideal security architecture maturity for your organization.

  • Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture – Phase 1: Identify the Organization's Ideal Security Architecture
  • Security Architecture Recommendation Tool
  • None

2. Create a security program roadmap

Use the results of the assessments from Phase 1 of this research to create a roadmap for improving the security program.

  • Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture – Phase 2: Create a Security Program Roadmap
[infographic]

Unify a Mixed Methodology Portfolio

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  • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
  • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
  • As portfolio manager, you oversee a portfolio made up of projects using different types of planning and execution methodologies – from traditional Waterfall, to Agile, to hybrid approaches and beyond. The discontinuity between reporting metrics and funding models makes a holistic and perpetually actionable view of the portfolio elusive.
  • Agile’s influence is growing within the organization’s project ecosystem. Even projects that don’t formally use Agile methods often adopt agile tendencies, such as mitigating risk with shorter, more iterative development cycles and increasing collaboration with stakeholders. While this has introduced efficiencies at the project level, it has not translated into business agility, with decision makers still largely playing a passive role in terms of steering the portfolio.
  • Senior management still expects traditional commitments and deadlines, not “sprints” and “velocity.” The reluctance of many Agile purists to adhere to traditional timeline, budget, and scope commitments is not making Agile a particularly popular conversation topic among the organization’s decision-making layer.
  • As portfolio manager, it’s your job to unify these two increasingly fragmented worlds into a unified portfolio.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • As Agile’s influence grows and project methodologies morph and proliferate, a more engaged executive layer is required than what we see in a traditional portfolio approach. Portfolio owners have to decide what gets worked on at a regular cadence.
  • What’s the difference? In the old paradigm, nobody stopped the portfolio owners from approving too much. Decisions were based on what should be done, rather than what could get done in a given period, with the resources available.
  • The engaged portfolio succeeds by making sure that the right people work on the right things as much as possible. The portfolio owner plays a key, ongoing role in identifying the work that needs to be done, and the portfolio managers optimize the usage of resources.

Impact and Result

  • Establish universal control points. While the manager of a mixed methodology portfolio doesn’t need to enforce a standardized project methodology, she or he does need to establish universal control points for both intake and reporting at the portfolio level. Use this research to help you define a sustainable process that will work for all types of projects.
  • Scale the approvals process. For a mixed methodology portfolio to work, the organization needs to reconcile different models for approving and starting projects. This blueprint will help you define a right-sized intake process and decision-making paradigm for sprints and project phases alike.
  • Foster ongoing executive engagement. Mixed methodology success is contingent on regular and ongoing executive engagement. Use the tools and templates associated with this blueprint to help get buy-in and commitment upfront, and then to build out portfolio reports and dashboard that will help keep the executive layer informed and engaged long term.

Unify a Mixed Methodology Portfolio Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should consider an Engaged Agile Portfolio approach, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

1. Get portfolio commitments

Assess the current state of the portfolio and ensure that portfolio owners and other stakeholders are onboard before you move forward to develop and implement new portfolio processes.

  • Unify a Mixed Methodology Portfolio – Phase 1
  • Mixed Methodology Portfolio Analyzer
  • Mixed Methodology Portfolio Strategy Template
  • Mixed Methodology Portfolio Stakeholder Survey Tool

2. Define your portfolio processes

Wireframe standardized portfolio processes for all project methodologies to follow.

  • Unify a Mixed Methodology Portfolio – Phase 2
  • Agile Portfolio Sprint Prioritization Tool
  • Project Methodology Assessment Tool

3. Implement your processes

Pilot your new portfolio processes and decision-making paradigm. Then, execute a change impact analysis to inform your communications strategy and implementation plan.

  • Unify a Mixed Methodology Portfolio – Phase 3
  • Process Pilot Plan Template
  • Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool
  • Resource Management Impact Analysis Tool
[infographic]

Workshop: Unify a Mixed Methodology Portfolio

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

1 Assess Current State of the Portfolio

The Purpose

Determine the current state of your project execution and portfolio oversight practices.

Align different types of projects within a unified portfolio.

Define the best roles and engagement strategies for individual stakeholders as you transition to an Engaged Agile Portfolio.

Key Benefits Achieved

A current state understanding of project and portfolio management challenges.

Bolster the business case for developing an Engaged Agile Portfolio.

Increase stakeholder and team buy-in.

Activities

1.1 Calculate the size of your portfolio in human resource hours.

1.2 Estimate your project sizes and current project methodology mix.

1.3 Document the current known status of your in-flight projects.

1.4 Perform a project execution portfolio oversight survey.

Outputs

Your portfolio’s project capacity in resource hours.

Better understanding of project demand and portfolio mix.

Current state visibility.

An objective assessment of current areas of strengths and weaknesses.

2 Define Your Portfolio Processes

The Purpose

Objectively and transparently approve, reject, and prioritize projects.

Prioritize work to start and stop on a sprint-by-sprint basis.

Maintain a high frequency of accurate reporting.

Assess and report the realization of project benefits.

Key Benefits Achieved

Improve timeliness and accuracy of project portfolio reporting.

Make better, faster decisions about when to start and stop work on different projects.

Increase stakeholder satisfaction.

Activities

2.1 Develop a portfolio intake workflow.

2.2 Develop a prioritization scorecard and process.

2.3 Establish a process to estimate sprint demand and resource supply.

2.4 Develop a process to estimate sprint value and necessity.

Outputs

An intake workflow.

A prioritization scorecard and process.

A process to estimate sprint demand and resource supply.

A process to estimate sprint value and necessity.

3 Implement Your Processes

The Purpose

Analyze the potential change impacts of your new portfolio processes and how they will be felt across the organization.

Develop an implementation plan to ensure strategy buy-in.

Key Benefits Achieved

A strategic and well-planned approach to process implementation.

Activities

3.1 Analyze change impacts of new portfolio processes.

3.2 Prepare a communications plan based upon change impacts.

3.3 Develop an implementation plan.

3.4 Present new portfolio processes to portfolio owners.

Outputs

A change impact analysis.

A communications plan.

An implementation plan.

Portfolio strategy buy-in.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

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  • Parent Category Name: Attract & Select
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  • While the number of jobs in IT has increased dramatically, the percentage of women in IT has progressed disproportionately, with only 25% of IT jobs being held by women (CIO from IDG, 2021).
  • The challenge is not a lack of talented women with the competencies to excel within IT, but rather organizations lack an effective strategy to recruit and retain women in IT.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Retaining and attracting top women is good business, not personal. As per McKinsey Global Institute, “$4.3 trillion of additional annual GDP in 2025 could be added to the U.S. by fully bridging the gender gap.”
  • In the war on talent, having a strategy around how you will recruit & retain of women in IT is Marketing 101. What influences whether women apply for roles and stay at organizations is different than men; traditional models won’t cut it.

Impact and Result

To stay competitive, IT leaders need to radically change the way they recruit and retain talent, and women in IT represent one of the largest untapped markets for IT talent. CIOs need a targeted strategy to attract and retain the best, and this requires a shift in how leaders currently manage the talent lifecycle. Info-Tech offers a targeted solution that will help IT leaders:

  1. Build a Recruitment Playbook: Leverage Info-Tech tools to effectively sell to, search for, and secure top talent.
  2. Build a Retention Strategy: Follow Info-Tech’s step-by-step process to identify initiatives and opportunities to retain your top talent.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT Research & Tools

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

1. Recruit and Retain More Women in IT Deck – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to build a recruitment and retention plan for women in IT.

Create a targeted recruitment and retention strategy for women. Increase the number of viable candidates by leveraging best practices to sell to, search for, and secure top women in IT. Take a data-driven approach to improving retention of women by using best practices to measure and improve employee engagement.

  • Recruit and Retain More Women in IT – Phases 1-2

2. Employee Value Proposition Tools – Build and road-test your employee value proposition to ensure that it is aligned, clear, compelling, and differentiated.

These tools tap into best practices to help you collect the information you need to build, assess, test, and adopt an employee value proposition.

  • Employee Value Proposition (EVP) Interview Guide
  • Employee Value Proposition (EVP) Scorecard
  • Employee Value Proposition (EVP) Internal Scorecard Handout

3. IT Behavioral Interview Question Library – A complete list of sample questions aligned with core, leadership, and IT competencies.

Don’t hire by intuition, consider leveraging behavioral interview questions to reduce bias and uncover candidates that will be able to execute on the job.

  • IT Behavioral Interview Question Library

4. Stay Interview Guide – Use this tool to guide one-on-one conversations with your team members to monitor employee engagement between surveys.

Stay interviews are an effective method for monitoring employee engagement. Have these informal conversations to gain insight into what your employees really think about their jobs, what causes them to stay, and what may lead them to leave.

  • Stay Interview Guide

Infographic

Workshop: Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

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

1 Make the Case for Strategically Recruiting and Retaining Women in IT

The Purpose

Identify the need for a targeted strategy to recruit and retain women in IT and pinpoint your largest opportunities to drive diversity in your IT team.

Key Benefits Achieved

Establish goals and targets for the changes to be made to your IT recruitment and retention strategies.

Activities

1.1 Understand trends in IT staffing.

1.2 Assess your talent lifecycle challenges and opportunities.

1.3 Make the case for changes to recruitment and retention strategies.

Outputs

Recruitment & Retention Metrics Report

Business Case for Recruitment and Retention Changes

2 Develop Strategies to Sell Your Organization to Wider Candidate Pool

The Purpose

The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions. Ensure you are putting a competitive foot forward by developing a unique, meaningful, and aspirational employee value proposition and clear job descriptions.

Key Benefits Achieved

Implement effective strategies to drive more applications to your job postings.

Activities

2.1 Develop an IT employee value proposition.

2.2 Adopt your employee value proposition.

2.3 Write meaningful job postings.

Outputs

Employee Value Proposition

EVP Marketing Plan

Revised Job Ads

3 Expand Your Talent Sourcing Strategy

The Purpose

Sourcing shouldn’t start with an open position, it should start with identifying an anticipated need and then building and nurturing a talent pipeline.

IT participation in this is critical to effectively promote the employee experience and foster relationships before candidates even apply.

Key Benefits Achieved

Develop a modern job requisition form though role analysis.

Increase your candidate pool by expanding sourcing programs.

Activities

3.1 Build realistic job requisition forms.

3.2 Identify new alternative sourcing approaches for talent.

3.3 Build a sourcing strategy.

Outputs

Job requisition form for key roles

Sourcing strategy for key roles

4 Secure Top Talent

The Purpose

Work with your HR department to influence the recruitment process by taking a data-driven approach to understanding the root cause of applicant drop-off and success and take corrective actions.

Key Benefits Achieved

Optimize your selection process.

Implement non-bias interview techniques in your selection process.

Activities

4.1 Assess key selection challenges.

4.2 Implement behavioral interview techniques.

Outputs

Root-Cause Analysis of Section Challenges

Behavioral Interview Guide

5 Retain Top Women in IT

The Purpose

Employee engagement is one of the greatest predictors of intention to stay.

To retain employees you need to understand not only engagement, but also your employee experience and the moments that matter, and actively work to create positive experience.

Key Benefits Achieved

Identify opportunities to drive engagement across your IT organization.

Implement tactical programs to reduce turnover in IT.

Activities

5.1 Measure employee engagement and review results.

5.2 Identify new alternative sourcing approaches for talent.

5.3 Train managers to conduct stay interviews and drive employee engagement.

Outputs

Identified Employee Engagement Action Plan

Action Plan to Execute Stay Interviews

Further reading

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Technology has never been more important to organizations, and as a result, recruiting and retaining quality IT employees is increasingly difficult.

  • IT unemployment rates continue to hover below 2% in the US.
  • The IT talent market has evolved into one where the employer is the seller and the employee is the buyer.

Common Obstacles

  • While the number of jobs in IT has increased dramatically, the percentage of women in IT has progressed disproportionately, with only 25% of IT jobs being held by women.*
  • The challenge is not a lack of talented women with the competencies to excel within IT, but rather organizations lack an effective strategy to recruit and retain women in IT.

Info-Tech’s Approach

To stay competitive, IT leaders need to radically change the way they recruit and retain talent, and women in IT represent one of the largest untapped markets. CIOs need a targeted strategy to attract and retain the best, and this requires a shift in how leaders currently manage the talent lifecycle. Info-Tech offers a targeted solution to help:

  • Build a Recruitment Playbook: Leverage Info-Tech tools to effectively sell to, search for, and secure top talent.
  • Build a Retention Strategy: Follow Info-Tech’s step-by-step process to identify initiatives and opportunities to retain your top talent.

Info-Tech Insight

Retaining and attracting top women is good business, not personal. Companies with greater gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability.1 In the war on talent, having a strategy around how you will recruit and retain women in IT is Marketing 101. What influences whether women apply for roles and stay at organizations is different than men; traditional models won’t cut it.

*– McKinsey & Company, 2020; 2 – CIO From IDG, 2021
The image contains a screenshot of a thought model titled: Recruit and Retain More Women in IT. Its subheading is: Gender Diversity is Directly Correlated to IT Performance. The thought model lists critical methods to recruit and retain, and also a traditional method to compare.

Diversity & inclusion – it’s good business, not personal

Why should organizations care about diversity?

  1. The war for talent is real. Every CIO needs a plan of attack. Unemployment rates are dropping and 54% of CIOs report that the skills shortage is holding them up from meeting their strategic objectives.
  2. Source: Harvey Nash and KPMG, 2020
  3. Diversity has clear ROI – both in terms of recruitment and retention. Eighty percent of technology managers experienced increased turnover in 2021. Not only are employee tenures decreasing, the competition for talent is fierce and the average cost of turnover is 150% of an IT worker’s salary.
  4. Source: Robert Half, 2021
  5. Inability to recruit and retain talent will reduce business satisfaction. Organizations who are continuously losing talent will be unable to meet corporate objectives due to lost productivity, keeping them in firefighting mode. An engaged workforce is a requirement for driving innovation and project success.

ISACA’s 2020 study shows a disconnect between what men and women think is being done to recruit and retain female employees

Key findings from ISACA’s 2020 Tech Workforce survey

65% of men think their employers have a program to encourage hiring women. But only 51% of women agree.

71% of men believe their employers have a program to encourage the promotion or advancement of women. But only 59% of women agree.

49% of women compared to 44% of men in the survey feel they must work harder than their peers.

22% of women compared to 14% of men feel they are underpaid.

66% of women compared to 72% of men feel they are receiving sufficient resources to sustain their career.

30% of women compared to 23% of men feel they have unequal growth opportunities.

74% of women compared to 64% of men feel they lack confidence to negotiate their salaries.

To see ISACA’s full report click here.
The image contains a screenshot of a multi bar graph to demonstrate the percentage of female employees in the workforce of major tech companies. The major tech companies include: Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
Image: Statista, 2021, CC BY-ND 4.0

The chart to the left, compiled by Statista, (based on self-reported company figures) shows that women held between 23% to 25% of the tech jobs at major tech companies.

Women are also underrepresented in leadership positions: 34% at Facebook, 31% at Apple, 29% at Amazon, 28% at Google, and 26% at Microsoft.

(Statista, 2021)

To help support women in tech, 78% of women say companies should promote more women into leadership positions. Other solutions include:

  • Providing mentorship opportunities (72%)
  • Offering flexible scheduling (64%)
  • Conducting unconscious bias training (57%)
  • Offering equal maternity and paternity leave (55%)
  • (HRD America, 2021)

Traditional retention initiatives target the majority – the drivers that impact the retention of women in IT are different

Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates the differences in retaining men and women in IT.

* Recent data stays consistent, but, the importance of compensation and recognition in retaining women in IT is increasing.

Info-Tech Research Group Employee Engagement Diagnostic; N=1,856 IT employees

The majority of organizations take a one-size-fits-all approach to retaining and engaging employees.

However, studies show that women are leaving IT in significantly higher proportions than men and that the drivers impacting men’s and women’s retention are different. Knowing how men and women react differently to engagement drivers will help you create a targeted retention strategy.

In particular, to increase the retention and engagement of women, organizations should develop targeted initiatives that focus on:

  • Organizational culture
  • Employee empowerment
  • Manager relationships

Why organizations need to focus on the recruitment and retention of women in IT

  1. Women expand the talent pool. Women represent a vast, untapped talent pool that can bolster the technical workforce. Unfortunately, traditional IT recruitment processes are targeted toward a limited IT profile – the key to closing the IT skills gap is to look for agile learners and expand your search criteria to cast a larger net.
  2. Diversity increases innovation opportunities. Groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than homogenous groups, and the presence of women is more likely to increase the problem-solving and creative abilities of the group.
  3. Women increase your ROI. Research shows that companies with the highest representation of women in their management teams have a 34% higher return on investment than those with few or no women. Further, organizations who are unable to retain top women in their organization are at risk for not being able to deliver to SLAs or project expectations and lose the institutional knowledge needed for continuous improvement.
  4. Source: Bureau of Labour Statistics; Info-Tech Research Group/McLean & Company Analysis

Improving the representation of women in your organization requires rethinking recruitment and retention strategies

SIGNS YOU MAY NEED A TARGETED RECRUITMENT STRATEGY…

SIGNS YOU MAY NEED A TARGETED RETENTION STRATEGY…

  • “It takes longer than 8 weeks to fill a posted IT position.”
  • “Less than 35% of applicants to posted positions are women.”
  • “In the last year the number of applicants to posted positions has decreased.”
  • “The number of female employees who have referred employees in the last year is significantly lower than men in the department.”
  • “Less than 35% of your IT workforce is made up of women.”
  • “Proportionally women decline IT roles in higher rates than men in IT.”
  • “Voluntary turnover of high performers and high potentials is above 5%.”
  • “Turnover of women in IT is disproportionate to the percentage of IT staff.”
  • “Employee rankings of the IT department on social networking sites (e.g. Glassdoor) are low.”
  • “Employees are frequently absent from their jobs.”
  • “Less than 25% of management roles in IT are filled by women.”
  • “Employee engagement scores are lower among women than men.”

Info-Tech’s approach to improving gender diversity at your organization

Info-Tech takes a practical, tactical approach to improving gender diversity at organizations, which starts with straightforward tactics that will help you improve the recruitment and retention of women in your organization.

How we can help

  1. Leverage Info-Tech’s tools to define your current challenges and opportunities for gender diversity to improve your recruitment and retention issues.
  2. Employ straightforward and tested tactics to increase talent acquisition of women in IT by optimizing how you sell to, search for, and secure top female talent.
  3. Take a data-driven approach to measure and increase the retention and engagement of women within your IT organization, and know how and when to involve your staff for optimal results.

Leverage Info-Tech’s customizable deliverables to improve the recruitment and retention of women in your organization

RECRUIT Top Women in IT

If you don’t have a targeted recruitment strategy for women, you are missing out on 50% of the candidate pool. Increase the number of viable candidates by leveraging best practices to sell to, search for, and secure top women in IT.

Key metrics to track:

  • Average number of female candidates per posting
  • Average time to fill position
  • Percentage of new hires still at the organization one year later

RETAIN Top Women in IT

The drivers that impact the retention of men and women are different. Take a data-driven approach to improving retention of women in your organization by using best practices to measure and improve employee engagement.

Key metrics to track:

  • Voluntary turnover rates of men and women
  • Average tenure of men and women
  • Percentage of internal promotions going to men and women
  • Employee engagement scores

Info-Tech’s methodology for Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

1. Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

2. Enhance Your Retention Strategies

Phase Steps

  1. Sell:
  • Develop an attractive employee value proposition.
  • Understand the impact of language on applicants.
  • Search:
    • Define meaningful job requirements
    • Evaluate various sourcing pools.
  • Secure:
    • Improve the interview experience.
    • Leverage behavioral interview questions to limit bias.
    1. Drive engagement in key areas correlated with driving higher retention of women in IT.
    2. Train managers to understand key moments that matter in the employee experience.
    3. Understand what motivates key performers to stay at your organization.

    Phase Outcomes

    Recruitment Optimization Plan

    Retention Optimization Plan

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is 6 calls over the course of 1 to 2 months.

    1. Tactics to Recruit More Women in IT

    Call #1: Develop a strategy to better sell your organization to diverse candidates.

    Call #2: Evaluate your candidate search practices to reach a wider audience.

    Call #3: Introduce best practices in your interviews to improve the candidate experience and limit bias.

    2. Tactics to Retain More Women in IT

    Call #4: Launch focus groups to improve performance of key retention drivers.

    Call #5: Measure the employee experience and identify key moments that matter to staff.

    Call #6: Conduct stay interviews and establish actions to improve retention.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Make the Case

    Develop Strategies to Sell to a Wider Candidate Pool

    Expand Your Talent Sourcing Strategy

    Secure & Retain Top Talent

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1 Understand trends in IT staffing.

    1.2 Assess your talent lifecycle.

    1.3 Make the case for changes to recruitment and retention strategies.

    2.1 Develop an IT employee value proposition (EVP).

    2.2 Adopt your employee value proposition.

    2.3 Write meaningful job postings.

    3.1 Build realistic job requisition forms.

    3.2 Identify new alternative sourcing approaches for talent.

    3.3 Build a sourcing strategy.

    4.1 Assess key selection challenges.

    4.2 Implement behavioral interview techniques.

    4.3 Measure employee engagement and review results.

    4.4 Develop programs to improve employee engagement.

    4.5 Train managers to conduct stay interviews and drive employee engagement.

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Deliverables

    1. Recruitment & retention metrics report
    2. Business case for recruitment and retention changes
    1. Employee Value Proposition
    2. EVP marketing plan
    3. Revised job ads
    1. Job requisition form for key roles
    2. Sourcing strategy for key roles
    1. Root-cause analysis of section challenges
    2. Behavioral interview guide
    3. Identified employee engagement action plan
    4. Action plan to execute stay interviews
    1. Completed recruitment optimization plan
    2. Completed retention optimization plan

    Phase 1

    Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Sell
    • 1.2 Search
    • 1.3 Secure

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Engagement
    • 2.2 Employee Experience
    • 2.3 Stay Interviews

    Consider key factors within the recruitment process

    Key Talent Pipeline Opportunities:

    • In today’s talent landscape IT leaders need to be highly strategic about how they recruit new talent to the organization.
    • IT professionals have a huge number of options to choose from when considering their next career.
    • IT leaders need to actively market and expand their search to attract top talent. The “where” and “how” to recruit men and women in IT are different and your strategy should reflect this.
    • Partnering with your HR department to help you improve the number of applicants, expand your search criteria, and optimize the interview experience will all directly impact your talent pipeline.
    1. Sell
    2. How do you position the value of working for your organization and roles in a meaningful way?

    3. Search
    4. How can you expand your key search criteria and sourcing strategies to reach more candidates?

    5. Secure
    6. How can you reduce bias in your interview process and create positive candidate experiences?

    Info-Tech’s Sell-Search-Secure recruitment model

    Follow these steps to increase your pool of female candidates.

    1. Sell Tactics:
    2. 1. Develop an employee value proposition that will attract female candidates.

      2. Understand how your job postings may be deterring female candidates.

    3. Search Tactics:
    4. 3. Identify opportunities to expand your role analysis for job requisitions.

      4. Increase your candidate pool by expanding sourcing programs.

    5. Secure Tactics:
    6. 5. Identify tactics to improve women’s interview experience.

      6. Leverage behavioral interview questions to limit bias in interviews.

    Please note, this section is not a replacement or a full talent strategy. Rather, this blueprint will highlight key tactics within talent acquisition practices that the IT leadership team can help to influence to drive greater diversity in recruitment.

    Understand where leaks exist in your talent pipeline

    Start your recruitment enhancement here.

    Work with your HR department to track critical metrics around where you need to make improvements and where you can partner with your recruitment team to improve your recruitment process and build a more diverse pipeline. Identify where you have significant drops or variation in diversity or overall need and select where you’d like to focus your recruitment improvement efforts.

    Selection Process Step

    Sample Metrics to Track

    Sell

    Average time to fill a vacant position

    Average number of applicants for posted positions

    Total # of Candidates; # of Male Candidates (% of total);

    # of Female Candidates (% of total); % Difference Male & Female

    Number of page visits vs. applications for posted positions

    Total # of Candidates

    # of Male Candidates

    % of total

    # of Female Candidates

    % of total

    % Difference Male & Female

    Search

    Number of applicants coming from your different sourcing channels (one line per sourcing channel: LinkedIn Group A, website, job boards, specific events, etc.)

    Number of applicants coming from referrals

    Secure

    Number of applicants meeting qualifications

    Number of applicants selected for second interview

    Number of applicants rejecting an offer

    Number of applicants accepting an offer

    Number of employees retained for one year

    Enhance your recruitment strategies

    The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions. Ensure you are putting a competitive foot forward by developing a unique, meaningful, and aspirational employee value proposition and clear job descriptions.

    Sell the organization

    What is an employee value proposition?

    An employee value proposition (EVP) is a unique and clearly defined set of attributes and benefits that capture an employee’s overall work experience within an organization. An EVP is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

    How is an employee value proposition used?

    Your EVP should be used internally and externally to promote the unique benefits of working within the department. As a recruiting tool, you can use it to attract candidates, highlighting the benefits of working for your organization. The EVP is often highlighted where you are most likely to reach your target audience, whether that is through social media, in-person events, or in other advertising activities.

    Why tailor this to multiple audiences?

    While your employee value proposition should remain constant in terms of the unique benefits of working for your organization, you want to ensure that the EVP appeals to multiple audiences and that it is backed up by relevant stories that support how your organization lives your EVP every day. Candidates need to be able to relate to the EVP and see it as desirable, so ensuring that it is relatable to a diverse audience is key.

    Develop a strong employee value proposition

    Three key steps

    The image contains a cycle to demonstrate the three key steps. The steps are: Build and Assess the EVP, Test the EVP, and Adopt the EVP.

    1. Build and Assess the EVP

    Assess your existing employee value proposition and/or build a forward-looking, meaningful, authentic, aspirational EVP.

    2. Test the EVP

    Gather feedback from staff to ensure the EVP is meaningful internally and externally.

    3. Adopt the EVP

    Identify how and where you will leverage the EVP internally and externally, and integrate the EVP into your candidate experience, job ads, and employee engagement initiatives.

    As you build your EVP, keep in mind that while it’s important to brand your IT organization as an inclusive workplace to help you attract diverse candidates, be honest about your current level of diversity and your intentions to improve. Otherwise, new recruits will be disappointed and leave.

    What is an employee value proposition?

    And what are the key components?

    The employee value proposition is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

    AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION IS:

    AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION IS NOT:

    • An authentic representation of the employee experience
    • Aligned with organizational culture
    • Fundamental to all stages of the employee lifecycle
    • A guide to help investment in programs and policies
    • Short and succinct
    • What the employee can do for you
    • A list of programs and policies
    • An annual project

    THE FOUR KEY COMPONENTS OF AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION

    Rewards

    Organizational Elements

    Working Conditions

    Day-to-Day Job Elements

    • Compensation
    • Health Benefits
    • Retirement Benefits
    • Vacation
    • Culture
    • Customer Focus
    • Organization Potential
    • Department Relationships
    • Senior Management Relationships
    • Work/Life Balance
    • Working Environment
    • Employee Empowerment
    • Development
    • Rewards & Recognition
    • Co-Worker Relationships
    • Manager Relationships

    Creating a compelling EVP that presents a picture of your employee experience, with a focus on diversity, will attract females to your team. This can lead to many internal and external benefits for your organization.

    Collect relevant information

    Existing Employee Value Proposition: If your organization or IT department has an existing employee value proposition, rather than starting from scratch, we recommend leveraging that and moving to the testing phase to see if the EVP still resonates with staff and external parties.

    Employee Engagement Results: If your organization does an employee engagement survey, review the results to identify the areas in which the IT organization is performing well. Identify and document any key comment themes in the report around why employees enjoy working for the organization or what makes your IT department a great place to work.

    Social Media Sites. Prepare for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Social media websites like Glassdoor and Indeed make it easier for employees to share their experiences at an organization honestly and candidly. While postings on these sites won’t relate exclusively to the IT department, they do invite participants to identify their department in the organization. You can search these to identify any positive things people are saying about working for the organization and potentially opportunities for improvement (which you can use as a starting point in the retention section of this report).

    Step 1.1

    Sell – Assess the current state and develop your employee value proposition

    Activities

    1.1.1 Gather feedback on unique benefits

    1.1.2 Build key messages

    1.1.3 Test your EVP

    1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

    1.1.5 Review job postings for gender bias

    1.1.1 Gather feedback

    1. Hold a series of focus groups with employees to understand what about the organization attracted them to join and to stay at the organization.
    2. Start by identifying if you will interview all employees or a subset. If you are going to use a subset, ensure you have at least one male and one female participating from each team and representation of all levels within the department.
    3. Print the EVP Interview Guide to focus your conversation, and ask each individual to take 15 minutes and respond to questions 1-3 in the Guide:
    4. Draw a quadrant on the board and mark each quadrant with four categories: Day-to-Day Elements, Organizational Elements, Compensation & Benefits, and Working Conditions. Provide each participant with sticky notes and ask them to brainstorm the top five things they value most about working at the organization. Ask them to place each sticky in the appropriate category and identify any key themes.
    5. Ask participants to hand in their EVP Interview Guides and document all of the key findings.

    Input

    Output

    • Employee opinions
    • Employee responses to four EVP components
    • Content for EVP

    Materials

    Participants

    • EVP Interview Guide handout
    • Pen and paper for documenting responses
    • Male and female employees
    • Different departments
    • Different role levels

    Download the EVP Interview Guide

    1.1.2 Build key messages

    1. Collect all of the information from the various focus groups and begin to build out the employee value proposition statements.
    2. Identify the key elements that staff felt were unique and highly valued by employees and group these into common themes.
    3. Identify categories that related to one of the five key drivers* of women’s retention in IT and highlight any key elements related to these:
    • Culture: The degree to which an employee identifies with the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the organization.
    • Company Potential: An employee’s understanding, commitment, and excitement about the organization’s mission and future.
    • Employee Empowerment: The degree to which employees have accountability and control over their work within a supported environment.
    • Learning and Development: A cooperative and continuous effort to enhance an employee’s skill set and expertise and meet an employee’s career objectives.
    • Manager Relationships: The professional and personal relationship an employee has with their manager, including trust, support, and development.
  • Identify up to four key statements to focus on for the EVP, ensuring that your EVP speaks to at least one of the five categories above.
  • Integrate these into one overall statement.
  • *See Engagement Driver Handout slides for more details on these five drivers.

    Input

    Output

    • Feedback from focus groups
    • EVP and supporting statements

    Materials

    Participants

    • EVP Interview Guide handout
    • Pen and paper for documenting responses
    • IT leadership team

    Quality test your revised EVP

    Use Info-Tech’s EVP Scorecard.

    Internally and Externally

    Use the EVP Scorecard and EVP Scorecard Handout throughout this step to assess your EVP against:

    Internal Criteria:

    • Accuracy
    • Alignment
    • Aspirational
    • Differentiation

    External Criteria:

    • Clear
    • Compelling
    • Concise
    • Differentiation
    The image contains screenshots of Info-Tech's EVP Scorecard.

    Ensure your EVP resonates with employees and prospects

    Test your EVP with internal and external audiences.

    INTERNAL TEST REVOLVES AROUND THE 3A’s

    EXTERNAL TEST REVOLVES AROUND THE 3C’s

    ALIGNED: The EVP is in line with the organization’s purpose, vision, values, and processes. Ensure policies and programs are aligned with the organization’s EVP.

    CLEAR: The EVP is straightforward, simple, and easy to understand. Without a clear message in the market, even the best intentioned EVPs can be lost in confusion.

    ACCURATE: The EVP is clear and compelling, supported by proof points. It captures the true employee experience, which matches the organization’s communication and message in the market.

    COMPELLING: The EVP emphasizes the value created for employees and is a strong motivator to join this organization. A strong EVP will be effective in drawing in external candidates. The message will resonate with them and attract them to your organization.

    ASPIRATIONAL: The EVP inspires both individuals and the IT organization as a whole. Identify and invest in the areas that are sure to generate the highest returns for employees.

    COMPREHENSIVE: The EVP provides enough information for the potential employee to understand the true employee experience and to self-assess whether they are a good fit for your organization. If the EVP lacks depth, the potential employee may have a hard time understanding the benefits and rewards of working for your organization.

    1.1.3 Test your EVP

    1. Identify the internal and external individuals who you want to gather feedback from about the EVP.
    2. For internal candidates, send a copy of the EVP and ask them to complete the Internal Assessment (ensure that you have at least 50% representation of women).
    3. For external candidates, identify first how you will reach out to them; popular options are to have team members in key roles reach out to members of their LinkedIn network who are in similar roles to themselves. Request that they look for a diverse group to gather feedback from.
    4. Have the external candidates complete the External Assessment.
    5. Collect the feedback around the EVP and enter the findings into the EVP Scorecard Tool.
    6. If you are dissatisfied with the scorecard results, go back to the employees you interviewed to ask for additional feedback, focusing on the areas that scored low.
    7. Incorporate the feedback and present the revised EVP to see if the changes resonate with stakeholders.
    8. If you are satisfied with the results, present to the leadership and HR teams for agreement and proceed to adopting the EVP in your organization.

    Input

    Output

    • Internal assessment
    • External assessment
    • Finalized EVP

    Materials

    Participants

    • EVP Internal Assessmentt
    • EVP External Assessment
    • Internal staff members
    • External IT professionals

    1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

    Identify your target audience and marketing channels.

    1. Identify the internal and external individuals who you want to gather feedback from about the EVP.
    • The target audience for your employee value proposition
    • Internal and/or external
    • Local, national, international
    • Experience
    • Applicant pool (e.g. new graduates, professionals, internship)
  • For each target audience, identify where you want to reach them with your employee value proposition.
    • Internal: Town hall meetings, fireside chats
    • External: Social media, advertising, job postings
    • Global: Professional affiliations, head hunters
  • For each target audience, build the communication strategy and identify messaging, mediums, timeline, and task ownership.
  • Input

    Output

    • Employee value proposition
    • EVP plan

    Materials

    Participants

    • Pen and paper
    • EVP participants

    Case Study

    INDUSTRY: Restaurant

    SOURCE: McDonald’s Careers, Canadian Business via McLean & Company

    McDonald’s saw a divide between employee experience and its vision. McDonald’s set out to reinvent its employer image and create the reputation it wanted.

    Challenge

    • Historically, McDonald’s has had a challenging employer brand. Founded on the goal of cost effectiveness, a “McJob” was often associated with lower pay and a poor reputation.
    • McDonald’s reached out to employees using a global survey and asked, “What is it you love most about working at McDonald’s?”

    Solution

    • McDonald’s revaluated its employer brand by creating an EVP focused on the three F’s.
    1. Future – career growth and development opportunities
    2. Flexibility – flexible working hours and job variety
    3. Family & Friends – a people-centric work culture

    Results

    • As a result of developing and promoting its EVP internally, McDonald’s has experienced higher engagement and a steady decrease in turnover.
    • Externally, McDonald’s has been recognized numerous times by the Great Place to Work Institute and has been classified by Maclean’s magazine as one of Canada’s top 50 employers for 13 years running.

    Make your job descriptions more attractive to female applicants

    10 WAYS TO REMOVE GENDER BIAS FROM JOB DESCRIPTIONS – GLASSDOOR – AN EXCERPT

    1. USE GENDER-NEUTRAL TITLES: Male-oriented titles can inadvertently prevent women from clicking on your job in a list of search results. Avoid including words in your titles like “hacker,” “rockstar,” “superhero,” “guru,” and “ninja,” and use neutral, descriptive titles like “engineer,” “project manager,” or “developer.
    2. CHECK PRONOUNS: When describing the tasks of the ideal candidate, use “they” or “you.” Example: “As Product Manager for XYZ, you will be responsible for setting the product vision and strategy.
    3. AVOID (OR BALANCE) YOUR USE OF GENDER-CHARGED WORDS: Analysis from language tool Textio found that the gender language bias in your job posting predicts the gender of the person you’re going to hire. Use a tool like Textio tool or the free Gender Decoder to identify problem spots in your word choices. Examples: “Analyze” and “determine” are typically associated with male traits, while “collaborate” and “support” are considered female. Avoid aggressive language like “crush it.
    4. AVOID SUPERLATIVES: Excessive use of superlatives such as “expert,” “superior,” and “world class” can turn off female candidates who are more collaborative than competitive in nature. Research also shows that women are less likely than men to brag about their accomplishments. In addition, superlatives related to a candidate’s background can limit the pool of female applicants because there may be very few females currently in leading positions at “world-class” firms
    5. LIMIT THE NUMBER OF REQUIREMENTS: Identify which requirements are “nice to have” versus “must have,” and eliminate the “nice to haves.” Research shows that women are unlikely to apply for a position unless they meet 100 percent of the requirements, while men will apply if they meet 60 percent of the requirements.

    For the full article please click here.

    1.1.5 Review job postings

    To understand potential gender bias

    1. Select a job posting that you are looking to fill, review the descriptions, and identify if any of the following apply:
    • Are the titles gender neutral? This doesn’t mean you can’t be creative in your naming, but consider if the name really represents the role you are looking to fill.
    • Do you use pronouns? If there are instances where the posting says “he” OR “she” change this to “they” or “you.”
    • Are you overusing superlatives? Review the posting and ensure that when words like “expert” or “world class” are used that you genuinely need someone who is at that level.
    • Are all of the tasks/responsibilities listed the ones that are absolutely essential to the job? Women are less likely to apply if they don’t have direct experience with 100% of the criteria – if it’s a non-essential, consider whether it’s needed in the posting.
    • Is there any organization-specific jargon used? Where possible, avoid using organization-specific jargon in order to create an inclusive posting. Avoid using terms/acronyms that are only known to your organization.
  • Select four to six members of your staff, both male and female, and have them highlight within the job posting what elements appeal to them and what elements do not appeal to them or would concern them about the job.
  • Review the feedback from staff, and identify potential opportunities to reduce bias within the posting.
  • Input

    Output

    • Job posting
    • Updated job posting

    Materials

    Participants

    • Pen and paper
    • IT staff members

    Case Study

    INDUSTRY: Social Media

    SOURCE: Buffer Open blog

    When the social media platform Buffer replaced one word in a job posting, it noticed an increase in female candidates.

    Challenge

    For the social media platform Buffer, all employees were called “hackers.” It had front-end hackers, back-end hackers, Android hackers, iOS hackers, and traction hackers.

    As the company began to grow and ramp up hiring, the Chief Technology Officer, Sunil Sadasivan, noticed that Buffer was seeing a very low percentage of female candidates for these “hacker” jobs.

    In researching the challenge in lack of female candidates, the Buffer team discovered that the word “hacker” may be just the reason why.

    Solution

    Understanding that wording has a strong impact on the type of candidates applying to work for Buffer started a great and important conversation on the Buffer team.

    Buffer wanted to be as inviting as possible in job listings, especially because it hires for culture fit over technical skill.

    Buffer went through a number of wording choices that could replace “hacker,” and ended on the term “developer.” All external roles were updated to reflect this wording change.

    Results

    By making this slight change to the wording used in their jobs, Buffer went from seeing a less than 2% female representation of applicants for developer jobs to around 12% female representation for the same job.

    Step 1.2

    Search – Reach more candidates by expanding key search criteria and sourcing strategies

    Activities

    1.2.1 Complete role analysis

    1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

    Enhance your recruitment strategies

    Sourcing shouldn’t start with an open position; it should start with identifying an anticipated need and building and nurturing a talent pipeline. IT participation in this is critical to effectively promote the employee experience and foster relationships before candidates even apply.

    Expand your search

    What is a candidate sourcing program?

    A candidate sourcing program is one element of the overall HR sourcing approach, which consists of the overall process (steps to source talent), the people responsible for sourcing, and the programs (internal talent mobility, social media, employee referral, alumni network, campus recruitment, etc.).

    What is a sourcing role analysis?

    Part of the sourcing plan will outline how to identify talent for a role, which includes both the role analysis and the market assessment. The market assessment is normally completed by the HR department and consists of analyzing the market conditions as they relate to specific talent needs. The role analysis looks at what is necessary to be successful in a role, including competencies, education, background experience, etc.

    How will this enable you to attract female candidates?

    Expanding your sourcing programs and supporting deeper role analysis will allow your HR department to reach a larger candidate pool and better understand the type of talent that will be successful in roles within your organization. By expanding from traditional pools and criteria you will open the organization up to a wider variety of talent options.

    Minimize bias in sourcing to hire the right talent and protect against risk

    Failure to take an inclusive approach to sourcing will limit your talent pool by sidelining entire groups or discouraging applicants from diverse backgrounds. Address bias in sourcing so that diverse candidates are not excluded from the start. Solutions such as removing biographical data from CVs prior to interviews may reduce bias, but they may come too late to impact diversity.

    Potential areas of bias in sourcing:

    Modifications to reduce bias:

    Intake Session

    • Describing a specific employee when identifying what it takes to be successful in the role. This may include attributes that do not actually promote success (e.g. school or program) but will decrease diversity of thought.
    • Hiring managers display a “like me” bias where they describe a successful candidate as similar to themselves.
    • Focus on competencies for the role rather than attributes of current employees or skills. Technology is changing rapidly – look for people who have demonstrated a capability over a specific skill.

    Sourcing Pools

    • Blindly hunting or sourcing individuals from a few sources, assuming that these sources are always better than others (e.g. Ivy League schools always produce the best candidates).
    • Expand sources. Don’t exclude diverse sources because they’re not popular.
    • Objectively measure source effectiveness to address underlying assumptions.

    1.2.1 Role analysis

    Customize a sourcing plan for key roles to guide talent pipeline creation.

    1. Complete a role analysis to understand key role requirements. If you are hiring for an existing role, start by taking an inventory of who your top and low performers are within the role today.
    2. Consider your top performers and identify what a successful employee can do better than a less successful one. Start by considering their alignment with job requirements, and identify the education, designations/certifications, and experiences that are necessary for this job. Do not limit yourself; carefully consider if the requirements you are including are actually necessary or just nice to have.
    3. Required Entry Criteria

      Preferred Entry Criteria

      Education

      • University Degree – Bachelors
      • University Degree – Masters

      Experience

      • 5+) years design, or related, experience
      • Experience leading a team
      • External consulting experience
      • Healthcare industry experience

      Designations/Certifications

      • ITIL Foundations
    4. Review Info-Tech’s Job Competency Library in the Workforce Planning Workbook, identify the key competencies that are ideal for this anticipated role, and write a description of how this would manifest in your organization.
    5. Competency

      Level of Proficiency

      Behavioral Descriptions

      Business Analysis

      Level 2: Capable

      • Demonstrates a basic understanding of business roles, processes, planning, and requirements in the organization.
      • Demonstrates a basic understanding of how technologies assist in business processes.
      • Develop basic business cases using internal environment analysis for the business unit level.
    6. Hold a meeting with your HR team or recruiter to highlight the types of experience and competencies you are looking for in a hire to expand the search criteria.

    Target diverse talent pools through different sources

    When looking to diversify your workforce, it’s critical that you look to attract and recruit talent from a variety of different talent pools.

    SOURCING APPROACH

    INTERNAL MOBILITY PROGRAM

    Positioning the right talent in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons, and supporting them appropriately. Often tied to succession or workforce planning, mentorship, and learning and development.

    SOCIAL MEDIA PROGRAM

    The widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on common efforts, and build relationships. Think beyond the traditional and consider niche social media platforms.

    EMPLOYEE REFERRAL PROGRAM

    Employees recommend qualified candidates. If the referral is hired, the referring employee typically receives some sort of reward.

    ALUMNI PROGRAM

    An alumni referral program is a formalized way to maintain ongoing relationships with former employees of the organization.

    CAMPUS RECRUITING PROGRAM

    A formalized means of attracting and hiring individuals who are about to graduate from schools, colleges, or universities.

    EVENTS & ASSOCIATION PROGRAM

    A targeted approach for participation in non-profit associations and industry events to build brand awareness of your organization and create a forward-looking talent pipeline.

    1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

    Increase the number of female applicants.

    1. Identify where your employees are currently being sourced from and identify how many female candidates you have gotten from each channel as a percentage of applicants.
    2. # of Candidates From Approach

      % of Female Candidates From Approach

      Target # of Female Candidates

      Internal Talent Mobility

      Social Media Program

      Employee Referral Program

      Alumni Program

      Campus Recruiting Program

      Events & Non-Profit Affiliations

      Other (job databases, corporate website, etc.)

    3. Work with your HR partner or organization’s recruiter to identify three recruitment channels from the list that you will work on expanding.
    4. Review the following two slides and identify key success factors for the implementation. Identify what role IT will play and what role HR will play in implementing the approach.
    5. Following implementation, monitor the impact of the tactics on the number of women candidates and determine whether to add additional tactics.

    Different talent sources

    Benefits and success factors of using different talent sources

    Benefits

    Keys to Success

    Internal Mobility Program

    • Drives retention by providing opportunities to develop professionally
    • Provides a ready pipeline for rapid changes
    • Reduces time and cost of recruitment
    • Identify career pathing opportunities
    • Identify potential successors for succession planning
    • Build learning and development and mentorship

    Social Media Program

    • Access to candidates
    • Taps extended networks
    • Facilitates consistent communication with candidates and talent in pipelines
    • Personalizes the candidate experience
    • Identify platforms – common and niche
    • Talk to your top performers and IT network and identify which sites they use
    • Identify how people use that platform – nature of posts and engagement
    • Define what content to share and who from IT should be engaging
    • Be timely with participation and responses

    Employee Referral Program

    • Higher applicant-to-hire rate
    • Decreased time to fill positions
    • Decreased turner
    • Increased quality of hire
    • Expands your network – women in IT often know other qualified women in IT and in project delivery
    • Educate employees (particularly female employees) to participate
    • Send reminders, incorporate into onboarding, and ask leaders to share job openings
    • Make it easy to share jobs by providing templates and shortened URLs
    • Where possible, simplify the process by avoiding paper forms, reaching out quickly
    • Select metrics that will identify areas of strength and gaps in the referral program

    Alumni Program

    • A formalized way to maintain ongoing relationship with former employees
    • Positive branding as alumni are regarded as a credible source of information
    • Source of talent – boomerang employees are doubly as valuable as they understand the organization
    • Increased referral potential provides access to a larger network and alumni know what is required to be successful in the organization
    • Identify the purpose of the network and set clear goals
    • Identify what the network will do: Will the network be virtual or in person? Who will chair? Who should participate? etc.
    • Create a simple process for alumni to share information about vacancies and refer people
    • Measure progress

    Campus Recruiting Program

    • Increases employer brand awareness among talent entering the workforce
    • Provides the opportunity to interact with large groups of potential candidates at one time
    • Offers access to a highly diverse audience
    • Identify key competencies and select programs based on relevant curriculum for building those competencies
    • Select targeted schools keeping in mind programs and existing relationships
    • Work with HR to get involved

    Events & Non-Profit Affiliations

    • Create a strong talent pipeline for future positions
    • Build relationships based on shared values in a comfortable environment for participants
    • Ability to expand diversity by targeting different types of events or by leveraging women-focused, specifically women in technology, groups
    • Look for events that attract similar participants to the skills or roles you are looking to attract, e.g. Women Who Code if you’re looking for developers
    • Actively engage and participate in the event
    • Couple this with learning and development activities, and invite female top performers to participate

    Enhance your recruitment strategies

    Work with your HR department to influence the recruitment process by taking a data-driven approach to understand the root cause of applicant drop-off and success and take corrective actions.

    Secure top candidates

    Why does the candidate experience matter?

    Until recently it was an employer’s market, so recruiters and hiring managers were able to get good talent without courting top candidates. Today, that’s not the case. You need to treat your IT candidates like customers and be mindful that this is often one of the first experiences future staff will have with the organization. It will give them their first real sense of the culture of the organization and whether they want to work for the organization.

    What can IT leaders do if they have limited influence over the interview process?

    Work with your HR department to evaluate the existing recruitment process, share challenges you’ve experienced, and offer additional support in the process. Identify where you can influence the process and if there are opportunities to build service-level agreements around the candidate experience.

    Take a data-driven approach

    Understand opportunities to enhance the talent selection process.

    While your HR department likely owns the candidate experience and processes, if you have identified challenges in diversity we recommend partnering with your HR department or recruitment team to identify opportunities for improvement within the process. If you are attracting a good amount of candidates through your sell and search tactics but aren’t finding that this is translating into more women selected, it’s time to take a look at your selection processes.

    SIMPLIFIED CANDIDATE SELECTION PROCESS STEPS

    1. Application Received
    2. Candidate Selected for Interview
    3. Offer Extended
    4. Offer Accepted
    5. Onboarding of Staff

    To understand the challenges within your selection process, start by baselining your drop-off rates throughout selection and comparing the differences in male and female candidates. Use this to pin point the issues within the process and complete a root-cause analysis to identify where to improve.

    Step 1.3

    Secure – reduce bias in your interview process and create positive candidate experiences

    Activities

    1.3.1 Identify selection challenges

    1.3.1 Identify your selection challenges

    Review your candidate data.

    1. Hold a meeting with your HR partner to identify trends in your selection data. If you have an applicant tracking system, pull all relevant information for analysis.
    2. Start by identifying the total number of candidates that move forward in each stage of the process. Record the overall number of applicants for positions (should have this number from your sourcing analysis), overall number of candidates selected for interviews, overall number of offers extended, overall number of offers rejected, and overall number of employees still employed after one year.
    3. Identify the number of female and male candidates in each of those categories and as a percentage of the total number of applicants.
    4. Selection Process Step

      Total # of Candidates

      Male Candidates

      Female Candidates

      % Difference Male & Female

      #

      #

      % of total

      #

      % of total

      Applicants for Posted Position

      150

      115

      76.7%

      35

      23.3%

      70% fewer females

      Selected for Interview

      (Selected for Second Interview)

      (Selected for Final Interview)

      Offer Extended

      Offer Rejected

      Employees Retained for One Year

    5. Identify where there are differences in the percentages of male and female candidates and where there are significant drop-off rates between steps in the process.

    Note: For larger organizations, we highly recommend analyzing differences in specific teams/roles and/or at different seniority levels. If you have that data available, repeat the analysis, controlling for those factors.

    Root-cause analysis can be conducted in a variety of ways

    Align your root-cause analysis technique with the problem that needs to be solved and leverage the skills of the root-cause analysis team.

    Brainstorming/Process of Elimination

    After brainstorming, identify which possible causes are not the issue’s root cause by removing unlikely causes.

    The Five Whys

    Use reverse engineering to delve deeper into a recruitment issue to identify the root cause.

    Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram

    Use an Ishikawa/fishbone diagram to identify and narrow down possible causes by categories.

    Process of elimination

    Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

    Using the process of elimination can be a powerful tool to determine root causes.

    • To use the process of elimination to determine root cause, gather the participants from within your hiring team together once you have identified where your issues are within the recruitment process and brainstorm a list of potential causes.
    • Like all brainstorming exercises, remember that the purpose is to gather the widest possible variety of perspectives, so be sure not to eliminate any suggested causes out of hand.
    • Once you have an exhaustive list of potential causes, you can begin the process of eliminating unlikely causes to arrive at a list of likely potential causes.

    Example

    Problem: Women candidates are rejecting job offers more consistently

    Potential Causes

    • The process took too long to complete
    • Lack of information about the team and culture
    • Candidates aren’t finding benefits/salary compelling
    • Lack of clarity on role expectations
    • Lack of fit between candidate and interviewers
    • Candidates offered other positions
    • Interview tactics were negatively perceived

    As you brainstorm, ensure that you are identifying differentiators between male and female candidate experiences and rationale. If you ask candidates their rationale for turning down roles, ensure that these are included in the discussion.

    The five whys

    Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques

    Repeatedly asking “why” might seem overly simplistic, but it has the potential to be useful.

    • It can be useful, when confronting a problem, to start with the end result and work backwards.
    • According to Olivier Serrat, a knowledge management specialist at the Asian Development Bank, there are three key components that define successful use of the five whys: “(i) accurate and complete statements of problems, (ii) complete honesty in answering the questions, and (iii) the determination to get to the bottom of problems and resolve them.”
    • As a group, develop a consensus around the problem statement. Go around the room and have each person suggest a potential reason for its occurrence. Repeat the process for each potential reason (ask “why?”) until there are no more potential causes to explore.
    • Note: The total number of “whys” may be more or less than five.

    Example

    The image contains an example of the five whys activity as described in the text above.

    Ishikawa/fishbone diagram

    Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

    Use this technique to sort potential causes by category and match them to the problem.

    • The first step in creating a fishbone diagram is agreeing on a problem statement and populating a box on the right side of a whiteboard or a piece of chart paper.
    • Draw a horizontal line left from the box and draw several ribs on either side that will represent the categories of causes you will explore.
    • Label each rib with relevant categories. In the recruitment context, consider cause categories like technology, interview, process, etc. Go around the room and ask, “What causes this problem to happen?” Every result produced should fit into one of the identified categories. Place it there, and continue to brainstorm sub-causes.

    The image contains a screenshot example of the Ishikawa/fishbone diagram.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Avoid naming individuals in the fishbone diagram. The goal of the root-cause exercise is not to lay blame or zero in on a guilty party but rather to identify how you can rectify any challenges.

    Leverage behavioral interviews

    Use Info-Tech’s Behavioral Interview Questions Library.

    Reduce bias in your interviews.

    In the past, companies were pushing the boundaries of the conventional interview, using unconventional questions to find top talent, e.g. “what color is your personality?” The logic was that the best people are the ones who don’t necessarily show perfectly on a resume, and they were intent on finding the best.

    However, many companies have stopped using these questions after extensive statistical analysis revealed there was no correlation between candidates’ ability to answer them and their future performance on the job. Hiring by intuition – or “gut” – is usually dependent on an interpersonal connection being developed over a very short period of time. This means that people who were naturally likeable would be given preferential treatment in hiring decisions whether they were capable of doing the job.

    Asking behavioral interview questions based on the competency needs of the role is the best way to uncover if the candidates will be able to execute on the job.

    For more information see Info-Tech’s Behavioral Interview Question Library.

    The image contains screenshots of Info-Tech's Behavioral Interview Questions Library.

    Improve the level of diversity in your organization by considering inclusive candidate selection practices

    Key action items to create inclusivity in your candidate selection practices:

    1. Managers must be aware of how bias can influence hiring. Encourage your HR department to provide diversity training for recruiters and hiring managers. Ensure those responsible for recruitment are using best practices, are aware of the impact of unconscious bias, and are making decisions in alignment with your DEI strategy.
    2. Use a variety of interviewers to leverage multiple/diverse perspectives. Hiring decisions made by a group can offer a more balanced perspective. Include interviewers from multiple levels in the organization and both men and women.
    3. Hire for distinguished excellence. Be careful not to simply choose the same kind of people over and over, in the name of cultural fit (Source: Recruiter.com, 2015).
    4. Broaden the notion of fit:

    • Hire for skill fit: you might still hire certain types for a specific job (e.g. analytical types for analysis positions), but these candidates can still be diverse.
    • Hire for fit with your organization’s DEI values, regardless of whether the candidate is from a diverse background or not.
    • It can be tempting for hiring managers to hire individuals who are similar to themselves. However, doing so limits the amount of diversity entering your organization, and as a result, limits your organization’s ability to innovate.
  • Deliberately hire for cognitive diversity. Diverse thought processes, perspectives, and problem-solving abilities are positively correlated with firm performance (Source: Journal of Diversity Management, 2014).
  • Leverage a third-party tool

    Ensure recruiting and onboarding programs are effective by surveying your new hires.

    For a deeper analysis of your new hire processes Info-Tech’s sister company, McLean & Company, is an HR research and advisory firm that offers powerful diagnostics to measure HR processes effectiveness. If you are finding diversity issues to be systemic within the organization, leveraging a diagnostic can greatly improve your processes.

    Use this diagnostic to get vital feedback on:

    • Recruiting efforts. Find out if your job marketing efforts are successful, which paths your candidates took to find you, and whether your company is maintaining an attractive profile.
    • Interviewing process. Ensure candidates experience an organized, professional, and ethical process that accurately sets their expectations for the job.
    • Onboarding process. Make sure your new hires are being trained and integrated into their team effectively.
    • Organizational culture. Is your culture welcoming and inclusive? You need to know if top talent enjoy the environment you have to offer.
    The image contains a screenshot of the New Hire Survey.

    For more information on the New Hire Survey click here. If you are interested in referring your HR partner please contact your account manager.

    Phase 2

    Enhance Your Retention Strategies

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Sell
    • 1.2 Search
    • 1.3 Secure

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Engagement
    • 2.2 Employee Experience
    • 2.3 Stay Interviews

    Actively engage female staff to retain them

    Employee engagement: the measurement of effective management practices that create a positive emotional connection between the employee and the organization.

    Engaged employees do what’s best for the organization: they come up with product/service improvements, provide exceptional service to customers, consistently exceed performance expectations, and make efficient use of their time and resources. The result is happy customers, better products/services, and saved costs.

    Today, what we find is that 54% of women in IT are not engaged,* but…

    …engaged employees are: 39% more likely to stay at an organization than employees who are not engaged.*

    Additionally, engaging your female staff also has the additional benefit of increasing willingness to innovate by 30% and performance by 28%. The good news is that increasing employee engagement is not difficult, it just requires dedication and an effective toolkit to monitor, analyze, and implement tactics.*

    * Info-Tech and McLean & Company Diagnostics; N=1,308 IT employees

    Don’t seek to satisfy; drive IT success through engagement

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that highlights the differences between satisfied and engaged employees.

    Engagement drivers that impact retention for men and women are different – tailor your strategy to your audience

    Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

    The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates the differences in retaining men and women in IT.

    * Recent data stays consistent, but the importance of compensation and recognition in retaining women in IT is increasing.

    Info-Tech Research Group Employee Engagement Diagnostic; N=1,856 IT employees.

    An analysis of the differences between men and women in IT’s drivers indicates that women in IT are significantly less likely than men in IT to agree with the following statements:

    Culture:

    • They identify well with the organization’s values.
    • The organization has a very friendly atmosphere.

    Employee Empowerment:

    • They are given the chance to fully leverage their talents through their job.

    Manager Relationships:

    • They can trust their manager.
    • Their manager cares about them as a person

    Working Environment:

    • They have not seen incidents of discrimination at their organization based on age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity.

    Enhance your retention strategies

    Employee engagement is one of the greatest predictors of intention to stay. To retain you need to understand not only engagement but also your employee experience – the moments that matter – and actively work to create a positive experience.

    Improve employee engagement

    What differentiates an engaged employee?

    Engaged employees do what’s best for the organization: they come up with product/service improvements, provide exceptional service to customers, consistently exceed performance expectations, and make efficient use of their time and resources. The result is happy customers, better products/services, and saved costs.

    Why measure engagement when looking at retention?

    Engaged employees report 39%1 higher intention to stay at the organization than disengaged employees. The cost of losing an employee is estimated to be 150% to 200% of their annual salary.2 Can you afford to not engage your staff?

    Why should IT leadership be responsible for their staff engagement?

    Engagement happens every day, through every interaction, and needs to be tailored to individual team members to be successful. When engagement is owned by IT leadership, engagement initiatives are incorporated into daily experiences and personalized to their employees based on what is happening in real time. It is this active, dynamic leadership that inspires ongoing employee engagement and differentiates those who talk about engagement from those who succeed in engaging their teams.

    Sources: 1 - McLean & Company Employee Engagement Survey, 2 - Gallup, 2019

    Step 2.1

    Improve employee engagement

    Activities

    2.1.1 Review employee engagement results and trends

    2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

    Take a data-driven approach

    Info-Tech’s employee engagement diagnostics are low-effort, high-impact programs that will give you detailed report cards on the organization’s engagement levels. Use these insights to understand your employees’ engagement levels by a variety of core demographics.

    FULL ENGAGEMENT DIAGNOSTIC

    EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE MONITOR

    The full engagement diagnostic provides a comprehensive view of your organization’s engagement levels, informing you of what motivates employees and providing a detailed view of what engagement drivers to focus on for optimal results.

    Info-Tech & McLean & Company’s Full Engagement Diagnostic Survey has 81 questions in total.

    The survey should be completed annually and typically takes 15-20 minutes to complete.

    The EXM Dashboard is designed to give organizations a real-time view of employee engagement while being minimally intrusive.

    This monthly one-question survey allows organizations to track the impact of events and initiatives on employee engagement as they happen, creating a culture of engagement.

    The survey takes less than 30 seconds to complete and is fully automated.

    For the purpose of improving retention of women in IT, we encourage you to leverage the EXM tool, which will allow you to track how this demographic group’s engagement changes as you implement new initiatives.

    Engagement survey

    For a detailed breakdown of staff overall engagement priorities.

    Overall Engagement Results

    • A clear breakdown of employee engagement results by demographic, gender, and team.
    • Detailed engagement breakdown and benchmarking.
    The image contains a screenshot of the overall engagement results.

    Priority Matrix and Driver Scores

    • A priority matrix specific to your organization.
    • A breakdown of question scores by priority matrix quadrant.
    • Know what not to focus your effort on – not all engagement drivers will have a high impact on engagement.
    The image contains a screenshot of the priority matrix and driver scores.

    EXM dashboard

    Reporting to track engagement in real time.

    EXM Dashboard

    • Leverage Info-Tech’s real-time Employee Experience Monitor dashboard to track your team’s engagement levels over time.
    • Track changes in the number of supporters and detractors and slice the data by roles, teams, and gender.
    The image contains a screenshot of the EXM dashboard.

    Time Series Trends

    • As you implement new initiatives to improve the engagement and retention of staff, track their impact and continuously course correct.
    • Empower your leaders to actively manage their team culture to drive innovation, retention, and productivity.
    The image contains a screenshot of the time series trends.

    Start your diagnostic now

    Leverage your Info-Tech membership to seamlessly launch your employee engagement survey.

    Info-Tech’s dedicated team of program managers will facilitate this diagnostic program remotely, providing you with a convenient, low-effort, high-impact experience.

    We will guide you through the process with your goals in mind to deliver deep insight into your successes and areas to improve.

    What You Need to Do:

    Info-Tech’s Program Manager Will:

    1. Contact Info-Tech to launch the program.
    2. Review the two survey options to select the right survey for your organization.
    3. Work with an Info-Tech analyst to set up your personal diagnostic.
    4. Identify who you would like to take the survey.
    5. Customize Info-Tech’s email templates.
    6. Participate in a one-hour results call with an Info-Tech executive advisor.
    1. Work with you to define your engagement strategy and goals.
    2. Launch, maintain, and support the diagnostic in the field.
    3. Provide you with response rates throughout the process.
    4. Explore your results in a one-hour call with an executive advisor to fully understand key insights from the data.
    5. Provide quarterly updates and training materials for your leadership team.

    Start Now

    2.1.1 Review employee engagement results

    Identify trends

    1. In a call with one of Info-Tech’s executive advisors, review the results of your employee engagement survey.
    2. Identify which departments are most and least engaged and brainstorm some high-level reasons.
    3. Review the demographic information and highlight any inconsistencies or areas with high levels of variance. Document which demographics have the most and least engaged, disengaged, and indifferent employees.
    4. With help from the Info-Tech executive advisor, identify and document any dramatic differences in the demographic data, particularly around gender.
    5. Identify if the majority of issues effecting engagement are at an organization or department level and which stakeholders you need to engage to support the process moving forward.
    6. Identify next steps.
    Input
    • Employee engagement results
    Participants
    • CIO
    • Info-Tech Advisor

    2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

    Hold focus groups with IT staff and focus on the five areas with the greatest impact on women’s retention.

    1. Review the handout slides on the following pages to get a better understanding of the definition of each of the top five drivers impacting women’s retention. Depending on your team’s size, pick one to three drivers to focus on for your first focus group.
    2. Divide the participants into teams and on flip chart paper or using sticky notes have the teams brainstorm what you can stop/start/continue doing to help you improve on your assigned driver.
    • Continue: actions that work for the team related to this driver and should proceed.
    • Start: actions/initiatives that the team would like to begin.
    • Stop: actions/initiatives that the team would like to stop.
  • Prioritize the initiatives by considering: Is this initiative something you feel will make an impact on the engagement driver? Eliminate any initiatives that would not make an impact.
  • Have the groups present back and vote on two to three initiatives to implement to drive improvements within that area.
  • Culture

    Engagement driver handout

    Culture: The degree to which an employee identifies with the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the organization.

    Questions:

    • I identify well with the organization’s values.
    • This organization has a collaborative work environment.
    • This organization has a very friendly atmosphere.
    • I am a fit for the organizational culture.

    Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

    • Women in IT: #1
    • Men in IT: #2

    Company Potential

    Engagement driver handout

    Company Potential: An employee’s understanding of and commitment to the organization’s mission, and the employee’s excitement about the organization’s mission and future.

    Questions:

    • This organization has a bright future.
    • I am impressed with the quality of people at this organization.
    • People in this organization are committed to doing high-quality work.
    • I believe in the organization’s overall business strategy.
    • This organization encourages innovation.

    Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

    • Women in IT: #2
    • Men in IT: #1

    Employee Empowerment

    Engagement driver handout

    Employee Empowerment: The degree to which employees have accountability and control over their work within a supported environment.

    Questions:

    • I am not afraid of trying out new ideas in my job.
    • If I make a suggestion to improve something in my department I believe it will be taken seriously.
    • I am empowered to make decisions about how I do my work.
    • I clearly understand what is expected of me on the job.
    • I have all the tools I need to do a great job.
    • I am given the chance to fully leverage my talents through my job.

    Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

    • Women in IT: #3
    • Men in IT: #6

    Learning and Development

    Engagement driver handout

    Learning and Development: A cooperative and continuous effort between an employee and the organization to enhance an employee’s skill set and expertise and meet an employee’s career objectives and the organization’s needs.

    Questions:

    • I can advance my career in this organization.
    • I am encouraged to pursue career development activities.
    • In the last year, I have received an adequate amount of training.
    • In the last year, the training I have received has helped me do my job better.

    Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

    • Women in IT: #4
    • Men in IT: #5

    Manager Relationships

    Engagement driver handout

    Manager Relationships: The professional and personal relationship an employee has with their manager. Manager relationships depend on the trust that exists between these two individuals and the extent that a manager supports and develops the employee.

    Questions:

    • My manager inspires me to improve.
    • My manager provides me with high-quality feedback.
    • My manager helps me achieve better results.
    • I trust my manager.
    • My manager cares about me as a person.
    • My manager keeps me well informed about decisions that affect me.

    Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

    • Women in IT: #5
    • Men in IT: #11

    Step 2.2

    Examine employee experience

    Activities

    2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

    Understand why and when employees plan to depart

    Leverage “psychology of quitting” expertise.

    Train your managers to provide them with the skills and expertise to recognize the warning signs of an employee’s departure and know how to re-engage and retain them.

    • The majority of resignations are not spur of the moment. They are the result of a compilation of events over a period of time. Normally, these instances are magnified by a stimulant. The final straw or the breaking point drives the employee to make a change. In fact, it has been estimated that a shock jumpstarts 65% of departures.*
      • These shocks could be a lack of promotion, loss of privilege or development opportunity, or a quarrel with a manager.
    • Employees rarely leave right away. Most wait until they have confirmed a new job opportunity before leaving. This creates a window in which you can reengage and retain them.
    • The majority of employees show signs that they are beginning to think of leaving. Whether that is leaving immediately, putting in the bare minimum of effort, or job searching online at work. Train your managers to know the signs and to keep an eye out for potentially dissatisfied and searching employees.*
    • It is easier and less costly to reengage an employee than to start the hiring process from the beginning.
    *Source: The Career Café, 2017

    Examine employee experience (EX)

    Look beyond engagement drivers to drive retention.

    Employee experience (EX) is the employee’s perception of their cumulative lived experiences with the organization. It is gauged by how well the employee’s expectations are met within the parameters of the workplace, especially by the “moments that matter” to them. Individual employee engagement is the outcome of a strong overall EX.

    The image contains a diagram as an example of examining employee experience.

    Drive a positive employee experience

    Identify moments that matter.

    Moments that matter are defining pieces or periods in an employee’s experience that create a critical turning point or memory that is of significant importance to them.

    These are moments that dramatically change the path of the emotional journey, influence the quality of the final outcome, or end the journey prematurely.

    To identify the moment that matters look for significant drops in the emotional journey that your organization needs to improve or significant bumps that your organization can capitalize on. Look for these drops or bumps in the journey and take stock of everything you have recorded at that point in the process. To improve the experience, analyze the hidden needs and how they are or aren’t being met.

    The image contains a screenshot of an example graph to demonstrate opportunities and issues to help drive a positive employee experience.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The moment that matters is key and it could be completely separate from organizational life, like the death of a family member. Leaders can more proactively address these moments that matter by identifying them and determining how to make the touchpoint at that moment more impactful.

    2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

    1. Review your Employee Experience Monitor weekly trends by logging into your dashboard and clicking on “Time Series Trends.”
    2. With your management team, identify any weekly trends where your Employee Experience Score has seen changes in the number of detractor, passive, or promoter responses.
    3. For each significant change identify:
    • Increase in promoters or decrease in detractors:
      • What can we do to duplicate positive moments that occurred this week?
      • What did I do as a leader to create positive employee experiences?
      • What happened in the organization that created a positive employee experience?
    • Increase in detractors or decrease in promoters:
      • What difficult change was delivered this week?
      • What about this change was negatively perceived?
      • During the difficult situation how did we as a leadership team support our staff?
      • Who did we engage and recognize during the difficult situation?
      • Was this situation a one-off issue or is this likely to occur again?
  • Consider your interactions with employees and identify how you made moments matter during those times related to four key engagement drivers impacting women in IT:
    • How did you promote a positive culture and friendly atmosphere?
    • How did you empower female staff to leverage their talents?
    • How did you interact with staff?
    • How did you promote a positive work environment? Where did you see bias in decisions?
  • Independently as manager, document three to five lessons learned from the changes in your detractors and promoters, and determine what action you will take.
  • Measured benefits of positive employee experience

    Positive employee experiences lead to engaged employees, and engaged employees are eight times more likely to recommend the organization (McLean & Company Employee Engagement Database, 2017; N=74,671).

    Retention

    Employees who indicate they are having a positive experience at work have a 52% higher level of intent to stay (Great Place To Work Institute, 2021)

    The bottom line

    Organizations that make employee experience a focus have: 23% higher profitability 10% higher customer loyalty (Achievers, 2021)

    Case Study

    INDUSTRY: Post-Secondary Education

    SOURCE: Adam Grant, “Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance: The Effects of Contact with Beneficiaries on Persistence Behavior”

    The future is here! Is your data architecture practice ready?

    Challenge

    A university call center, tasked with raising scholarship money from potential donors, had high employee turnover and low morale.

    Solution

    A study led by Grant arranged for a test group of employees to meet and interact with a scholarship recipient. In the five-minute meeting, employees learned what the student was studying.

    Results

    Demonstrating the purpose behind their work had significant returns. Employees who had met with the student demonstrated:

    More than two times longer “talk time” with potential donors.

    A productivity increase of 400%: the weekly average in donations went from $185.94 to $503.22 for test-group employees.

    Enhance your retention strategies

    Do not wait until employees leave to find out what they were unhappy with or why they liked the organization. Instead, perform stay interviews with top and core talent to create a holistic understanding of what they are perceiving and feeling.

    Conduct stay interviews

    What is a stay interview?

    A stay interview is a conversation with current employees. It should be performed on a yearly basis and is an informal discussion to generate deeper insight into the employee’s opinions, perspectives, concerns, and complaints. Stay interviews can have a multitude of uses. In this project they will be used to understand why top and core talent chose to stay with the organization to ensure that organizations understand and build upon their current strengths.

    When should you do stay interviews?

    We recommend completing stay interviews at least on an annual, if not quarterly, basis to truly understand how staff are feeling about the organization and their job, why they stay at the organization, and what would cause them to leave. Couple the outcomes of these interviews with employee engagement action planning to ensure that you are able to address talent needs.

    Step 2.3

    Conduct stay interviews and learn why employees stay

    Activities

    2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

    Conduct regular “stay” or “retention” interviews

    Build stay interviews into the regular routine. By incorporating stay interviews into your schedule, they are more likely to stick. This regularity provides several advantages:

    1. Ensures that retention issues do not take you by surprise. With a finger on the pulse of the organization you will be aware of potential issues.
    2. Acts as a supplement to the engagement survey by providing additional information and context for the current level of emotion within the organization.
    3. Begins to build a wealth of information that can be analyzed to identify themes and trends. This can be used to track whether the reasons why individuals stay are consistent or if are they changing. This will ensure that the retention strategy remains up to date.

    Stay interview best practices:

    • Ideally is performed by managers, but can be performed by HR.
      • Ideally completed by managers as they are more familiar with their employees, have a greater reach, can hold meetings in a more informal setting, and will receive information first hand.
      • If conducted by managers, it’s a best practice to ensure that there is a central repository of themes so that you can identify if there are any trends in the responses, that consistent questions are asked, and that all of the information is in one place
    • Should be an informal conversation.
    • Should be conducted in a non-critical time in the business year.
    • Ask three types of questions:
      • What do you enjoy about working here?
      • What would you change about your working environment?
      • What would encourage or force you to leave the organization?
    • Interview a diverse employee base:
      • Demographics
      • Role
      • Performance level
      • Location
    Source: Talent Management & HT, 2013

    Leverage stay interviews

    Use Info-Tech’s Stay Interview Guide.

    Proactively identify opportunities to drive retention.

    The Stay Interview Guide helps managers conduct interviews with current employees, enabling the manager to understand:

    • The employee's current engagement level.
    • The employee's satisfaction with current role and responsibilities.
    • Suggestions for potential improvements.
    • An employee's intent to stay with the organization.

    Use this template to help you understand how you can best engage your employees and identify any challenges, in terms of moments that mattered, that negatively impacted their intention to stay at the organization.

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's Stay Interview Guide.

    2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

    1. If you are using the Employee Experience Monitor, prepare for your stay interviews by reviewing your results and identifying if there have been any changes in the results over the previous six weeks. Identify which demographics have the highest and lowest engagement levels – and identify any changes in experience between different demographics.
    2. Identify a meeting schedule and cadence that seems appropriate for your stay interviews. For example, you likely will not do all staff at the same time and it may be beneficial to space out your meetings throughout the year. Select a candidate for your first stay interview and invite them for a one-on-one meeting. If it’s unusual for you to meet with this employee, we recommend providing some light context around the rationale, such as that you are looking for opportunities to strengthen the organizational culture and better understand how you can improve retention and engagement at the organization.
    3. Download the Stay Interview Template, review all of the questions beforehand, and identify the key questions that you want to ask in the meeting.
    • TIP: Even though this is called a “stay interview,” really it should be more of a conversation, and certainly not an interrogation. Know the questions you want to ask, and ask your staff member if it’s ok if you jot down some notes. It may even be beneficial to have the meeting outside of the office, over lunch, or out for coffee.
  • Hold your meeting with the employee and thank them for their time.
  • Following the meeting, send them a thank-you email to thank them for providing feedback, summarize your top three to five key takeaways from the meeting, verify with them that this aligns with their perspective, and see if they have anything else to add to the conversation. Identify any initiatives or changes that you will make as a result of the information – set a date for execution and follow-up.
  • If you are in the process of recruiting new employees to the organization, don’t forget to remind them of your referral program and ask if they might know of any candidates that would be a good fit for the organization.
  • Download the Stay Interview Guide

    Ten tips for best managing stay interviews

    Although stay interviews are meant to be informal, you should schedule them as you would any other meeting. Simply invite the employee for a chat.

    1. Step out of the office if possible. Opt for your local coffee shop, a casual lunch destination, or another public but informal location.
    2. Keep the conversation short, no more than 15 to 20 minutes. If there are any areas of concern that you think warrant action, ask the employee if they would like to discuss them another time. Suggest another meeting to delve deeper into specific issues.
    3. Be clear about the purpose of the conversation. Stay interviews are not performance reviews.
    4. Focus on what you can do for them. Ask about the employee’s preferences when it comes to feedback and communication (frequency, method, etc.) as well as development (preferences around methods, e.g. coaching or rotations, and personal goals).
    5. Be positive. Ask your employee what they like about their job and use positively framed questions.
    6. Ask about what they like doing. People enjoy talking about what they like to do. Ask employees about the talents and skills they would like to incorporate into their work duties.
    7. Show that you’re listening – paraphrase, ask for clarification, and use appropriate gestures.
    8. Refrain from taking notes during the meeting to preserve a conversational atmosphere.
    9. Pay attention to the employee’s body language and tone. If it appears that they are uncomfortable talking to you, stop the interview or pause to let them collect themselves.
    10. Be open to suggestions, but remember that you can’t control everything. If the employee brings up issues that are beyond your control, tell them that you will do all you can to improve the situation but can’t guarantee anything.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    • To stay competitive, IT leaders need to be more involved and commit to a plan to recruit and retain people of color in their departments and organizations. A diverse team is an answer to innovation that can differentiate your company.
    • Treat recruiting and retaining a diverse team as a business challenge that requires full engagement. Info-Tech offers a targeted solution that will help IT leaders build a plan to attract, recruit, engage, and retain people of color.

    Recruit Top IT Talent

    • Changing workforce dynamics and increased transparency have shifted the power from employers to job seekers, stiffening the competition for talent.
    • Candidate expectations match high consumer expectations and affect the employer brand, the consumer brand, and overall organizational reputation. Delivering a positive candidate experience (CX2) is no longer optional.

    Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing

    • Talk is cheap. Hiring isn’t.
    • Gain insight into and understand the need for a strong interview process.
    • Strategize and plan your interview process.
    • Understand various hiring scenarios and how an interview process may be modified to reflect your organization’s scenario.

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    Angier, Michelle, and Beth Axelrod. “Realizing the power of talented women.” McKinsey Insights, Sept. 2014. Web.

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    Dixon-Fyle, Sundiatu, et al. “Diversity wins: How inclusion matters.” McKinsey & Company, 19 May 2020. Accessed 24 Feb. 2022.

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    Garner, Mandy. “How to attract and recruit a more gender diverse team.” Working Mums, 4 March 2016. Web.

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    “Girls Gone Wired Subreddit.” Reddit, n.d. Web.

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    Grant, Adam. “Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance: The Effects of Contact with Beneficiaries on Persistence Behavior.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 103, no. 1, 2007, pp. 53-67. Accessed on ScienceDirect.

    IBM Smarter Workforce Institute. The Employee Experience Index. IBM Corporation, 2016. Web.

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    Johnson, Stephanie K., David R. Hekman, and Elsa T. Chan. “If There’s Only One Woman in Your Candidate Pool, There’s Statistically No Chance She’ll Be Hired.” Harvard Business Review, 26 April 2016. Web.

    Kessler, Sarah. “Tech's Big Gender Diversity Push One Year In.” Fast Company, 19 Nov. 2015. Web.

    Kosinski, M. “Why You Might Want to Focus a Little Less on Hiring for Cultural Fit.” Recruiter.com, 11 Aug. 2015. Web.

    Krome, M. A. “Knowledge Transformation: A Case for Workforce Diversity.” Journal of Diversity Management (JDM), vol. 9, no. 2, Nov. 2014, pp. 103-110.

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    Snyder, Kieran. “Why women leave tech: It's the culture, not because 'math is hard'.” Fortune, 2 Oct. 2014. Web.

    Stackpole, Beth. “5 ways to attract and retain female technologists.” Computerworld, 7 March 2016. Web.

    Sullivan, John. “4 Stay Interview Formats You Really Should Consider.” Talent Management & HT, 5 Dec. 2013. Web.

    Syed, Nurhuda. “IWD 2021: Why Are Women Underrepresented in the C-Suite?” HRD America, 5 March 2021. Web.

    Sylvester, Cheryl. “How to empower women in IT (and beyond) on #InternationalWomenDay.” ITBUSINESS.CA, 31 March 2016. Web.

    “The Power of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality in the United States.” McKinsey Global Institute, April 2016. Web.

    White, Cindy. “How to Promote Gender Equality in the Workplace.” Chron, 8 Aug. 2018. Web.

    White, Sarah. “Women in Tech Statistics: The Hard Truths of an Uphill Battle.” CIO From IDG Communication, Inc., 8 March 2021. Accessed 24 Feb. 2022.

    Select and Implement an IT PPM Solution

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
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    • The number of IT project resources and the quantity of IT projects and tasks can no longer be recorded, prioritized, and tracked using non-commercial project portfolio management (PPM) solutions.
    • Your organization has attained a moderate level of PPM maturity.
    • You have sufficient financial and technical resources to purchase a commercial PPM solution.
    • There is a wide variety of commercial PPM solutions; different kinds of PPM solutions are more appropriate for organizations of a certain size and a certain PPM maturity level than others.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Implementations of PPM solutions are often unsuccessful resulting in wasted time and resources; failing to achieve sustainable adoption of the tool is a widespread pain point.
    • The costs of PPM solutions do not end after the implementation and subscription invoices are paid. Have realistic expectations about the time required to use and maintain PPM solutions to ensure success.
    • PPM solutions help PMOs serve the organization’s core decision makers. Success depends on improved service to these stakeholders.

    Impact and Result

    • Using Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape and PPM solution use cases, you will be able to make sense of the diversity of PPM solutions available in today’s market and choose the most appropriate solution for your organization’s size and level of PPM maturity.
    • Info-Tech’s blueprint for a PPM solution selection and implementation project will provide you with a variety of tools and templates.
    • A carefully planned out and executed selection and implementation process will help ensure your organization can maximize the value of your project portfolio and will allow the PMO to improve portfolio stakeholder satisfaction.

    Select and Implement an IT PPM Solution Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement a commercial PPM solution, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Launch the PPM solution project and collect requirements

    Create a PPM solution selection and implementation project charter and gather your organizations business and technical requirements.

    • Select and Implement a PPM Solution – Phase 1: Launch the PPM Solution Project and Collect Requirements
    • PPM Solution Project Charter Template
    • PPM Implementation Work Breakdown Structure
    • PPM Solution Requirements Gathering Tool
    • PPM Solution Cost-of-Use Estimation Tool
    • PPM Solution RFP Template
    • PPM Solution Success Metrics Workbook
    • PPM Solution Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool

    2. Select a PPM solution

    Select the most appropriate PPM solution for your organization by using Info-Tech’s PPM solution Vendor Landscape and use cases to help you create a vendor shortlist, produce an RFP, and establish evaluation criteria for ranking your shortlisted solutions.

    • Select and Implement a PPM Solution – Phase 2: Select a PPM Solution
    • PPM Vendor Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool
    • PPM Solution Vendor Response Template
    • PPM Solution Evaluation & RFP Scoring Tool
    • PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script

    3. Plan the PPM solution implementation

    Plan a PPM solution implementation that will result in long-term sustainable adoption of the tool and that will allow the PMO to meet the needs of core project portfolio stakeholders.

    • Select and Implement a PPM Solution – Phase 3: Plan the PPM Solution Implementation
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select and Implement an IT PPM Solution

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

    1 Launch the PPM Solution Project and Gather Requirements

    The Purpose

    Create a PPM solution selection and implementation project charter.

    Gather the business and technical requirements for the PPM solution.

    Establish clear and measurable success criteria for your PPM solution project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Comprehensive project plan

    Comprehensive and organized record of the various PPM solution requirements

    A record of PPM solution project goals and criteria that can be used in the future to establish the success of the project

    Activities

    1.1 Brainstorm, refine, and prioritize your PPM solution needs

    1.2 Stakeholder identification exercise

    1.3 Project charter work session

    1.4 Requirements gathering work session

    1.5 PPM solution success metrics workbook session

    Outputs

    High-level outline of PPM solution requirements

    Stakeholder consultation plan

    A draft project charter and action plan to fill in project charter gaps

    A draft requirements workbook and action plan to fill in requirement gathering gaps

    A PPM project success metrics workbook that can be used during and after the project

    2 Select a PPM Solution

    The Purpose

    Identify the PPM solutions that are most appropriate for your organization’s size and level of PPM maturity.

    Create a PPM solution and vendor shortlist.

    Create a request for proposal (RFP).

    Create a PPM solution scoring and evaluation tool.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Knowledge of the PPM solution market and the various features available

    An informed shortlist of PPM vendors

    An organized and focused method for evaluating the often long and complex responses to the RFP that vendors provide

    The groundwork for an informed and defensible selection of a PPM solution for your organization

    Activities

    2.1 Assess the size of your organization and the level of PPM maturity to select the most appropriate use case

    2.2 PPM solution requirements and criteria ranking activity

    2.3 An RFP working session

    2.4 Build an RFP evaluation tool

    Outputs

    Identification of the most appropriate use case in Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape

    A refined and organized list of the core features that will be included in the RFP

    A draft RFP with an action plan to fill in any RFP gaps

    An Excel tool that can be used to compare and evaluate vendors’ responses to the RFP

    3 Prepare for the PPM Solution Implementation

    The Purpose

    To think ahead to the eventual implementation of the solution that will occur once the selection phase is completed

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of key insights and steps that will help avoid mistakes resulting in poor adoption or PPM solutions that end up producing little tangible value

    Activities

    3.1 Outline high-level implementation stages

    3.2 Organizational change management strategy session

    3.3 A PPM project success metrics planning session

    Outputs

    High-level implementation tasks and milestones

    A RACI chart for core implementation tasks

    A high-level PPM solution implementation organizational change management strategy

    A RACI chart for core organizational change management tasks related to the PPM solution implementation

    A PPM project success metrics schedule and plan

    Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
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    • IT needs a method to pinpoint which contact center solution best aligns with business objectives, adapting to a post-COVID world of remote work, flexibility, and scalability.
    • Scoring RFP and RFQ proposals is a complex process, and it is difficult to map and gap without a clear view of the organization’s needs. SOWs can contain pitfalls that cause expensive headaches for the organization in the long run. Guidance through a SOW is required to best represent the organization’s interests.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • “On-premises versus cloud” is a false dichotomy. Contact center architectures come in all shapes and sizes, and organizations should discern whether a hybrid option best meets their needs.
    • Contact centers should service customers – not capabilities. Capabilities must work for you, your agents, and your customers – not the other way around.
    • Deliverables and responsibilities should be a contract’s focal point. While organizations are right to focus on avoiding unanticipated license charges, it is more important to clearly define how deliverables and responsibilities will be divided among the organization, the vendor, and potential third parties.

    Impact and Result

    • Assess the array of contact center architectures with Info-Tech’s Contact Center Decision Points Tool to select a right-sized solution.
    • Build business requirements in a formalized process to achieve stakeholder buy-in.
    • Use Info-Tech’s Contact Center RFP Scoring Tool to evaluate and choose from a range of vendors.
    • Successfully navigate and avoid major pitfalls in a SOW construction.
    • Justify each stage of the process with this blueprint’s key deliverable: the Contact Center Playbook.

    Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to examine the current contact center marketspace, review Info-Tech’s methodology for choosing a right-sized contact center solution, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Assess Contact Center Architectures

    Establish your project vision and metrics of success before shortlisting potential contact center architectures and deciding which is right-sized for the organization.

    • Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution – Phase 1: Assess Contact Center Architectures
    • Contact Center Playbook
    • Contact Center Decision Points Tool

    2. Gather Requirements and Shortlist Vendors

    Build business requirements to achieve stakeholder buy-in, define key deliverables, and issue an RFP/RFQ to shortlisted vendors.

    • Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution – Phase 2: Gather Requirements and Shortlist Vendors
    • Requirements Gathering Documentation Tool
    • Lean RFP Template
    • Contact Center Business Requirements Document
    • Request for Quotation Template
    • Long-Form RFP Template

    3. Score Vendors and Construct SOW

    Score RFP/RFQ responses and decide upon a vendor before constructing a SOW.

    • Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution – Phase 3: Score Vendors and Construct SOW
    • Contact Center RFP Scoring Tool
    • Contact Center SOW Template and Guide
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution

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

    1 Assess Architecture

    The Purpose

    Shortlist and decide upon a right-sized contact center architecture.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A high-level decision for a right-sized architecture

    Activities

    1.1 Define vision and mission statements.

    1.2 Identify infrastructure metrics of success.

    1.3 Confirm key performance indicators for contact center operations.

    1.4 Complete architecture assessment.

    1.5 Confirm right-sized architecture.

    Outputs

    Project outline

    Metrics of success

    KPIs confirmed

    Quickly narrow down right-sized architecture

    Decision on right-sized contact center architecture

    2 Gather Requirements

    The Purpose

    Build business requirements and define key deliverables to achieve stakeholder buy-in and shortlist potential vendors.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Key deliverables defined and a shortlist of no more than five vendors

    Sections 7-8 of the Contact Center Playbook completed

    Activities

    2.1 Hold focus groups with key stakeholders.

    2.2 Gather business, nonfunctional, and functional requirements.

    2.3 Define key deliverables.

    2.4 Shortlist five vendors that appear meet those requirements.

    Outputs

    User requirements identified

    Business Requirements Document completed

    Key deliverables defined

    Shortlist of five vendors

    3 Initial Vendor Scoring

    The Purpose

    Compare and evaluate shortlisted vendors against gathered requirements.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Have a strong overview of which vendors are preferred for issuing RFP/RFQ

    Section 9 of the Contact Center Playbook

    Activities

    3.1 Input requirements to the Contact Center RFP Scoring Tool. Define which are mandatory and which are desirable.

    3.2 Determine which vendors best meet requirements.

    3.3 Compare requirements met with anticipated TCO.

    3.4 Compare and rank vendors.

    Outputs

    An assessment of requirements

    Vendor scoring

    A holistic overview of requirements scoring and vendor TCO

    An initial ranking of vendors to shape RFP process after workshop end

    4 SOW Walkthrough

    The Purpose

    Walk through the Contact Center SOW Template and Guide to identify how much time to allocate per section and who will be responsible for completing it.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of a SOW that is designed to avoid major pitfalls with vendor management

    Section 10 of the Contact Center Playbook

    Activities

    4.1 Get familiar with the SOW structure.

    4.2 Identify which sections will demand greater time allocation.

    4.3 Strategize how to avoid potential pitfalls.

    4.4 Confirm reviewer responsibilities.

    Outputs

    A broad understanding of a SOW’s key sections

    A determination of how much time should be allocated for reviewing major sections

    A list of ways to avoid major pitfalls with vendor management

    A list of reviewers, the sections they are responsible for reviewing, and their time allocation for their review

    5 Communicate and Implement

    The Purpose

    Finalize deliverables and plan post-workshop communications.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A completed Contact Center Playbook that justifies each decision of this workshop

    Activities

    5.1 Finalize deliverables.

    5.2 Support communication efforts.

    5.3 Identify resources in support of priority initiatives.

    Outputs

    Contact Center Playbook delivered

    Post-workshop engagement to confirm satisfaction

    Follow-up research that complements the workshop or leads workshop group in relevant new directions

    Transition Projects Over to the Service Desk

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
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    • IT suffers from a lack of strategy and plan for transitioning support processes to the service desk.
    • Lack of effective communication between the project delivery team and the service desk, leads to an inefficient knowledge transfer to the service desk.
    • New service is not prioritized and categorized, negatively impacting service levels and end-user satisfaction.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Make sure to build a strong knowledge management strategy to identify, capture, and transfer knowledge from project delivery to the service desk.

    Impact and Result

    • Build touchpoints between the service desk and project delivery team and make strategic points in the project lifecycles to ensure service support is done effectively following the product launch.
    • Develop a checklist of action items on the initiatives that should be done following project delivery.
    • Build a training plan into the strategy to make sure service desk agents can handle tickets independently.

    Transition Projects Over to the Service Desk Research & Tools

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

    1. Transition Projects Over to the Service Desk – A guideline to walk you through transferring project support to the service desk.

    This storyboard will help you craft a project support plan to document information to streamline service support.

    • Transition Projects Over to the Service Desk Storyboard

    2. Project Handover and Checklist – A structured document to help you record information on the project and steps to take to transfer support.

    Use these two templates as a means of collaboration with the service desk to provide information on the application/product, and steps to take to make sure there are efficient service processes and knowledge is appropriately transferred to the service desk to support the service.

    • Project Handover Template
    • Service Support Transitioning Checklist
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Transition Projects Over to the Service Desk

    Increase the success of project support by aligning your service desk and project team.

    Analyst Perspective

    Formalize your project support plan to shift customer service to the service desk.

    Photo of Mahmoud Ramin, Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

    As a service support team member, you receive a ticket from an end user about an issue they’re facing with a new application. You are aware of the application release, but you don’t know how to handle the issue. So, you will need to either spend a long time investigating the issue via peer discussion and research or escalate it to the project team.

    Newly developed or improved services should be transitioned appropriately to the support team. Service transitioning should include planning, coordination, and communication. This helps project and support teams ensure that upon a service failure, affected end users receive timely and efficient customer support.

    At the first level, the project team and service desk should build a strategy around transitioning service support to the service desk by defining tasks, service levels, standards, and success criteria.

    In the second step, they should check the service readiness to shift support from the project team to the service desk.

    The next step is training on the new services via efficient communication and coordination between the two parties. The project team should allocate some time, according to the designed strategy, to train the service desk on the new/updated service. This will enable the service desk to provide independent service handling.

    This research walks you through the above steps in more detail and helps you build a checklist of action items to streamline shifting service support to the service desk.

    Mahmoud Ramin, PhD

    Senior Research Analyst
    Infrastructure and Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • IT suffers from a lack of strategy and planning for transitioning support processes to the service desk.
    • Lack of effective communication between the project delivery team and the service desk leads to an inefficient knowledge transfer to the service desk.
    • New service is not prioritized and categorized, negatively impacting service levels and end-user satisfaction.

    Common Obstacles

    • Building the right relationship between the service desk and project team is challenging, making support transition tedious.
    • The service desk is siloed; tasks and activities are loosely defined. Service delivery is inconsistent, which impacts customer satisfaction.
    • Lack of training on new services forces the service desk to unnecessarily escalate tickets to other levels and delays service delivery.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Build touchpoints between the service desk and project delivery team and make strategic points in the project lifecycles to ensure service support is done effectively following the product launch.
    • Develop a checklist of action items on the initiatives that should be done following project delivery.
    • Build a training plan into the strategy to make sure service desk agents can handle tickets independently.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make sure to build a strong knowledge management strategy to identify, capture, and transfer knowledge from project delivery to the service desk.

    A lack of formal service transition process presents additional challenges

    When there is no formal transition process following a project delivery, it will negatively impact project success and customer satisfaction.

    Service desk team:

    • You receive a request from an end user to handle an issue with an application or service that was recently released. You are aware of the features but don’t know how to solve this issue particularly.
    • You know someone in the project group who is familiar with the service, as he was involved in the project. You reach out to him, but he is very busy with another project.
    • You get back to the user to let them know that this will be done as soon as the specialist is available. But because there is no clarity on the scope of the issue, you cannot tell them when this will be resolved.
    • Lack of visibility and commitment to the service recovery will negatively impact end-user satisfaction with the service desk.

    Project delivery team:

    • You are working on an exciting project, approaching the deadline. Suddenly, you receive a ticket from a service desk agent asking you to solve an incident on a product that was released three months ago.
    • Given the deadline on the current project, you are stressed, thinking about just focusing on the projects. On the other hand, the issue with the other service is impacting multiple users and requires much attention.
    • You spend extra time handling the issue and get back to your project. But a few days later the same agent gets back to you to take care of the same issue.
    • This is negatively impacting your work quality and causing some friction between the project team and the service desk.

    Link how improvement in project transitioning to the service desk can help service support

    A successful launch can still be a failure if the support team isn't fully informed and prepared.

    • In such a situation, the project team sends impacted users a mass notification without a solid plan for training and no proper documentation.
    • To provide proper customer service, organizations should involve several stakeholder groups to collaborate for a seamless transition of projects to the service desk.
    • This shift in service support takes time and effort; however, via proper planning there will be less confusion around customer service, and it will be done much faster.
      • For instance, if AppDev is customizing an ERP solution without considering knowledge transfer to the service desk, relevant tickets will be unnecessarily escalated to the project team.
    • On the other hand, the service desk should update configuration items (CIs) and the service catalog and related requests, incidents, problems, and workarounds to the relevant assets and configurations.
    • In this transition process, knowledge transfer plays a key role. Users, the service desk, and other service support teams need to know how the new application or service works and how to manage it when an issue arises.
    • Without a knowledge transfer, service support will be forced to either reinvent the wheel or escalate the ticket to the development team. This will unnecessarily increase the time for ticket handling, increase cost per ticket, and reduce end-user satisfaction.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Involve the service desk in the transition process via clear communication, knowledge transfer, and staff training.

    Integrate the service desk into the project management lifecycle for a smooth transition of service support

    Service desk involvement in the development, testing, and maintenance/change activity steps of your project lifecycle will help you logically define the category and priority level of the service and enable service level improvement accordingly after the project goes live.

    Project management lifecycle

    As some of the support and project processes can be integrated, responsibility silos should be broken

    Processes are done by different roles. Determine roles and responsibilities for the overlapping processes to streamline service support transition to the service desk.

    The project team is dedicated to projects, while the support team focuses on customer service for several products.

    Siloed responsibilities:

    • Project team transfers the service fully to the service desk and leaves technicians alone for support without a good knowledge transfer.
    • Specialists who were involved in the project have deep knowledge about the product, but they are not involved in incident or problem management.
    • Service desk was not involved in the planning and execution processes, which leads to lack of knowledge about the product. This leaves the support team with some vague knowledge about the service, which negatively impacts the quality of incident and problem management.

    How to break the silos:

    Develop a tiered model for the service desk and include project delivery in the specialist tier.

    • Use tier 1 (service desk) as a single point of contact to support all IT services.
    • Have tier 2/3 as experts in technology. These agents are a part of the project team. They are also involved in incident management, root-cause analysis, and change management.

    Determine the interfaces

    At the project level, get a clear understanding of support capabilities and demands, and communicate them to the service desk to proactively bring them into the planning step.

    The following questions help you with an efficient plan for support transition

    Questions for support transition

    Clear responsibilities help you define the level of involvement in the overlapping processes

    Conduct a stakeholder analysis to identify the people that can help ensure the success of the transition.

    Goal: Create a prioritized list of people who are affected by the new service and will provide support.

    Why is stakeholder analysis essential?

    Why is stakeholder analysis essential

    Identify the tasks that are required for a successful project handover

    Embed the tasks that the project team should deliver before handing support to the service desk.

    Task/Activity Example

    Conduct administrative work in the application

    • New user setup
    • Password reset

    Update documentation

    • Prepare for knowledge transfer>
    Service request fulfillment/incident management
    • Assess potential bugs
    Technical support for systems troubleshooting
    • Configure a module in ITSM solution

    End-user training

    • FAQs
    • How-to questions
    Service desk training
    • Train technicians for troubleshooting

    Support management (monitoring, meeting SLAs)

    • Monitoring
    • Meeting SLAs

    Report on the service transitioning

    • Transition effectiveness
    • Four-week warranty period
    Ensure all policies follow the transition activities
    • The final week of transition, the service desk will be called to a meeting for final handover of incidents and problems

    Integrate project description and service priority throughout development phase

    Include the service desk in discussions about project description, so it will be enabled to define service priority level.

    • Project description will be useful for bringing the project forward to the change advisory board (CAB) for approval and setting up the service in the CMDB.
    • Service priority is used for adding the next layer of attributes to the CMDB for the service and ensuring the I&O department can set up systems monitoring.
    • This should be done early in the process in conjunction with the project manager and business sponsors.
    • It should be done as the project gets underway and the team can work on specifically where that milestone will be in each project.
    • What to include in the project description:
      • Name
      • Purpose
      • Publisher
      • Departments that will use the service
      • Service information
      • Regulatory constrains
    • What to include in the service priority information:
      • Main users
      • Number of users
      • Service requirements
      • System interdependencies
      • Criticality of the dependent systems
      • Service category
      • Service SME and support backup
      • System monitoring resources
      • Alert description and flow

    Document project description and service priority in the Project Handover Template.

    Embed service levels and maintenance information

    Include the service desk in discussions about project description, so it will be enabled to define service priority level.

    • Service level objectives (SLOs) will be added to CMDB to ensure the product is reviewed for business continuity and disaster recovery and that the service team knows what is coming.
    • This step will be good to start thinking about training agents and documenting knowledgebase (KB) articles.
    • What to include in SLO:
      • Response time
      • Resolution time
      • Escalation time
      • Business owner
      • Service owner
      • Vendor(s)
      • Vendor warranties
      • Data archiving/purging
      • Availability list
      • Business continuity/recovery objectives
      • Scheduled reports
      • Problem description
    • Maintenance and change requirements: You should add maintenance windows to the change calendar and ensure the maintenance checklist is added to KB articles and technician schedules.
    • What to include in maintenance and change requirements:
      • Scheduled events for the launch
      • Maintenance windows
      • Module release
      • Planned upgrades
      • Anticipated intervals for changes and trigger points
      • Scheduled batches

    Document service level objectives and maintenance in the Project Handover Template.

    Enhance communication between the project team and the service desk

    Communicating with the service desk early and often will ensure that agents fully get a deep knowledge of the new technology.

    Transition of a project to the service desk includes both knowledge transfer and execution transfer.

    01

    Provide training and mentoring to ensure technical knowledge is passed on.

    02

    Transfer leadership responsibilities by appointing the right people.

    03

    Transfer support by strategically assigning workers with the right technical and interpersonal skills.

    04

    Transfer admin rights to ensure technicians have access rights for troubleshooting.

    05

    Create support and a system to transfer work process. For example, using an online platform to store knowledge assets is a great way for support to access project information.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A communication plan and executive presentation will help project managers outline recommendations and communicate their benefits.

    Communicate reasons for projects and how they will be implemented

    Proactive communication of the project to affected stakeholders will help get their buy-in for the new technology and feedback for better support.

    Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state, that makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff.

    The message should:

    • Explain why the change or new application is needed.
    • Summarize what will stay the same.
    • Highlight what will be left behind.
    • Emphasize what is being changed due to the new or updated product.
    • Explain how the application will be implemented.
    • Address how this will affect various roles in the organization.
    • Discuss the staff’s role in making the project successful.
    • Communicate the supporting roles in the early implementation stages and later on.

    Five elements of communicating change

    Implement knowledge transfer to the service desk to ensure tickets won’t be unnecessarily escalated

    The support team usually uses an ITSM solution, while the project team mostly uses a project management solution. End users’ support is done and documented in the ITSM tool.

    Even terminologies used by these teams are different. For instance, service desk’s “incident” is equivalent to a project manager’s “defect.” Without proper integration of the development and support processes, the contents get siloed and outdated over time.

    Potential ways to deal with this challenge:

    Use the same platform for both project and service support

    This helps you document information in a single platform and provides better visibility of the project status to the support team as well. It also helps project team find out change-related incidents for a faster rollback.

    Note: This is not always feasible because of the high costs incurred in purchasing a new application with both ITSM and PM capabilities and the long time it takes for implementing such a solution.

    Integrate the PM and ITSM tools to improve transition efficiency

    Note: Consider the processes that should be integrated. Don’t integrate unnecessary steps in the development stage, such as design, which will not be helpful for support transition.

    Build a training plan for the new service

    When a new system is introduced or significant changes are applied, describe the steps and timeline for training.

    Training the service desk has two-fold benefits:
    Improve support:
    • Support team gets involved in user acceptance testing, which will provide feedback on potential bugs or failures in the technology.
    • Collaboration between specialists and tier 1 technicians will allow the service desk to gather information for handling potential incidents on the application.
    Shift-left enablement:
    • At the specialist level, agents will be more focused on other projects and spend less time on application issues, as they are mostly handled by the service desk.
    • As you shift service support left:
      • Cost per ticket decreases as more of the less costly resources are doing the work.
      • Average time to resolve decreases as the ticket is handled by the service desk.
      • End-user satisfaction increases as they don’t need to wait long for resolution.

    Who resolves the incident

    For more information about shift-left enablement, refer to InfoTech’s blueprint Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy.

    Integrate knowledge management in the transition plan

    Build a knowledge transfer process to streamline service support for the newly developed technology.

    Use the following steps to ensure the service desk gets trained on the new project.

    1. Identify learning opportunities.
    2. Prioritize the identified opportunities based on:
    • Risk of lost knowledge
    • Impact of knowledge on support improvement
  • Define ways to transfer knowledge from the project team to the service desk. These could be:
    • One-on-one meetings
    • Mentoring sessions
    • Knowledgebase articles
    • Product road test
    • Potential incident management shadowing
  • Capture and transfer knowledge (via the identified means).
  • Support the service desk with further training if the requirement arises.
  • Info-Tech Insight

    Allocate knowledge transfer within ticket handling workflows. When incident is resolved by a specialist, they will assess if it is a good candidate for technician training and/or a knowledgebase article. If so, the knowledge manager will be notified of the opportunity to assign it to a SME for training and documentation of an article.

    For more information about knowledge transfer, refer to phase 3 of Info-Tech’s blueprint Standardize the Service Desk.

    Focus on the big picture first

    Identify training functions and plan for a formal knowledge transfer

    1. Brainstorm training functions for each group.
    2. Determine the timeline needed to conduct training for the identified training topics.
    RoleTraining FunctionTimeline

    Developer/Technical Support

    • Coach the service desk on the new application
    • Document relevant KB articles
    Business Analysts
    • Conduct informational interviews for new business requirements

    Service Desk Agents

    • Conduct informational interviews
    • Shadow incident management procedures
    • Document lessons learned
    Vendor
    • Provide cross-training to support team

    Document your knowledge transfer plan in the Project Handover Template.

    Build a checklist of the transition action items

    At this stage, the project is ready to go live and support needs to be independently done by the service desk.

    Checklist of the transition action items

    Info-Tech Insight

    No matter how well training is done, specialists may need to work on critical incidents and handle emergency changes. With effective service support and transition planning, you can make an agreement between the incident manager, change manager, and project manager on a timeline to balance critical incident or emergency change management and project management and define your SLA.

    Activity: Prepare a checklist of initiatives before support transition

    2-3 hours

    Document project support information and check off each support transition initiative as you shift service support to the service desk.

    1. As a group, review the Project Handover Template that you filled out in the previous steps.
    2. Download the Service Support Transitioning Checklist, and review the items that need to be done throughout the development, testing, and deployment steps of your project.
    3. Brainstorm at what step service desk needs to be involved.
    4. As you go through each initiative and complete it, check it off to make sure you are following the agreed document for a smooth transition of service support.
    Input Output
    • Project information
    • Support information for developed application/service
    • List of transitioning initiatives
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Project Handover Template
    • Service Support Transitioning Checklist
    • Project Team
    • Service Desk Manager
    • IT Lead

    Download the Project Handover Template

    Download the Service Support Transitioning Checklist

    Define metrics to track the success of project transition

    Consider key metrics to speak the language of targeted end users.

    You won’t know if transitioning support processes are successful unless you measure their impact. Find out your objectives for project transition and then track metrics that will allow you to fulfill these goals.

    Determine critical success factors to help you find out key metrics:

    High quality of the service

    Effectiveness of communication of the transition

    Manage risk of failure to help find out activities that will mitigate risk of service disruption

    Smooth and timely transition of support to the service desk

    Efficient utilization of the shared services and resources to mitigate conflicts and streamline service transitioning

    Suggested metrics:

    • Time to fulfill requests and resolve incidents for the new project
    • Time spent training the service desk
    • Number of knowledgebase articles created by the project team
    • Percentage of articles used by the service desk that prevented ticket escalation
    • First-level resolution
    • Ratio of escalated tickets for the new project
    • Problem ticket volume for the new project
    • Average customer satisfaction with the new project support
    • SLA breach rate

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Following the steps outlined in this research has helped you build a strategy to shift service support from the project team to the service desk, resulting in an improvement in customer service and agent satisfaction.

    You have also developed a plan to break the silo between the service desk and specialists and enable knowledge transfer so the service desk will not need to unnecessarily escalate tickets to developers. In the meantime, specialists are also responsible for service desk training on the new application.

    Efficient communication of service levels has helped the project team set clear expectations for managers to create a balance between their projects and service support.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Standardize the Service Desk

    Improve customer service by driving consistency in your support approach and meeting SLAs.

    Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

    The best type of service desk ticket is the one that doesn’t exist.

    Tailor IT Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects

    Right-size PMBOK for all of your IT projects.

    Works Cited

    Brown, Josh. “Knowledge Transfer: What it is & How to Use it Effectively.” Helpjuice, 2021. Accessed November 2022.

    Magowan, Kirstie. “Top ITSM Metrics & KPIs: Measuring for Success, Aiming for Improvement.” BMC Blogs, 2020. Accessed November 2022.

    “The Complete Blueprint for Aligning Your Service Desk and Development Teams (Process Integration and Best Practices).” Exalate, 2021. Accessed October 2022.

    “The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, 2010. Web.

    Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
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    It used to be easy: pick your cloud, build out your IT footprint, and get back to business. But the explosion of cloud adoption has also led to an explosion of options for cloud providers, platforms, and deployment options. And that’s just when talking about infrastructure as a service!

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Multicloud isn’t good or bad; it’s inevitable.
    • Embracing multicloud in your organization is an opportunity to gain control while enabling choice. Although it increases complexity for both IT operations and governance, with the right tools and principles in place you can reduce the IT burden and increase business agility at the same time.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand what multicloud is, what it isn’t, and why you need to accept it in your organization.
    • Keep your cloud strategy but adapt your approach and tools.
    • Leverage best practices and principles that will help you keep control of the volatility and complexity that comes with multicloud.

    Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Research & Tools

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

    1. Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Storyboard – A deck that helps you implement best practices for your multicloud strategy.

    Use this research to understand the risks and benefits that come with a multicloud posture.

    • Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Storyboard

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud

    The heterogeneous ecosystem is worth it; you just need a cohesive strategy.

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    It used to be easy: pick your cloud, build out your IT footprint, and get back to business. But the explosion of cloud adoption has also led to an explosion of options for cloud providers, platforms, and deployment. And that’s just when talking about infrastructure as a service!

    For many businesses, one of the key benefits of the cloud ecosystem is enabling choice for different users, groups, and projects in the organization. But this means embracing multiple cloud platforms. Is it worth it?

    The reality is that multicloud is inevitable for most organizations, and if it’s not yet a reality for your IT team, it soon will be. This brings new challenges:

    1. How do I decide what platforms and offerings to use where? Is my old cloud strategy obsolete?
    2. How do I identify what I want out of multicloud, and what tools and best practices need to be in place to keep control?

    By defining your end goals, framing solutions based on the type of visibility and features your multicloud footprint needs to deliver, you can enable choice and improve performance, flexibility, and availability.

    1. Understand what multicloud is, what it isn’t, and why you need to accept it in your organization.
    2. Keep your cloud strategy but adapt your approach and tools.
    3. Leverage best practices and principles that will help you keep control of the volatility and complexity that comes with multicloud.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Embracing multicloud in your organization is an opportunity to gain control while enabling choice. Although it increases complexity for both IT operations and governance, with the right tools and principles in place you can reduce the IT burden and increase business agility at the same time.

    Project overview

    Multicloud isn’t good or bad; it’s inevitable

    The reality is multicloud is usually not a choice. For most organizations, the requirement to integrate with partners, subsidiaries, and parent organizations, as well as the need to access key applications in the software-as-a-service ecosystem, means that going multicloud is a matter of when, not if.

    The real question most businesses should ask is not whether to go multicloud, but rather how to land in multicloud with intent and use it to their best advantage.

    Your workloads will guide the way

    One piece of good news is that multicloud doesn’t change the basic principles of a good cloud strategy. In fact, a well-laid-out multicloud approach can make it even easier to put the right workloads in the right place – and then even move them around as needed.

    This flexibility isn’t entirely free, though. It’s important to know how and when to apply this type of portability and balance its benefits against the cost and complexity that come with it.

    Don’t fall in reactively; land on your feet

    Despite the risks that come with the increased scale and complexity of multicloud, it is possible to maintain control, realize the benefits, and even use multicloud as a springboard for leveraging cloud benefits in your business. By adopting best practices and forethought in key areas of multicloud risk, you can hit the ground running.

    Aligning the terms

    Modern organizations have multiple IT footprints. How do we classify different stances?

    01 Hybrid Cloud
    Private cloud and public cloud infrastructure managed as one entity

    02 Multicloud
    Includes multiple distinct public cloud services, or “footprints”

    03 Hybrid IT
    Putting the right workloads in the right places with an overall management framework

    Info-Tech Insight

    • Hybrid cloud is about applying the same service model across multiple deployment models (most commonly public and private clouds).
    • Multicloud is about using multiple cloud offerings irrespective of differences in service model or deployment model.

    Multicloud

    • An approach that includes multiple distinct public cloud services (e.g. AWS EC2 but also Salesforce and M365)
    • Usually defined around a steady state for each workload and footprint
    • Everything in its right place (with portability for events and disasters)
    • NOT everything everywhere all at once
    The image contains the Info-Tech thought model for multicloud.

    Multicloud is inevitable

    The SaaS ecosystem has led organizations to encourage business units to exercise the IT choices that are best for them.

    The multicloud maturity journey

    1. Move a workload to the cloud
    2. Move more workloads to the same cloud
    3. Move the right workloads to the right clouds
    4. Hybrid cloud & multicloud
    5. Integrate cloud and traditional/ on-premises footprints

    Hybrid IT: Aggregate Management, Monitoring, Optimization, Continuous Improvement

    Multicloud is about enabling choice while maintaining oversight

    The broader your footprint, the harder it becomes to manage risks across each environment.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram of maintaining oversight with multicloud.

    Managing multicloud risks

    The risks in multicloud are the same as in traditional cloud but amplified by the differences across footprints and providers in your ecosystem.

    • Variations across platforms include:
      • Rules
      • Security
      • Mapping corresponding products and services
    • Training and certifications by platform/provider
    • Managing cost across footprints
    • Complexity of integration
    • Managing compliance across platforms
    • Loss of standardization due to multicloud fragmentation

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Each cloud platform you adopt in your multicloud posture requires training, knowledge, and execution. If you’re already leveraging an ecosystem of cloud providers, leverage the ecosystem of cloud enablers as needed to help you on your way.

    Despite the risks, multicloud is a springboard

    Increasing flexibility & accelerating integration

    Because multicloud increases the number of platforms and environments available to us, we can
    use it as a way to increase our agility (from both a DevOps and a resource deployment perspective) as well as to provide an answer to the problem of vendor lock-in.

    Multicloud also can be a catalyst for integrating and stitching together resources and services that were previously isolated from each other. Because of the modular design and API architecture prevalent in cloud services, they can be easily consumed and integrated from your various footprints.

    Modernizing data strategy

    While it may seem counterintuitive, a proactive multicloud approach will allow you to regain visibility and control of your entire data ecosystem. Defining your data architecture and policies with an eye to the inevitability of multicloud means you can go beyond just regaining control of data stranded in SaaS and other platforms; you can start to really understand the flows of data and how they affect your business processes for better or worse.

    Move to cloud-native IT & design

    Embracing multicloud is also a great opportunity to embrace the refactoring and digital transformation you’ve been blocked on. Instead of treading water with respect to keeping control of fragmented applications, services, and workloads, a proactive approach to multicloud allows you to embrace open standards built to deliver cloud-native power and portability and to build automations that increase reliability, performance, and cost effectiveness while reducing your total in-house work burden.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t bite off more than you can chew! Especially with IaaS and PaaS services, it’s important to ensure you have the skills and bandwidth to manage and deploy services effectively. It’s better to start with one IaaS platform, master it, and then expand.

    Let your workloads guide the way

    Multicloud is a road to best-of-breed everything


    A screenshot of multiclouds.

    Stick with a workload-level approach

    The principles of cloud strategy don’t change with multicloud! The image contains a screenshot of a workload-level approach.
    If anything, a multicloud approach increases your ability to put the right workloads in the right places, wherever that may be.
    It can also (with some work and tooling) provide even broader options for portability and resilience.

    Multicloud = multiple right places

    Put everything in its right place.

    Just like with any cloud strategy, start with a workload-level approach and figure out the right migration path and landing point for your workload in cloud.

    Understand the other right places!

    Multicloud means for many workloads, especially IaaS- and PaaS-focused ones, you will have multiple footprints you can use for secondary locations as desired for portability, resilience, and high availability (with the right tooling and design).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Portability is always a matter of balancing increased flexibility, availability, and resilience against increased complexity, maintenance effort, and cost. Make sure to understand the requirement for your workloads and apply portability efforts where they make the most sense

    Your management will need to evolve

    Don’t manage multicloud with off-the-rack tools.

    The default dashboards and management tools from most cloud vendors are a great starting point when managing a single cloud. Unfortunately, most of these tools do not extend well to other platforms, which can lead to multiple dashboards for multiple footprints.

    These ultimately lead to an inability to view your multicloud portfolio in aggregate and fragmentation of metrics and management practices across your various platforms. In such a situation maintaining compliance and control of IT can become difficult, if not impossible!

    Unified standards and tools that work across your entire cloud portfolio will help keep you on track, and the best way to realize these is by applying repeatable, open standards across your various environments and usually adopting new software and tools from the ecosystem of multicloud management software platforms available in the market.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Even in multicloud, don’t forget that the raw data available from the vendor’s default dashboards is a critical source of information for optimizing performance, efficiency, and costs.

    Multicloud management tool selection

    The ecosystem is heterogeneous.

    The explosion of cloud platforms and stacks means no single multicloud management tool can provide support for every stack in the private and public cloud ecosystem. This challenge becomes even greater when moving from IaaS/PaaS to addressing the near-infinite number of offerings available in the SaaS market.

    When it comes to selecting the right multicloud management tool, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:

    1. Mapping your requirements to the feature sets for your multicloud management platform is critical.
    2. Depending on your goals and metrics, and the underlying platforms and data you need to collect from them, you may need more than one tool.
    3. Especially when it comes to integrating SaaS into your multicloud tool(s), development or partners may be required.

    Key Features

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across vendors
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across vendors
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Info-Tech Insight

    SaaS always presents a unique challenge for gathering necessary cloud management data. It’s important to understand what data is and isn’t available and how it can be accessed and made available to your multicloud management tools.

    Understand your vendors

    Define what you are looking for as a first step.

    • To best understand your options, you need to understand the focus, features, and support services for each vendor. Depending on your requirements, you may need to adopt more than one tool.
    • Remember that SaaS presents unique challenges in terms of accessing and ingesting data into your management tools. This will generally require development to leverage the provider’s API.
    • Within the following slides, you will find a defined activity with a working template that will create a vendor profile for each vendor.

    As a working example, you can review these vendors on the following slides:

    • VMware CloudHealth
    • ServiceNow ITOM
    • CloudCheckr

    Info-Tech Insight

    Creating vendor profiles will help quickly identify the management tools that meet your multicloud needs.

    Vendor Profile #1

    VMware CloudHealth

    Vendor Summary

    CloudHealth is a VMware management suite that provides visibility into VMware-based as well as public cloud platforms. CloudHealth focuses on providing visibility to costs and governance as well as applying automation and standardization of configuration and performance across cloud platforms.

    URL: cloudhealth.vmware.com

    Supported Platforms

    Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, VMware

    Feature Sets

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across platforms
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across platforms
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Vendor Profile #2

    ServiceNow ITOM

    Vendor Summary

    ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM) is a module for the ServiceNow platform that allows deep visibility and automated intervention/remediation for resources across multiple public and private cloud platforms. In addition to providing a platform for managing workload portability and costs across multiple cloud platforms, ServiceNow ITOM offers features focused on delivering “proactive digital operations with AIOps.”

    URL: servicenow.com/products/it-operations-management.html

    Supported Platforms

    Supports CloudFormation, ARM, GDM, and Terraform templates. Also provisions virtualized VMware environments.

    Feature Sets

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across platforms
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across platforms
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Vendor Profile #3

    CloudCheckr

    Vendor Summary

    CloudCheckr is a SaaS platform that provides end-to-end cloud management to control cost, ensure security, optimize resources, and enable services. Primarily focused on enabling management of public cloud services, CloudCheckr’s broad platform support and APIs can be used to deliver unified visibility across many multicloud postures.

    URL: cloudcheckr.com

    Supported Platforms

    Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, SAP Hana

    Feature Sets

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across platforms
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across platforms
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Activity

    Understand your vendor options

    This activity involves the following participants:

    • IT strategic direction decision makers
    • Cloud governance team
    • Cloud deployment team
    • Vendor and portfolio management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Vendor profile template (ppt)

    Info-Tech Insight

    This checkpoint process creates transparency around agreement costs with the business and gives the business an opportunity to reevaluate its requirements for a potentially leaner agreement.

    Create your vendor profiles

    Define what you are looking for and score vendors accordingly.

    1. Create a vendor profile for every vendor of interest.
    2. Leverage our starting list and template to track and record the advantages of each vendor.

    Vendor Profile Template

    The image contains a screenshot of a Vendor Profile Template.

    Land on your feet

    Best practices to hit the ground running in multicloud

    Focus your multicloud posture on SaaS (to start)

    SaaS

    While every service model and deployment model has its place in multicloud, depending on the requirements of the workload and the business, most organizations end up in multicloud because of the wide ecosystem of options available at the SaaS level.

    Enabling the ability to adopt SaaS offerings into your multicloud footprint should be an area of focus for most IT organizations, as it’s the easiest way to deliver business impact (without taking on additional infrastructure work).

    IaaS and PaaS

    Although IaaS and PaaS also have their place in multicloud, the benefits are usually focused more on increased portability and availability rather than on enabling business-led IT.

    Additionally, multicloud at these levels can often be complex and/or costly to implement and maintain. Make sure you understand the cost-benefit for implementing multicloud at this level!

    Where the data sits matters

    With multiple SaaS workloads as well as IaaS and PaaS footprints, one of the biggest challenges to effective multicloud is understanding where any given data is, what needs access to it, and how to stitch it all together.

    In short, you need a strategy to understand how to collect and consolidate data from your multiple footprints.

    Relying solely on the built-in tools and dashboards provided by each provider inevitably leads to data fragmentation – disparate data sets that make it difficult to gain clear, unified visibility into your cloud’s data.

    To address the challenge of fragmented data, many organizations will require a multicloud-capable management platform that can provide access and visibility to data from all sources in a unified way.

    Weigh portability against nativeness

    When it comes to multicloud, cloud-native design is both your enemy and your friend. On one hand, it provides the ability to fully leverage the power and flexibility of your chosen platform to run your workload in the most on-demand, performance-efficient, utility-optimized way possible.

    But it’s important to remember that building cloud-native for one platform directly conflicts with that workload’s portability to other platforms! You need to understand the balance between portability and native effectiveness that works best for each of your workloads.

    Info-Tech Insight

    You can (sort of) have the best of both worlds! While the decision to focus on the cloud-native products, services, and functions from a given cloud platform must be weighed carefully, it’s still a good idea to leverage open standards and architectures for your workloads, as those won’t hamper your portability in the same way.

    Broaden your cost management approach

    Even on singular platforms, cloud cost management is no easy task. In multicloud, this is amplified by the increased scale and scope of providers, products, rates, and units of measure.

    There is no easy solution to this – ultimately the same accountabilities and tasks that apply to good cost management on one cloud also apply to multicloud, just at greater scale and impact.

    The image contains a screenshot of cost management approach.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Evolving your tooling applies to cost management too. While the vendor-provided tools and dashboards for cost control on any given cloud provider’s platform are a good start and a critical source for data, to get a proper holistic view you will usually require multicloud cost management software (and possibly some development work).

    Think about the sky between the clouds

    A key theme in cloud service pricing is “it’s free to come in, but it costs to leave.” This is a critical consideration when designing the inflows and outflows of data, interactions, transactions, and resources among workloads sitting on different platforms and different regions or footprints.

    When defining your multicloud posture, think about what needs to flow between your various clouds and make sure to understand how these flows will affect costs, performance, and throughput of your workloads and the business processes they support.

    • Integration and Interfaces
    • Business Process and Application Flows
    • Inter-cloud Transit Costs

    Mature your management technology

    Automation Is Your Friend

    Managing multicloud is a lot of work. It makes sense to eliminate the most burdensome and error-prone tasks. Automating these tasks also increases the ease and speed of workload portability in most cases.

    Automation and scheduling are also key enablers of standardization – which is critical to managing costs and other risks in multicloud. Create policies that manage and optimize costs, resource utilization, and asset configuration. Use these to reduce the management burden and risk profile.

    Evolve Your Tooling

    Effective multicloud management requires a clear picture of your entire cloud ecosystem across all footprints. This generally isn’t possible using the default tools for any given cloud vendor. Fortunately, there is a wide ecosystem of multicloud tools to help provide you with a unified view.

    The best cloud management tools will not only allow you to get a unified view of your IT operations regardless of where the resources lie but also help you to evaluate your multiple cloud environments in a unified way, providing a level playing field to compare and identify opportunities for improvement.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Embrace openness! Leveraging open standards and technologies doesn’t just ease portability in multicloud; it also helps rationalize telemetry and metrics across platforms, making it easier to achieve a unified management view.

    Multicloud security

    Multicloud security challenges remain focused around managing user and role complexity

    • Fragmentation of identity and access management
    • Controlling access across platforms
    • Increased complexity of roles
    • API security
    • Managing different user types and subscriptions across different service models
    • Managing security best practices across multiple platforms
    • Potential increased attack surface

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t reinvent the wheel! Where possible, leverage your existing identity and access management platforms and role-based access control (RBAC) discipline and extend them out to your cloud footprints.

    Don’t fall in reactively!

    1. Multicloud isn’t bad or good.
    2. Put everything the right place; understand the other right places.
    3. Know where your data goes.
    4. Automation is your friend.
    5. Strategy fundamentals don’t change.
    6. Focus on SaaS (to start).
    7. Embrace openness.
    8. Modernize your tools.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Define Your Cloud Vision
    This blueprint covers a workload-level approach to determining cloud migration paths

    10 Secrets for Successful Disaster Recovery in the Cloud
    This research set covers general cloud best practices for implement DR and resilience in the cloud.

    Bibliography

    “7 Best Practices for Multi-Cloud Management.” vmware.com, 29 April 2022. Web.
    Brown, Chalmers. “Six Best Practices For Multi-Cloud Management.” Forbes, 22 Jan. 2019. Web.
    Curless, Tim. “The Risks of Multi-Cloud Outweigh the Benefits.” AHEAD, n.d. Web.
    Tucker, Ryan. “Multicloud Security: Challenges and Solutions.” Megaport, 29 Sept 2022. Web.
    Velimirovic, Andreja. “How to Implement a Multi Cloud Strategy.” pheonixNAP, 23 June 2021. Web.
    “What is a Multi-Cloud Strategy?” vmware.com, n.d. Web.

    Security Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Security and Risk
    • Parent Category Link: /security-and-risk

    The challenge

    You may be experiencing one or more of the following:

    • You may not have sufficient security resources to handle all the challenges.
    • Security threats are prevalent. Yet many businesses struggle to embed systemic security thinking into their culture.
    • The need to move towards strategic planning of your security landscape is evident. How to get there is another matter.

    Our advice

    Insight

    To have a successful information security strategy, take these three factors into account:

    • Holistic: your view must include people, processes, and technology.
    • Risk awareness: Base your strategy on the actual risk profile of your company. And then add the appropriate best practices.
    • Business-aligned: When your strategic security plan demonstrates alignment with the business goals and supports it, embedding will go much more straightforward.

    Impact and results 

    • We have developed a highly effective approach to creating your security strategy. We tested and refined this for more than seven years with hundreds of different organizations.
    • We ensure alignment with business objectives.
    • We assess organizational risk and stakeholder expectations.
    • We enable a comprehensive current state assessment.
    • And we prioritize initiatives and build out a right-sized security roadmap.

     

    The roadmap

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

    Get up to speed

    Read up on why you should build your customized information security strategy. Review our methodology and understand the four ways we can support you.

    Assess the security requirements

    It all starts with risk appetite, yes, but security is something you want to get right. Determine your organizations' security pressures and business goals, and then determine your security program's goals.

    • Build an Information Security Strategy – Phase 1: Assess Requirements
    • Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool (xls)
    • Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool (xls)

    Build your gap initiative

    Our best-of-breed security framework makes you perform a gap analysis between where you are and where you want to be (your target state). Once you know that, you can define your goals and duties.

    • Build an Information Security Strategy – Phase 2: Assess Gaps
    • Information Security Program Gap Analysis Tool (xls)

    Plan the implementation of your security strategy 

    With your design at this level, it is time to plan your roadmap.

    • Build an Information Security Strategy – Phase 3: Build the Roadmap

    Let it run and continuously improve. 

    Learn to use our methodology to manage security initiatives as you go. Identify the resources you need to execute the evolving strategy successfully.

    • Build an Information Security Strategy – Phase 4: Execute and Maintain
    • Information Security Strategy Communication Deck (ppt)
    • Information Security Charter (doc)

     

    Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • Companies are aware of the need to discuss and assess risk, but many struggle to do so in a systematic and repeatable way.
    • Rarely are security risks analyzed in a consistent manner, let alone in a systematic and repeatable method to determine project risk as well as overall organizational risk exposure.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The best security programs are built upon defensible risk management. With an appropriate risk management program in place, you can ensure that security decisions are made strategically instead of based on frameworks and gut feelings. This will optimize any security planning and budgeting.
    • All risks can be quantified. Security, compliance, legal, or other risks can be quantified using our methodology.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop a security risk management program to create a standardized methodology for assessing and managing the risk that information systems face.
    • Build a risk governance structure that makes it clear how security risks can be escalated within the organization and who makes the final decision on certain risks.
    • Use Info-Tech’s risk assessment methodology to quantifiably evaluate the threat severity for any new or existing project or initiative.
    • Tie together all aspects of your risk management program, including your information security risk tolerance level, threat and risk assessments, and mitigation effectiveness models.

    Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop and implement a security risk management program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Establish the risk environment

    Lay down the foundations for security risk management, including roles and responsibilities and a defined risk tolerance level.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 1: Establish the Risk Environment
    • Security Risk Governance Responsibilities and RACI Template
    • Risk Tolerance Determination Tool
    • Risk Weighting Determination Tool

    2. Conduct threat and risk assessments

    Define frequency and impact rankings then assess the risk of your project.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 2: Conduct Threat and Risk Assessments
    • Threat and Risk Assessment Process Template
    • Threat and Risk Assessment Tool

    3. Build the security risk register

    Catalog an inventory of individual risks to create an overall risk profile.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 3: Build the Security Risk Register
    • Security Risk Register Tool

    4. Communicate the risk management program

    Communicate the risk-based conclusions and leverage these in security decision making.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 4: Communicate the Risk Management Program
    • Security Risk Management Presentation Template
    • Security Risk Management Summary Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program

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

    1 Establish the Risk Environment

    The Purpose

    Build the foundation needed for a security risk management program.

    Define roles and responsibilities of the risk executive.

    Define an information security risk tolerance level.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

    Defined risk tolerance level.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the security executive function RACI chart.

    1.2 Assess business context for security risk management.

    1.3 Standardize risk terminology assumptions.

    1.4 Conduct preliminary evaluation of risk scenarios to determine your risk tolerance level.

    1.5 Decide on a custom risk factor weighting.

    1.6 Finalize the risk tolerance level.

    1.7 Begin threat and risk assessment.

    Outputs

    Defined risk executive functions

    Risk governance RACI chart

    Defined quantified risk tolerance and risk factor weightings

    2 Conduct Threat and Risk Assessments

    The Purpose

    Determine when and how to conduct threat and risk assessments (TRAs).

    Complete one or two TRAs, as time permits during the workshop.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Developed process for how to conduct threat and risk assessments.

    Deep risk analysis for one or two IT projects/initiatives.

    Activities

    2.1 Determine when to initiate a risk assessment.

    2.2 Review appropriate data classification scheme.

    2.3 Identify system elements and perform data discovery.

    2.4 Map data types to the elements.

    2.5 Identify STRIDE threats and assess risk factors.

    2.6 Determine risk actions taking place and assign countermeasures.

    2.7 Calculate mitigated risk severity based on actions.

    2.8 If necessary, revisit risk tolerance.

    2.9 Document threat and risk assessment methodology.

    Outputs

    Define scope of system elements and data within assessment

    Mapping of data to different system elements

    Threat identification and associated risk severity

    Defined risk actions to take place in threat and risk assessment process

    3 Continue to Conduct Threat and Risk Assessments

    The Purpose

    Complete one or two TRAs, as time permits during the workshop.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Deep risk analysis for one or two IT projects/initiatives, as time permits.

    Activities

    3.1 Continue threat and risk assessment activities.

    3.2 As time permits, one to two threat and risk assessment activities will be performed as part of the workshop.

    3.3 Review risk assessment results and compare to risk tolerance level.

    Outputs

    One to two threat and risk assessment activities performed

    Validation of the risk tolerance level

    4 Establish a Risk Register and Communicate Risk

    The Purpose

    Collect, analyze, and aggregate all individual risks into the security risk register.

    Plan for the future of risk management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Established risk register to provide overview of the organizational aggregate risk profile.

    Ability to communicate risk to other stakeholders as needed.

    Activities

    4.1 Begin building a risk register.

    4.2 Identify individual risks and threats that exist in the organization.

    4.3 Decide risk responses, depending on the risk level as it relates to the risk tolerance.

    4.4 If necessary, revisit risk tolerance.

    4.5 Identify which stakeholders sign off on each risk.

    4.6 Plan for the future of risk management.

    4.7 Determine how to present risk to senior management.

    Outputs

    Risk register, with an inventory of risks and a macro view of the organization’s risk

    Defined risk-based initiatives to complete

    Plan for securing and managing the risk register

    Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution

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    • Parent Category Name: Customer Relationship Management
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    • Rising customer expectations and competitive pressures have accelerated the pace at which organizations are turning to digital transformation to drive revenue or cut costs.
    • Many digital strategies are not put into action, and instead sit on the shelf. A digital strategy that is not translated into specific projects and initiatives will provide no value to the organization.
    • Executing a digital strategy is easier said than done: IT often lacks the necessary framework to create a roadmap, or fails to understand how new applications can enable the vision outlined in the strategy.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • A digital strategy needs a clear roadmap to succeed. Too many digital strategies are lofty statements of objective with no clear avenue for actual execution: create a digital strategy application roadmap to avoid this pitfall.
    • Understand the art of execution. Application capabilities are rapidly evolving: IT must stand ready to educate the business on how new applications can be used to pursue the digital strategy.

    Impact and Result

    • IT must work with the business to parse specific technology drivers from the digital strategy, distill strategic requirements, and create a prescriptive roadmap of initiatives that will close the gaps between the current state and the target state outlined in the digital strategy. Doing so well is a path to the CIO’s office.
    • To better serve the organization, IT leaders must stay abreast of key application capabilities and trends. Exciting new developments such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and machine learning have opened up new avenues for process digitization, but IT leaders need to make a concerted effort to understand what modern applications bring to the table for technology enablement of the digital strategy.
    • Taking an agile approach to application roadmap development will help to provide a clear path forward for tackling digital strategy execution, while also allowing for flexibility to update and iterate as the internal and external environment changes.

    Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should have a structured approach to translating your digital strategy to specific application initiatives, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Parse digital strategy drivers

    Parse specific technology drivers out of the formal enterprise digital strategy.

    • Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution – Phase 1: Parse Your Digital Strategy for Critical Technology Drivers

    2. Map drivers to enabling technologies

    Review and understand potential enabling applications.

    • Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution – Phase 2: Map Your Drivers to Enabling Applications

    3. Create the application roadmap to support the digital strategy

    Use the drivers and an understanding of enabling applications to put together an execution roadmap that will support the digital strategy.

    • Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution – Phase 3: Create an Application Roadmap That Supports the Digital Strategy
    • Digital Strategy Roadmap Tool
    • Application Roadmap Presentation Template
    • Digital Strategy Communication and Execution Plan Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution

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

    1 Validate the Digital Strategy

    The Purpose

    Review and validate the formal enterprise digital strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Confirmation of the goals, objectives, and direction of the organization’s digital strategy.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the initial digital strategy.

    1.2 Determine gaps.

    1.3 Refine digital strategy scope and vision.

    1.4 Finalize digital strategy and validate with stakeholders.

    Outputs

    Validated digital strategy

    2 Parse Critical Technology Drivers

    The Purpose

    Enumerate relevant technology drivers from the digital strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    List of technology drivers to pursue based on goals articulated in the digital strategy.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify affected process domains.

    2.2 Brainstorm impacts of digital strategy on technology enablement.

    2.3 Distill critical technology drivers.

    2.4 Identify KPIs for each driver.

    Outputs

    Affected process domains (based on APQC)

    Critical technology drivers for the digital strategy

    3 Map Drivers to Enabling Applications

    The Purpose

    Relate your digital strategy drivers to specific, actionable application areas.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the interplay between the digital strategy and impacted application domains.

    Activities

    3.1 Build and review current application inventory for digital.

    3.2 Execute fit-gap analysis between drivers and current state inventory.

    3.3 Pair technology drivers to specific enabling application categories.

    Outputs

    Current-state application inventory

    Fit-gap analysis

    4 Understand Applications

    The Purpose

    Understand how different applications support the digital strategy.

    Understand the art of the possible.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Knowledge of how applications are evolving from a features and capabilities perspective, and how this pertains to digital strategy enablement.

    Activities

    4.1 Application spotlight: customer experience.

    4.2 Application spotlight: content and collaboration.

    4.3 Application spotlight: business intelligence.

    4.4 Application spotlight: enterprise resource planning.

    Outputs

    Application spotlights

    5 Build the Digital Application Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Create a concrete, actionable roadmap of application and technology initiatives to move the digital strategy forward.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clear, concise articulation of application roadmap for supporting digital that can be communicated to the business.

    Activities

    5.1 Build list of enabling projects and applications.

    5.2 Create prioritization criteria.

    5.3 Build the digital strategy application roadmap.

    5.4 Socialize the roadmap.

    5.5 Delineate responsibility for roadmap execution.

    Outputs

    Application roadmap for the digital strategy

    RACI chart for digital strategy roadmap execution

    Implement Infrastructure Shared Services

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
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    • Organizations have service duplications for unique needs. These duplications increase business expenditure.
    • Lack of collaboration between business units to share their services increases business cost and reduces business units’ faith to implement shared services.
    • Transitioning infrastructure to shared services is challenging for many organizations. It requires an accurate planning and efficient communication between participating business units.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Identify your current process, tool, and people capabilities before implementing shared services. Understand the financial compensations prior to implementation and assess if your organization is ready for transitioning to shared services model.
    • Do not implement shared services when the nature of the services differs greatly between business units.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand benefits of shared services for the business and determine whether transitioning to shared services would benefit the organization.
    • Identify the best implementation plan based on goals, needs, and services.
    • Build a shared-services process to manage the plan and ensure its success.

    Implement Infrastructure Shared Services Research & Tools

    Start here – Read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement shared services, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Conduct gap analysis

    Identify benefits of shared services to your organization and define implementation challenges.

    • Implement Infrastructure Shared Services – Phase 1: Conduct Gap Analysis
    • Shared Services Implementation Executive Presentation
    • Shared Services Implementation Business Case Template
    • Shared Services Implementation Assessment Tool

    2. Choose the right path

    Identify your process and staff capabilities and discover which services will be transitioned to shared services plan. It will also help you to figure out the best model to choose.

    • Implement Infrastructure Shared Services – Phase 2: Choose the Right Path
    • Sample Enterprise Services

    3. Plan the transition

    Discuss an actionable plan to implement shared services to track the project. Walk through a communication plan to document the goals, progress, and expectations with customer stakeholders.

    • Implement Infrastructure Shared Services – Phase 3: Plan the Transition
    • Shared Services Implementation Roadmap Tool
    • Shared Services Implementation Customer Communication Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement Infrastructure Shared Services

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

    1 Identify Challenges

    The Purpose

    Establish the need for change.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set a clear understanding about benefits of shared services to your organization.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify your organization’s main drivers for using a shared services model.

    1.2 Define if it is beneficial to implement shared services.

    Outputs

    Shared services mission

    Shared services goals

    2 Assess Your Capabilities

    The Purpose

    Become aware of challenges to implement shared services and your capabilities for such transition.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Discover the primary challenges for transitioning to shared services, eliminate resistance factors, and identify your business potentials for implementation.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify your organization’s resistance to implement shared services.

    2.2 Assess process and people capabilities.

    Outputs

    Shared Services Business Case

    Shared Services Assessment

    3 Define the Model

    The Purpose

    Determine the shared services model.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identify the core services to be shared and the best model that fits your organization.

    Activities

    3.1 Define core services that will be moved to shared services.

    3.2 Assess different models of shared services and pick the one that satisfies your goals and needs.

    Outputs

    List of services to be transferred to shared services

    Shared services model

    4 Implement and Communicate

    The Purpose

    Define and communicate the tasks to be delivered.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Confidently approach key stakeholders to make the project a reality.

    Activities

    4.1 Define the roadmap for implementing shared services.

    4.2 Make a plan to communicate changes.

    Outputs

    List of initiatives to reach the target state, strategy risks, and their timelines

    Draft of a communication plan

    Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization

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    • Parent Category Name: Requirements & Design
    • Parent Category Link: /requirements-and-design
    • CIOs have trouble integrating new technologies (e.g. mobile, cloud solutions) with legacy applications, and lack standards for using APIs across the organization.
    • Organizations produce APIs that are error-prone, not consistently configured, and not maintained effectively.
    • Organizations are looking for ways to increase application quality and code reusability to improve development throughput using web APIs.
    • Organizations are looking for opportunities to create an application ecosystem which can expose internal services across the organization and/or to external third parties and business partners.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations are looking to go beyond current development practices to provide scalable and reusable web services.
    • Web API development is a tactical competency that is important to enabling speed of development, quality of applications, reusability, innovation, and business alignment.
    • Design your web API as a product that promotes speed of development and service reuse.
    • Optimize the design, development, testing, and monitoring of your APIs incrementally and iteratively to cover all use cases in the long term.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a repeatable process to improve the quality, reusability, and governance of your web APIs.
    • Define the purpose of your API and the common uses cases that it will service.
    • Understand what development techniques are required to develop an effective web API based on Info-Tech’s web API framework.
    • Continuously reiterate your web API to demonstrate to business stakeholders the value your web API provides.

    Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop APIs, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Examine the opportunities web APIs can enable

    Assess the opportunities of web APIs.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 1: Examine the Opportunities Web APIs Can Enable

    2. Design and develop a web API

    Design and develop web APIs that support business processes and enable reusability.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 2: Design and Develop a Web API
    • Web APIs High-Level Design Requirements Template
    • Web API Design Document Template

    3. Test the web API

    Accommodate web API testing best practices in application test plans.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 3: Test the Web API
    • Web API Test Plan Template

    4. Monitor and continuously optimize the web API

    Monitor the usage and value of web APIs and plan for future optimizations and maintenance.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 4: Monitor and Continuously Optimize the Web API
    • Web API Process Governance Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization

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

    1 Examine the Opportunities Web APIs Can Enable

    The Purpose

    Gauge the importance of web APIs for achieving your organizational needs.

    Understand how web APIs can be used to achieve below-the-line and above-the-line benefits.

    Be aware of web API development pitfalls. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding the revenue generation and process optimization opportunities web APIs can bring to your organization.

    Knowledge of the current web API landscape. 

    Activities

    1.1 Examine the opportunities web APIs can enable.

    Outputs

    2 Design & Develop Your Web API

    The Purpose

    Establish a web API design and development process.

    Design scalable web APIs around defined business process flows and rules.

    Define the web service objects that the web APIs will expose. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Reusable web API designs.

    Identification of data sets that will be available through web services.

    Implement web API development best practices. 

    Activities

    2.1 Define high-level design details based on web API requirements.

    2.2 Define your process workflows and business rules.

    2.3 Map the relationships among data tables through ERDs.

    2.4 Define your data model by mapping the relationships among data tables through data flow diagrams.

    2.5 Define your web service objects by effectively referencing your data model.

    Outputs

    High-level web API design.

    Business process flow.

    Entity relationship diagrams.

    Data flow diagrams.

    Identification of web service objects.

    3 Test Your Web API

    The Purpose

    Incorporate APIs into your existing testing practices.

    Emphasize security testing with web APIs.

    Learn of the web API testing and monitoring tool landscape.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Creation of a web API test plan.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a test plan for your web API.

    Outputs

    Web API Test Plan.

    4 Monitor and Continuously Optimize Your Web API

    The Purpose

    Plan for iterative development and maintenance of web APIs.

    Manage web APIs for versioning and reuse.

    Establish a governance structure to manage changes to web APIs. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Implement web API monitoring and maintenance best practices.

    Establishment of a process to manage future development and maintenance of web APIs. 

    Activities

    4.1 Identify roles for your API development projects.

    4.2 Develop governance for web API development.

    Outputs

    RACI table that accommodates API development.

    Web API operations governance structure.

    Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /innovation
    • You don’t know where to start when it comes to building an innovation program for your organization.
    • You need to create a culture of innovation in your business, department, or team.
    • Past innovation efforts have been met with resistance and cynicism.
    • You don’t know what processes you need to support business-led innovation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Innovation is about people, not ideas or processes. Innovation does not require a formal process, a dedicated innovation team, or a large budget; the most important success factor for innovation is culture. Companies that facilitate innovative behaviors like growth mindset, collaboration, and taking smart risks are most likely to see the benefits of innovation.

    Impact and Result

    • Outperform your peers by 30% by adopting an innovative approach to your business.
    • Move quickly to launch your innovation practice and beat the competition.
    • Develop the skills and capabilities you need to sustain innovation over the long term.

    Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program Research & Tools

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

    1. Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program Storyboard – A step-by-step process to create the innovation culture, processes, and tools you need for business-led innovation.

    This storyboard includes three phases and nine activities that will help you define your purpose, align your people, and build your practice.

    • Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program – Phases 1-3

    2. Innovation Program Template – An executive communication deck summarizing the outputs from this research.

    Use this template in conjunction with the activities in the main storyboard to create and communicate your innovation program. This template uses sample data from a fictional retailer, Acme Corp, to illustrate an ideal innovation program summary.

    • Innovation Program Template

    3. Job Description – Chief Innovation Officer

    This job description can be used to hire your Chief Innovation Officer. There are many other job descriptions available on the Info-Tech website and referenced within the storyboard.

    • Chief Innovation Officer

    4. Innovation Ideation Session Template – Use this template to facilitate innovation sessions with the business.

    Use this framework to facilitate an ideation session with members of the business. Instructions for how to customize the information and facilitate each section is included within the deck.

    • Innovation Ideation Session Template

    5. Initiative Prioritization Workbook – Use this spreadsheet template to easily and transparently prioritize initiatives for pilot.

    This spreadsheet provides an analytical and transparent method to prioritize initiatives based on weighted criteria relevant to your business.

    • Initiative Prioritization Workbook

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

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

    1 Define Your Ambitions

    The Purpose

    Define your innovation ambitions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain a better understanding of why you are innovating and what your organization will gain from an innovation program.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand your innovation mandate.

    1.2 Define your innovation ambitions.

    1.3 Determine value proposition & metrics.

    Outputs

    Complete the "Our purpose" section of the Innovation Program Template

    Complete "Vision and guiding principles" section

    Complete "Scope and value proposition" section

    Success metrics

    2 Align Your People

    The Purpose

    Build a culture, operating model, and team that support innovation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop a plan to address culture gaps and identify and implement your operating model.

    Activities

    2.1 Foster a culture of innovation.

    2.2 Define your operating model.

    Outputs

    Complete "Building an innovative culture" section

    Complete "Operating model" section

    3 Develop Your Capabilities

    The Purpose

    Create the capability to facilitate innovation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create a resourcing plan and prioritization templates to make your innovation program successful.

    Activities

    3.1 Build core innovation capabilities.

    3.2 Develop prioritization criteria.

    Outputs

    Team structure and resourcing requirements

    Prioritization spreadsheet template

    4 Build Your Program

    The Purpose

    Finalize your program and complete the final deliverable.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Walk away with a complete plan for your innovation program.

    Activities

    4.1 Define your methodology to pilot projects.

    4.2 Conduct a program retrospective.

    Outputs

    Complete "Operating model" section in the template

    Notable wins and goals

    Further reading

    Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

    Transform your business by adopting the culture and practices that drive innovation.

    Analyst Perspective

    Innovation is not about ideas, it's about people.

    Many organizations stumble when implementing innovation programs. Innovation is challenging to get right, and even more challenging to sustain over the long term.

    One of the common stumbling blocks we see comes from organizations focusing more on the ideas and the process than on the culture and the people needed to make innovation a way of life. However, the most successful innovators are the ones which have adopted a culture of innovation and reinforce innovative behaviors across their organization. Organizational cultures which promote growth mindset, trust, collaboration, learning, and a willingness to fail are much more likely to produce successful innovators.

    This research is not just about culture, but culture is the starting point for innovation. My hope is that organizations will go beyond the processes and methodologies laid out here and use this research to dramatically improve their organization's performance.

    Kim Rodriguez

    Kim Osborne Rodriguez
    Research Director, CIO Advisory
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    As a leader in your organization, you need to:

    • Understand your organization's innovation goals.
    • Create an innovation program or structure.
    • Develop a culture of innovation across your team or organization.
    • Demonstrate an ability to innovate and grow the business.

    Common Obstacles

    In the past, you might have experienced one or more of the following:

    • Innovation initiatives lose momentum.
    • Cynicism and distrust hamper innovation.
    • Innovation efforts are unfocused or don't provide the anticipated value.
    • Bureaucracy has created a bottleneck that stifles innovation.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    This blueprint will help you:

    • Understand the different types of innovation.
    • Develop a clear vision, scope, and focus.
    • Create organizational culture and behaviors aligned with your innovation ambitions.
    • Adopt an operational model and methodologies best suited for your culture, goals, and budget.
    • Successfully run a pilot program.

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is no single right way to approach innovation. Begin with an understanding of your innovation ambitions, your existing culture, and the resources available to you, then adopt the innovation operating model that is best suited to your situation.

    Note: This research is written for the individual who is leading the development of the innovation. This role is referred to as the Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) throughout this research but could be the CIO, CTO, IT director, or another business leader.

    Why is innovation so challenging?

    Most organizations want to be innovative, but very few succeed.

    • Bureaucracy slows innovation: Innovation requires speed – it is important to fail fast and early so you can iterate to improve the final solution. Small, agile organizations like startups tend to be more risk tolerant and can move more quickly to iterate on new ideas compared to larger organizations.
    • Change is uncomfortable: Most people are profoundly uncomfortable with failure, risk, and unknowns – three critical components of innovation. Humans are wired to think efficiently rather than innovatively, which leads to confirmation bias and lack of ingenuity.
    • You will likely fail: Innovation initiatives rarely succeed on the first try – Harvard Business Review estimates between 70% and 90% of innovation efforts fail. Organizations which are more tolerant of failure tend to be significantly more innovative than those which are not (Review of Financial Studies, 2014).

    Based on a survey of global innovation trends and practices:

    75%

    Three-quarters of companies say innovation is a top-three priority.
    Source: BCG, 2021

    30%

    But only 30% of executives say their organizations are doing it well.
    Source: BCG, 2019

    The biggest obstacles to innovation are cultural

    The biggest obstacles to innovation in large companies

    Based on a survey of 270 business leaders.
    Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018

    A bar graph from the Harvard Business Review

    The most common challenges business leaders experience relate to people and culture. Success is based on people, not ideas.

    Politics, turf wars, and a lack of alignment: territorial departments, competition for resources, and unclear roles are holding back the innovation efforts of 55% of respondents.

    FIX IT
    Senior leadership needs to be clear on the innovation goals and how business units are expected to contribute to them.

    Cultural issues: many large companies have a culture that rewards operational excellence and disincentivizes risk. A history of failed innovation attempts may result in significant resistance to new change efforts.

    FIX IT
    Cultural change takes time. Ensure you are rewarding collaboration and risk-taking, and hire people with fresh new perspectives.

    Inability to act on signals crucial to the future of the business: only 18% of respondents indicated their organization was unaware of disruptions, but 42% said they struggled with acting on leading indicators of change.

    FIX IT
    Build the ability to quickly run pilots or partner with startups and incubators to test out new ideas without lengthy review and approval processes.
    Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018

    Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

    Define your purpose, assess your culture, and build a practice that delivers true innovation.

    An image summarizing how to define your purpose, align your people, and Build your Practice.
    1 Source: Boston Consulting Group, 2021
    2 Source: Boston Consulting Group, 2019
    3 Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018

    Use this research to outperform your peers

    A seven-year review showed that the most innovative companies outperformed the market by upwards of 30%.

    A line graph showing the Normalized Market Capitalization for 2020.

    Innovators are defined as companies that were listed on Fast Company World's 50 Most Innovative Companies for 2+ years.

    Innovation is critical to business success.

    A 25-year study by Business Development Canada and Statistics Canada showed that innovation was more important to business success than management, human resources, marketing, or finance.

    Executive brief case study

    INDUSTRY: Healthcare
    SOURCE: Interview

    Culture is critical

    This Info-Tech member is a nonprofit, community-based mental health organization located in the US. It serves about 25,000 patients per year in community, school, and clinic settings.

    This organization takes its innovation culture very seriously and has developed methodologies to assess individual and team innovation readiness as well as innovation types, which it uses to determine everyone's role in the innovation process. These assessments look at knowledge of and trust in the organization, its innovation profile, and its openness to change. Innovation enthusiasts are involved early in the process when it's important to dream big, while more pragmatic perspectives are incorporated later to improve the final solution.

    Results

    The organization has developed many innovative approaches to delivering healthcare. Notably, they have reimagined patient scheduling and reduced wait times to the extent that some patients can be seen the same day. They are also working to improve access to mental health care despite a shortage of professionals.

    Developing an Innovative Culture

    • Innovation Readiness Assessment
    • Coaching Specific to Innovation Profile
    • Innovation Enthusiasts Involved Early
    • Innovation Pragmatists Involved Later
    • High Success Rate of Innovation

    Define innovation roles and responsibilities

    A table showing key innovation roles and responsibilities.

    Info-Tech's methodology for building your enterprise innovation program

    1. Define Your Purpose

    2. Align Your People

    3. Build Your Practice

    Phase Steps

    1. Understand your mandate
    2. Define your innovation ambitions
    3. Determine value proposition and metrics
    1. Foster a culture of innovation
    2. Define your operating model
    3. Build core innovation capabilities
    1. Build your ideation and prioritization methodologies
    2. Define your pilot project methodology
    3. Conduct a program retrospective

    Phase Outcomes

    Understand where the mandate for innovation comes from, and what the drivers are for pursuing innovation. Define what innovation means to your organization, and set the vision, mission, and guiding principles. Articulate the value proposition and key metrics for measuring success.

    Understand what it takes to build an innovative culture, and what types of innovation structure are most suited to your innovation goals. Define an innovation methodology and build your core innovation capabilities and team.

    Gather ideas and understand how to assess and prioritize initiatives based on standardized metrics. Develop criteria for tracking and measuring the success of pilot projects and conduct a program retrospective.

    Innovation program taxonomy

    This research uses the following common terms:

    Innovation Operating Model
    The operating model describes how the innovation program delivers value to the organization, including how the program is structured, the steps from idea generation to enterprise launch, and the methodologies used.
    Examples: Innovation Hub, Grassroots Innovation.

    Innovation Methodology
    Methodologies describe the ways the operating model is carried out, and the approaches used in the innovation practice.
    Examples: Design Thinking, Weighted Criteria Scoring

    Chief Innovation Officer
    This research is written for the person or team leading the innovation program – this might be a CINO, CIO, or other leader in the organization.

    Innovation Team
    The innovation team may vary depending on the operating model, but generally consists of the individuals involved in facilitating innovation across the organization. This may be, but does not have to be, a dedicated innovation department.

    Innovation Program
    The program for generating ideas, running pilot projects, and building a business case to implement across the enterprise.

    Pilot Project
    A way of testing and validating a specific concept in the real world through a minimum viable product or small-scale implementation. The pilot projects are part of the overall pilot program.

    Insight summary

    Innovation is about people, not ideas or processes
    Innovation does not require a formal process, a dedicated innovation team, or a large budget; the most important success factor for innovation is culture. Companies that facilitate innovative behaviors like growth mindset, collaboration, and the ability to take smart risk are most likely to see the benefits of innovation.

    Very few are doing innovation well
    Only 30% of companies consider themselves innovative, and there's a good reason: innovation involves unknowns, risk, and failure – three situations that people and organizations typically do their best to avoid. Counter this by removing the barriers to innovation.

    Culture is the greatest barrier to innovation
    In a survey of 270 business leaders, the top three most common obstacles were politics, turf wars, and alignment; culture issues; and inability to act on signals crucial to the business (Harvard Business Review, 2018). If you don't have a supportive culture, your ability to innovate will be significantly reduced.

    Innovation is a means to an end
    It is not the end itself. Don't get caught up in innovation for the sake of innovation – make sure you are getting the benefits from your investments. Measurable success factors are critical for maintaining the long-term success of your innovation engine.

    Tackle wicked problems
    Innovative approaches are better at solving complex problems than traditional practices. Organizations that prioritize innovation during a crisis tend to outperform their peers by over 30% and improve their market position (McKinsey, 2020).

    Innovate or die
    Innovation is critical to business growth. A 25-year study showed that innovation was more important to business success than management, human resources, marketing, or finance (Statistics Canada, 2006).

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Sample Job Descriptions and Organization Charts

    Determine the skills, knowledge, and structure you need to make innovation happen.

    Sample Job Descriptions and Organization Charts

    Ideation Session Template

    Facilitate an ideation session with your staff to identify areas for innovation.

    Ideation Session Template

    Initiative Prioritization Workbook

    Evaluate ideas to identify those which are most likely to provide value.

    Prioritization Workbook

    Key deliverable:

    Enterprise Innovation Program Summary

    Communicate how you plan to innovate with a report summarizing the outputs from this research.

    Enterprise Innovation Program Summary

    Measure the value of this research

    US businesses spend over half a trillion dollars on innovation annually. What are they getting for it?

    • The top innovators(1) typically spend 5-15% of their budgets on innovation (including R&D).
    • This research helps organizations develop a successful innovation program, which delivers value to the organization in the form of new products, services, and methods.
    • Leverage this research to:
      • Get your innovation program off the ground quickly.
      • Increase internal knowledge and expertise.
      • Generate buy-in and excitement about innovation.
      • Develop the skills and capabilities you need to drive innovation over the long term.
      • Validate your innovation concept.
      • Streamline and integrate innovation across the organization.

    (1) based on BCG's 50 Most Innovative Companies 2022

    30%

    The most innovative companies outperform the market by 30%.
    Source: McKinsey & Company, 2020

    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 guided implementation (GI) on this topic look like?

    Phase 0 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Finish

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

    Call #2: Understand your mandate.
    (Activity 1.1)

    Call #3: Innovation vision, guiding principles, value proposition, and scope.
    (Activities 1.2 and 1.3)

    Call #4: Foster a culture of innovation. (Activity 2.1)

    Call #5: Define your methodology. (Activity 2.2)

    Call #6: Build core innovation capabilities. (Activity 2.3)

    Call #7: Build your ideation and pilot programs. (Activities 3.1 and 3.2)

    Call #8: Identify success metrics and notable wins. (Activity 3.3)

    Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps.

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

    A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of three to six months.

    Workshop overview

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

    Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4

    Wrap Up

    Activities

    Define Your Ambitions

    Align Your People

    Develop Your Capabilities

    Build Your Program

    Next Steps and
    Wrap Up (offsite)

    1. Understand your innovation mandate (complete activity prior to workshop)
    2. Define your innovation ambitions
    3. Determine value proposition and metrics
    1. Foster a culture of innovation
    2. Define your operating model
    1. Build core innovation capabilities
    2. Develop prioritization criteria
    1. Define your methodology to pilot projects
    2. Conduct a program retrospective
    1. Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days
    2. Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps

    Deliverables

    1. Our purpose
    2. Message from the CEO
    3. Vision and guiding principles
    4. Scope and value proposition
    5. Success metrics
    1. Building an innovative culture
    2. Operating model
    1. Core capabilities and structure
    2. Idea evaluation prioritization criteria
    1. Program retrospective
    2. Notable wins
    3. Executive summary
    4. Next steps
    1. Completed enterprise innovation program
    2. An engaged and inspired team

    Phase 1: Define Your Purpose

    Develop a better understanding of the drivers for innovation and what success looks like.

    Purpose

    People

    Practice

    1. Understand your mandate
    2. Define your innovation ambitions
    3. Determine value proposition and metrics
    1. Foster a culture of innovation
    2. Define your operating model
    3. Build core innovation capabilities
    1. Build your ideation and prioritization methodologies
    2. Define your pilot project methodology
    3. Conduct a program retrospective

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand your innovation mandate, including its drivers, scope, and focus.
    • Define what innovation means to your organization.
    • Develop an innovation vision and guiding principles.
    • Articulate the value proposition and proposed metrics for evaluating program success.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CINO
    • Business executives

    Case study

    INDUSTRY: Transportation
    SOURCE: Interview

    ArcBest
    ArcBest is a multibillion-dollar shipping and logistics company which leverages innovative technologies to provide reliable and integrated services to its customers.

    An Innovative Culture Starts at the Top
    ArcBest's innovative culture has buy-in and support from the highest level of the company. Michael Newcity, ArcBest's CEO, is dedicated to finding better ways of serving their customers and supports innovation across the company by dedicating funding and resources toward piloting and scaling new initiatives.
    Having a clear purpose and mandate for innovation at all levels of the organization has resulted in extensive grassroots innovation and the development of a formalized innovation program.

    Results
    ArcBest has a legacy of innovation, going back to its early days when it developed a business intelligence solution before anything else existed on the market. It continues to innovate today and is now partnering with start-ups to further expand its innovation capabilities.

    "We don't micromanage or process-manage incremental innovation. We hire really smart people who are inspired to create new things and we let them run – let them create – and we celebrate it.
    Our dedication to innovation comes from the top – I am both the President and the Chief Innovation Officer, and innovation is one of my top priorities."

    Michael Newcity

    Michael Newcity
    President and Chief Innovation Officer ArcBest

    1.1 Understand your innovation mandate

    Before you can act, you need to understand the following:

    • Where is the drive for innovation coming from?
      The source of your mandate dictates the scope of your innovation practice – in general, innovating outside the scope of your mandate (i.e. trying to innovate on products when you don't have buy-in from the product team) will not be successful.
    • What is meant by "innovation"?
      There are many different definitions for innovation. Before pursuing innovation at your organization, you need to understand how it is defined. Use the definition in this section as a starting point, and craft your own definition of innovation.
    • What kind of innovation are you targeting?
      Innovation can be internal or external, emergent or deliberate, and incremental or radically transformative. Understanding what kind of innovation you want is the starting point for your innovation practice.

    The source of your mandate dictates the scope of your influence

    You can only influence what you can control.

    Unless your mandate comes from the CEO or Board of Directors, driving enterprise-wide innovation is very difficult. If you do not have buy-in from senior business leaders, use lighthouse projects and a smaller innovation practice to prove the value of innovation before taking on enterprise innovation.

    In order to execute on a mandate to build innovation, you don't just need buy-in. You need support in the form of resources and funding, as well as strong leadership who can influence culture and the authority to change policies and practices that inhibit innovation.

    For more resources on building relationships in your organization, refer to Info-Tech's Become a Transformational CIO blueprint.

    What is "innovation"?

    Innovation is often easier to recognize than define.

    Align on a useful definition of innovation for your organization before you embark on a journey of becoming more innovative.

    Innovation is the practice of developing new methods, products or services which provide value to an organization.

    Practice
    This does not have to be a formal process – innovation is a means to an end, not the end itself.

    New
    What does "new" mean to you?

    • New application of an existing method
    • Developing a completely original product
    • Adopting a service from another industry

    Value
    What does value mean to you? Look to your business strategy to understand what goals the organization is trying to achieve, then determine how "value" will be measured.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Some innovations are incremental, while some are radically transformative. Decide what kind of innovation you want to cultivate before developing your strategy.

    We can categorize innovation in three ways

    Evaluate your goals with respect to innovation: focus, strategy, and potential to transform.

    Focus: Where will you innovate?

    Focus

    Strategy: To what extent will you guide innovation efforts?

    Strategy

    Potential: How radical will your innovations be?

    Potential

    What are your ambitions?

    1. Develop a better understanding of what type of innovation you are trying to achieve by plotting out your goals on the categories on the left.
    2. All categories are independent of one another, so your goals may fall anywhere on the scales for each category.
    3. Understanding your innovation ambitions helps establish the operating model best suited for your innovation practice.
    4. In general, innovation which is more external, deliberate, and radical tends to be more centralized.

    Activity 1.1 Understand your innovation mandate

    1 hour

    1. Schedule a 30-minute discussion with the person (i.e. CEO) or group (i.e. Board of Directors) ultimately requesting the shift toward innovation. If there is no external party, then conduct this assessment yourself.
    2. Facilitate a discussion that addresses the following questions:
    • What is meant by "innovation"?
    • What are they hoping to achieve through innovation?
    • What is the innovation scope? Are any areas off-limits (i.e. org structure, new products, certain markets)?
    • What is the budget (i.e. people, money) they are willing to commit to innovation?
    • What type of innovation are they pursuing?
    1. Record this information and complete the "Our Purpose" section of the Innovation Program Template.

    Download the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Knowledge of the key decision maker/sponsor for innovation

    Output

    • Understanding of the mandate for innovation, including definition, value, scope, budget, and type of innovation

    Materials

    • Innovation Program Template

    Participants

    • CINO
    • CEO, CTO, or Board of Directors (whoever is requesting/sponsoring the pursuit of innovation)

    1.2 Define your innovation ambitions

    Articulate your future state through a vision and guiding principles.

    • Vision and purpose make up the foundation on which all other design aspects will be based. These aspects should not be taken lightly, but rather they should be the force that aligns everyone to work toward a common outcome. It is incumbent on leaders to make them part of the DNA of the organization – to drive organization, structure, culture, and talent strategy.
    • Your vision statement is a future-focused statement that summarizes what you hope to achieve. It should be inspirational, ambitious, and concise.
    • Your guiding principles outline the guardrails for your innovation practice. What will your focus be? How will you approach innovation? What is off-limits?
    • Define the scope and focus for your innovation efforts. This includes what you can innovate on and what is off limits.

    Your vision statement is your North Star

    Articulate an ambitious, inspirational, and concise vision statement for your innovation efforts.

    A strong vision statement:

    • Is future-focused and outlines what you want to become and what you want to achieve.
    • Provides focus and direction.
    • Is ambitious, focused, and concise.
    • Answers: What problems are we solving? Who and what are we changing?

    Examples:

    • "We create radical new technologies to solve some of the world's hardest problems." – Google X, the Moonshot Factory
    • "To be the most innovative enterprise in the world." – 3M
    • "To use our imagination to bring happiness to millions of people." – Disney

    "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion." – Jack Welch, Former Chairman and CEO of GE

    Your guiding principles are the guardrails for creativity

    Strong guiding principles give your team the freedom and direction to innovate.

    Strong guiding principles:

    • Focus on the approach, i.e. how things are done, as opposed to what needs to be done.
    • Are specific to the organization.
    • Inform and direct decision making with actionable statements. Avoid truisms, general statements, and observations.
    • Are long-lasting and based on values, not solutions.
    • Are succinct and easily digestible.
    • Can be measured and verified.
    • Answers: How do we approach innovation? What are our core values

    Craft your guiding principles using these examples

    Encourage experimentation and risk-taking
    Innovation often requires trying new things, even if they might fail. We encourage experimentation and learn from failure, so that new ideas can be tested and refined.

    Foster collaboration and cross-functional teams
    Innovation often comes from the intersection of different perspectives and skill sets.

    Customer-centric
    Focus on creating value for the end user. This means understanding their needs and pain points, and using that knowledge to develop new methods, products, or services.

    Embrace diversity and inclusivity
    Innovation comes from a variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. We actively seek out and encourage diversity and inclusivity among our team members.

    Foster a culture of learning and continuous improvement
    Innovation requires continuous learning, development, and growth. We facilitate a culture that encourages learning and development, and that seeks feedback and uses it to improve.

    Flexible and adaptable
    We adapt to changes in the market, customer needs, and new technologies, so that it can continue to innovate and create value over time.

    Data-driven
    We use performance metrics and data to guide our innovation efforts.

    Transparency
    We are open and transparent in our processes and let the business needs guide our innovation efforts. We do not lead innovation, we facilitate it.

    Activity 1.2 Craft your vision statement and guiding principles

    1-2 hours

    1. Gather your innovation team and key program sponsors. Review the guidelines for creating vision statements and guiding principles, as well as your mandate and focus for innovation.
    2. As a group, discuss what you hope to achieve through your innovation efforts.
    3. Separately, have each person write down their ideas for a vision statement. Bring the group back together and share ideas. Group the concepts together and construct a single statement which outlines your aspirational vision.
    4. As a group, review the example guiding principles.
    5. Separately, have each person write down three to five guiding principles. Bring the group back together and share ideas. Group similar concepts together and consolidate duplicate ideas. From this list, construct six to eight guiding principles.
    6. Document your vision and guiding principles in the appropriate sections of the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Understanding of your innovation mandate
    • Business vision, mission, and values
    • Sample vision statements and guiding principles

    Output

    • Vision statement
    • Guiding principles

    Materials

    • In person: Whiteboard/flip charts, sticky notes, pens, and notepads
    • Virtual: Consider using a shared document, virtual whiteboard, or online facilitation tool like MURAL
    • Innovation Program Template

    Participants

    • CINO
    • Innovation sponsors
    • Business leaders
    • Innovation team

    1.3 Determine your value proposition and metrics

    Justify the existence of the innovation program with a strong value proposition.

    • The value proposition for developing an innovation program will be different for each organization, depending on what the organization hopes to achieve. Consider your mandate for innovation as well as the type of innovation you are pursuing when crafting the value proposition.
    • Some of the reasons organizations may pursue innovation:
      • Business growth: Respond to market disruption; create new customers; take advantage of opportunities.
      • Branding: Create market differentiation; increase customer satisfaction and retention; adapt to customer needs.
      • Profitability: Improve products, services, or operations to increase competitiveness and profitability; develop more efficient processes.
      • Culture: Foster a culture of creativity and experimentation within the organization, encouraging employees to think outside the box.
      • Positive impact: Address social challenges such as poverty and climate change.

    Develop a strong value proposition for your innovation program

    Demonstrate the value to the business.

    A strong value proposition not only articulates the value that the business will derive from the innovation program but also provides a clear focus, helps to communicate the innovation goals, and ultimately drives the success of the program.

    Focus
    Prioritize and focus innovation efforts to create solutions that provide real value to the organization

    Communicate
    Communicate the mandate and benefits of innovation in a clear and compelling way and inspire people to think differently

    Measure Success
    Measure the success of your program by evaluating outcomes based on the value proposition

    Track appropriate success metrics for your innovation program

    Your success metrics should link back to your organizational goals and your innovation program's value proposition.

    Revenue Growth: Increase in revenue generated by new products or services.

    Market Share: Percentage of total market that the business captures as a result of innovation.

    Customer Satisfaction: Reviews, customer surveys, or willingness to recommend the company.

    Employee Engagement: Engagement surveys, performance, employee retention, or turnover.

    Innovation Output: The number of new products, services, or processes that have been developed.

    Return on Investment: Financial return on the resources invested in the innovation process.

    Social Impact: Number of people positively impacted, net reduction in emissions, etc.

    Time to Launch: The time it takes for a new product or service to go from idea to launch.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The total impact of innovation is often intangible and extremely difficult to capture in performance metrics. Focus on developing a few key metrics rather than trying to capture the full value of innovation.

    How much does innovation cost?

    Company Industry Revenue(2)
    (USD billions)
    R&D Spend
    (USD billions)
    R&D Spend
    (% of revenue)
    Apple Technology $394.30 $26.25 6.70%
    Microsoft Technology $203.10 $25.54 12.50%
    Amazon.com Retail $502.20 $67.71 13.40%
    Alphabet Technology $282.10 $37.94 13.40%
    Tesla Manufacturing $74.90 $3.01 4.00%
    Samsung Technology $244.39 (2021)(3) $19.0 (2021) 7.90%
    Moderna Pharmaceuticals $23.39 $2.73 11.70%
    Huawei Technology $99.9 (2021)4 Not reported -
    Sony Technology $83.80 Not reported -
    IBM Technology $60.50 $1.61 2.70%
    Meta Software $118.10 $32.61 27.60%
    Nike Commercial goods $49.10 Not reported -
    Walmart Retail $600.10 Not reported -
    Dell Technology $105.30 $2.60 2.50%
    Nvidia Technology $28.60 $6.85 23.90%


    The top innovators(1) in the world spend 5% to 15% of their revenue on innovation.

    Innovation requires a dedicated investment of time, money, and resources in order to be successful. The most innovative companies, based on Boston Consulting Group's ranking of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, spend significant portions of their revenue on research and development.

    Note: This data uses research and development as a proxy for innovation spending, which may overestimate the total spend on what this research considers true innovation.

    (1) Based on Boston Consulting Group's ranking of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, 2022
    (2) Macrotrends, based on the 12 months ending Sept 30, 2022
    (3) Statista
    (4) CNBC, 2022

    Activity 1.3 Develop your value proposition and performance metrics

    1 hour

    1. Review your mandate and vision statement. Write down your innovation goals and desired outcomes from pursuing innovation, prioritize the desired outcomes, and select the top five.
    2. For each desired outcome, develop one to two metrics which could be used to track its success. Some outcomes are difficult to track, so get creative when it comes to developing metrics. If you get stuck, think about what would differentiate a great outcome from an unsuccessful one.
    3. Once you have developed a list of three to five key metrics, read over the list and ensure that the metrics you have developed don't negatively influence your innovation. For example, a metric of the number of successful launches may drive people toward launching before a product is ready.
    4. For each metric, develop a goal. For example, you may target 1% revenue growth over the next fiscal year or 20% energy use reduction.
    5. Document your value proposition and key performance metrics in the appropriate sections of the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Understanding of your innovation mandate
    • Vision statement

    Output

    • Value proposition
    • Performance metrics

    Materials

    • Innovation Program Template

    Participants

    • CINO

    Phase 2: Align Your People

    Create a culture that fosters innovative behaviors and puts processes in place to support them.

    Purpose

    People

    Practice

    1. Understand your mandate
    2. Define your innovation ambitions
    3. Determine value proposition and metrics
    1. Foster a culture of innovation
    2. Define your operating model
    3. Build core innovation capabilities
    1. Build your ideation and prioritization methodologies
    2. Define your pilot project methodology
    3. Conduct a program retrospective

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand the key aspects of innovative cultures, and the behaviors associated with innovation.
    • Assess your culture and identify gaps.
    • Define your innovation operating model based on your organizational culture and the focus for innovation.
    • Build your core innovation capabilities, including an innovation core team (if required based on your operating model).

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CINO
    • Innovation team

    2.1 Foster a culture of innovation

    Culture is the most important driver of innovation – and the most challenging to get right.

    • Fostering a culture of innovation requires a broad approach which considers the perspectives of individuals, teams, leadership, and the overall organization.
    • If you do not have support from leadership, it is very difficult to change organizational culture. It may be more effective to start with an innovation pilot or lighthouse project in order to gain support before addressing your culture.
    • Rather than looking to change outcomes, focus on the behaviors which lead to innovation – such as growth mindset and willingness to fail. If these aren't in place, your ability to innovate will be limited.
    • This section focuses on the specific behaviors associated with increased innovation. For additional resources on implementing these changes, refer to Info-Tech's other research:

    Info-Tech's Fix Your IT Culture can help you promote innovative behaviors

    Refer to Improve IT Team Effectiveness to address team challenges

    Build a culture of innovation

    Focus on behaviors, not outcomes.

    The following behaviors and key indicators either stifle or foster innovation.

    Stifles Innovation Key Indicators Fosters Innovation Key Indicators
    Fixed mindset "It is what it is" Growth mindset "I wonder if there's a better way"
    Performance focused "It's working fine" Learning focused "What can we learn from this?"
    Fear of reprisal "I'll get in trouble" Psychological safety "I can disagree"
    Apathy "We've always done it this way" Curiosity "I wonder what would happen if…"
    Cynicism "It will never work" Trust "You have good judgement"
    Punishing failure "Who did this?" Willingness to fail "It's okay to make mistakes"
    Individualism "How does this benefit me?" Collaboration "How does this benefit us?"
    Homogeneity "We never disagree" Diversity and inclusion "We appreciate different views"
    Excessive bureaucracy "We need approval" Autonomy "I can do this"
    Risk avoidance "We can't try that" Appropriate risk-taking "How can we do this safely?"

    Ensure you are not inadvertently stifling innovation.
    Review the following to ensure that the desired behaviors are promoted:

    • Hiring practices
    • Performance evaluation metrics
    • Rewards and incentives
    • Corporate policies
    • Governance structures
    • Leadership behavior

    Case study

    INDUSTRY: Commercial Real Estate and Retail
    SOURCE: Interview

    How not to approach innovation.

    This anonymous national organization owned commercial properties across the country and had the goal of becoming the most innovative real estate and retail company in the market.

    The organization pursued innovation in the digital solutions space across its commercial and retail properties. Within this space, there were significant differences in risk tolerance across teams, which resulted in the more risk-tolerant teams excluding the risk-averse members from discussions in order to circumvent corporate policies on risk tolerance. This resulted in an adversarial and siloed culture where each group believed they knew better than the other, and the more risk-averse teams felt like they were policing the actions of the risk-tolerant group.

    Results

    Morale plummeted, and many of the organization's top people left. Unfortunately, one of the solutions did not meet regulatory requirements, and the company faced negative media coverage and legal action. There was significant reputational damage as a result.

    Lessons Learned

    Considering differences in risk tolerance and risk appetite is critical when pursuing innovation. While everyone doesn't have to agree, leadership needs to understand the different perspectives and ensure that no one party is dominating the conversation over the others. An understanding of corporate risk tolerance and risk appetite is necessary to drive innovation.

    All perspectives have a place in innovation. More risk tolerant perspectives should be involved early in the ideas-generation phase, and risk-averse perspectives should be considered later when ideas are being refined.

    Speed should not override safety or circumvent corporate policies.

    Understand your risk tolerance and risk appetite

    Evaluate and align the appetite for risk.

    • It is important to understand the organization's risk tolerance as well as the desire for risk. Consider the following risk categories when investigating the organization's views on risk:
      • Financial risk: the potential for financial or property loss.
      • Operational risk: the potential for disruptions to operations.
      • Reputational risk: the potential for negative impact to brand or reputation.
      • Compliance risk: the potential for loss due to non-compliance with laws and regulations.
    • Greater risk tolerance typically enables greater innovation. Understand the varying levels of risk tolerance across your organization, and how these differences might impact innovation efforts.

    An arrow showing the directions of risk tolerance.

    It is more important to match the level of risk tolerance to the degree of innovation required. Not all innovation needs to be (or can feasibly be) disruptive.
    Many factors impact risk tolerance including:

    • Regulation
    • Organization size
    • Country
    • Industry
    • Personal experience
    • Type of risk

    Use Info-Tech's Security Risk Management research to better understand risk tolerance

    Activity 2.1 Assess your innovation culture

    1-3 hours

    1. Review the behaviors which support and stifle innovation and give each behavior a score from 1 (stifling innovation) to 5 (fostering innovation). Any behaviors which fall below a 4 on this scale should be prioritized in your efforts to create an innovative culture.
    2. Review the following policies and practices to determine how they may be contributing to the behaviors you see in your organization:
      1. Hiring practices
      2. Performance evaluation metrics
      3. Rewards, recognition, and incentives
      4. Corporate policies
      5. Governance structures
      6. Leadership behavior
    3. Identify three concrete actions you can take to correct any behaviors which are stifling innovation. Examples might be revising a policy which punishes failure or changing performance incentives to reward appropriate risk taking.
    4. Summarize your findings in the appropriate section of the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Innovation behaviors

    Output

    • Understanding of your organization's culture
    • Concrete actions you can take to promote innovation

    Materials

    • List of innovative behaviors
    • Relevant policies and documents to review
    • Innovation Program Template

    Participants

    • CINO

    2.2 Define your innovation model

    Set up your innovation practice for success using proven models and methodologies.

    • There are many ways to approach innovation, from highly distributed forms where it's just part of everyone's job to very centralized and arm's-length innovation hubs or even outsourced innovation via startups. You can combine different approaches to create your own approach.
    • You may or may not have a formal innovation team, but if you do, their role is to facilitate innovation – not lead it. Innovation is most effective when it is led by the business.
    • There are many tools and methodologies you can use to facilitate innovation. Choose the one (or combination) that best suits your needs.

    Select the right model

    There is no one right way to pursue innovation, but some methods are better than others for specific situations and goals. Consider your existing culture, your innovation goals, and your budget when selecting the right methodology for your innovation.

    Model Description Advantages Disadvantages Good when…
    Grassroots Innovation Innovation is the responsibility of everyone, and there is no centralized innovation team. Ideas are piloted and scaled by the person/team which produces it.
    • Can be used in any organization or team
    • Can support low or high degree of structure
    • Low funding requirement
    • Requires a strong innovation culture
    • Often does not produce results since people don't have time to focus on innovation
    • Innovation culture is strong
    • Funding is limited
    • Goal is internal, incremental innovation
    Community of Practice Innovation is led by a cross-divisional Community of Practice (CoP) which includes representation from across the business. Champions consult with their practice areas and bring ideas forward.
    • Bringing people together can help stimulate and share ideas
    • Low funding requirement
    • Able to support many types of innovation
    • Some people may feel left out if they can't be involved
    • May not produce results if people are too busy to dedicate time to innovate
    • Innovation culture is present
    • Funding is limited
    • Goal is incremental or disruptive innovation
    Innovation Enablement
    *Most often recommended*
    A dedicated innovation team with funding set aside to support pilots with a high degree of autonomy, with the role of facilitating business-led innovation.
    • Most flexible of all options
    • Supports business-led innovation
    • Can deliver results quickly
    • Can enable a higher degree of innovation
    • Requires dedicated staff and funding
    • Innovation culture is present
    • Funding is available
    • Goal is internal or external, incremental or radical innovation
    Center of Excellence Dedicated team responsible for leading innovation on behalf of the organization. Generally, has business relationship managers who gather ideas and liaise with the business.
    • Can deliver results quickly
    • Can offer a fresh perspective
    • Can enable a higher degree of innovation
    • Requires dedicated staff and funding
    • Is typically separate from the business
    • Results may not align with the business needs or have adequate input
    • Innovation culture is weak
    • Funding is significant
    • Goal is external, disruptive innovation
    Innovation Hub An arm's length innovation team is responsible for all or much of the innovation and may not interact much with the core business.
    • Can deliver results quickly
    • Can be extremely innovative
    • Expensive
    • Results may not align with the business needs or have adequate/any input
    • Innovation culture is weak
    • Funding is very significant
    • Goal is external, radical innovation
    Outsourced Innovation Innovation is outsourced to an external organization which is not linked to the primary organization. This can take the form of working with or investing in startups.
    • Can lead to more innovative ideas than internal innovation
    • Investments can become a diverse revenue stream if startups are successful
    • Innovation does not rely on culture
    • Higher risk of failure
    • Less control over goals or focus
    • Results may not align with the business needs or have any input from users
    • Innovation does not rely on culture
    • Funding is significant
    • Goal is external or internal, radical innovation

    Use the right methodologies to support different stages of your innovation process

    A chart showing methodologies to support different stages of the integration process.

    Adapted from Niklaus Gerber via Medium, 2022

    Methodologies are most useful when they are aligned with the goals of the innovation organization.

    For example, design thinking tends to be excellent for earlier innovation planning, while Agile can allow for faster implementation and launch of initiatives later in the process.

    Consider combining two or more methodologies to create a custom approach that best suits your organization's capabilities and goals.

    Sample methodologies

    A robust innovation methodology ensures that the process for developing, prioritizing, selecting, implementing, and measuring initiatives is aligned with the results you are hoping to achieve.

    Different types of problems (drivers for innovation) may necessitate different methodologies, or a combination of methodologies.

    Hackathon: An event which brings people together to solve a well-defined problem.

    Design Thinking: Creative approach that focuses on understanding the needs of users.

    Lean Startup: Emphasizes rapid experimentation in order to validate business hypotheses.

    Design Sprint: Five-day process for answering business questions via design, prototyping, and testing.

    Agile: Iterative design process that emphasizes project management and retrospectives.

    Three Horizons: Framework that looks at opportunities on three different time horizons.

    Innovation Ambition Matrix: Helps organizations categorize projects as part of the core offering, an adjacent offering, or completely new.

    Global Innovation Management: A process of identifying, developing and implementing new ideas, products, services, or processes using alternative thinking.

    Blue Ocean Strategy: A methodology that helps organizations identify untapped market space and create new markets via unique value propositions.

    Activity 2.2 Design your innovation model

    1-2 hours

    1. Think about the following factors which influence the design of your innovation practice:
      1. Existing organizational culture
      2. Available funding to support innovation
      3. Type of innovation you are targeting
    2. Review the innovation approaches, and identify which approach is most suitable for your situation. Note why this approach was selected.
    3. Review the innovation methodologies and research those of interest. Select two to five methodologies to use for your innovation practice.
    4. Document your decisions in the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Understanding of your mandate and existing culture

    Output

    • Innovation approach
    • Selected methodologies

    Materials

    • Innovation Program Template

    Participants

    • CINO
    • Innovation team

    2.3 Build your core innovation capabilities

    Develop the skills, knowledge, and experience to facilitate successful innovation.

    • Depending on the approach you selected in step 2.2, you may or may not require a dedicated innovation team. If you do, use the job descriptions and sample organization charts to build it. If not, focus on developing key capabilities which are needed to facilitate innovation.
    • Diversity is key for successful innovation – ensure your team (formal or otherwise) includes diverse perspectives and backgrounds.
    • Use your guiding principles when hiring and training your team.
    • Focus on three core roles: evangelists, enablers, and experts.

    Focus on three key roles when building your innovation team

    Types of roles will depend on the purpose and size of the innovation team.

    You don't need to grow them all internally. Consider partnering with vendors and other organizations to build capabilities.

    Evangelists

    Visionaries who inspire, support, and facilitate innovation across the business. Their responsibilities are to drive the culture of innovation.

    Key skills and knowledge:

    • Strong communication skills
    • Relationship-building
    • Consensus-building
    • Collaboration
    • Growth mindset

    Sample titles:

    • CINO
    • Chief Transformation Officer
    • Chief Digital Officer
    • Innovation Lead
    • Business Relationship Manager

    Enablers

    Translate ideas into tangible business initiatives, including assisting with business cases and developing performance metrics.

    Key skills and knowledge:

    • Critical thinking skills
    • Business knowledge
    • Facilitation skills
    • Consensus-building
    • Relationship-building

    Sample titles:

    • Product Owner
    • Design Thinking Lead
    • Data Scientist
    • Business Analyst
    • Human Factors Engineer
    • Digital Marketing Specialist

    Experts

    Provide expertise in product design, delivery and management, and responsible for supporting and executing on pilot projects.

    Key skills and knowledge:

    • Project management skills
    • Technical expertise
    • Familiarity with emerging technologies
    • Analytical skills
    • Problem-solving skills

    Sample titles:

    • Product Manager
    • Scrum Master/Agile Coach
    • Product Engineer/DevOps
    • Product Designer
    • Emerging tech experts

    Sample innovation team structure (large enterprise)

    Visualize the whole value delivery process end-to-end to help identify the types of roles, resources, and capabilities required. These capabilities can be sourced internally (i.e. grow and hire internally) or through collaboration with centers of excellence, commercial partners, etc.

    A flow chart of a sample innovation team structure.

    Streamline your process by downloading Info-Tech's job description templates:

    Activity 2.3 Build your innovation team

    2-3 hours

    1. Review your work from the previous activities as well as the organizational structure and the job description templates.
    2. Start a list with two columns: currently have and needed. Start listing some of the key roles and capabilities from earlier in this step, categorizing them appropriately.
    3. If you are using an organizational structure for your innovation process, start to frame out the structure and roles for your team.
    4. Develop a list of roles you need to hire, and the key capabilities you need from candidates. Using the job descriptions, write job postings for each role.
    5. Record your work in the appropriate section of the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Previous work
    • Info-Tech job description templates

    Output

    • List of capabilities required
    • Org chart
    • Job postings for required roles

    Materials

    • Note-taking capability
    • Innovation Program Template

    Participants

    • CINO

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Fix Your IT Culture

    • Promote psychological safety and growth mindset within your organization.
    • Develop the organizational behaviors that lead to innovation.

    Improve IT Team Effectiveness

    • Address behaviors, processes, and cultural factors which impact team effectiveness.
    • Grow the team's ability to address challenges and navigate volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments.

    Master Organizational Change Management Practices

    • Transformation and change are increasingly becoming the new normal. While this normality may help make people more open to change in general, specific changes still need to be planned, communicated, and managed. Agility and continuous improvement are good but can degenerate into volatility if change isn't managed properly.

    Phase 3: Build Your Practice

    Define your innovation process, streamline pilot projects, and scale for success.

    Purpose

    People

    Practice

    1. Understand your mandate
    2. Define your innovation ambitions
    3. Determine value proposition and metrics
    1. Foster a culture of innovation
    2. Define your operating model
    3. Build core innovation capabilities
    1. Build your ideation and prioritization methodologies
    2. Define your pilot project methodology
    3. Conduct a program retrospective

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Build the methodologies needed to elicit ideas from the business.
    • Develop criteria to evaluate and prioritize ideas for piloting.
    • Define your pilot program methodologies and processes, including criteria to assess and compare the success of pilot projects.
    • Conduct an end-of-year program retrospective to evaluate the success of your innovation program.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CINO
    • Innovation team

    Case study

    INDUSTRY: Government
    SOURCE: Interview

    Confidential US government agency

    The business applications group at this government agency strongly believes that innovation is key to progress and has instituted a formal innovation program as part of their agile operations. The group uses a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) with 2-week sprints and a 12-week program cycle.

    To support innovation across the business unit, the last sprint of each cycle is dedicated toward innovation and teams do not commit to any other during these two weeks. At the end of each innovation sprint, ideas are presented to leadership and the valuable ones were either implemented initially or were given time in the next cycle of sprints for further development. This has resulted in a more innovative culture across the practice.

    Results

    There have been several successful innovations since this process began. Notably, the agency had previously purchased a robotic process automation platform which was only being used for a few specific applications. One team used their innovation sprint to expand the use cases for this solution and save nearly 10,000 hours of effort.

    Standard 12-week Program Cycle
    An image of a standard 12-week program

    Design your innovation operating model to maximize value and learning opportunities

    Pilots are an iterative process which brings together innovators and business teams to test and evaluate ideas.

    Your operating model should include several steps including ideation, validation, evaluation and prioritization, piloting, and a retrospective which follows the pilot. Use the example on this slide when designing your own innovation operating model.

    An image of the design process for innovation operation model.

    3.1 Build your ideation and prioritization methodologies

    Engage the business to generate ideas, then prioritize based on value to the business.

    • There are many ways of generating ideas, from informal discussion to formal ideation sessions or submission forms. Whatever you decide to use, make sure that you're getting the right information to evaluate ideas for prioritization.
    • Use quantitative and qualitative metrics to evaluate ideas generated during the ideation process.
      • Quantitative metrics might include potential return on investment (ROI) or effort and resources required to implement.
      • Qualitative metrics might include alignment with the organizational strategy or the level of risk associated with the idea.

    Engage the business to generate ideas

    There are many ways of generating innovative ideas. Pick the methods that best suit your organization and goals.

    Design Thinking
    A structured approach that encourages participants to think creatively about the needs of the end user.

    An image including the following words: Empathize, Define; Ideate; Test.

    Ideation Workshop
    A formal session that is used to understand a problem then generate potential solutions. Workshops can incorporate the other methodologies (such as brainstorming, design thinking, or mind mapping) to generate ideas.

    • Define the problem
    • Generate ideas
    • Capture ideas
    • Evaluate and prioritize
    • Assign next steps

    Crowdsourcing
    An informal method of gathering ideas from a large group of people. This can be a great way to generate many ideas but may lack focus.

    Value Proposition Canvas
    A visual tool which helps to identify customer (or user) needs and design products and services that meet those needs.

    an image of the Value Proposition Canvas

    Evaluate ideas and focus on those with the greatest value

    Evaluation should be transparent and use both quantitative and qualitative metrics. The exact metrics used will depend on your organization and goals.

    It is important to include qualitative metrics as these dimensions are better suited to evaluating highly innovative ideas and can capture important criteria like alignment with overall strategy and feasibility.

    Develop 5 to 10 criteria that you can use to evaluate and prioritize ideas. Some criteria may be a pass/fail (for example, minimum ROI) and some may be comparative.

    Evaluate
    The first step is to evaluate ideas to determine if they meet the minimum criteria. This might include quantitative criteria like ROI as well as qualitative criteria like strategic alignment and feasibility.

    Prioritize
    Ideas that pass the initial evaluation should be prioritized based on additional criteria which might include quantitative criteria such as potential market size and cost to implement, and qualitative criteria such as risk, impact, and creativity.

    Quantitative Metrics

    Quantitative metrics are objective and easily comparable between initiatives, providing a transparent and data-driven process for evaluation and prioritization.
    Examples:

    • Potential market size
    • ROI
    • Net present value
    • Payback period
    • Number of users impacted
    • Customer acquisition cost
    • Customer lifetime value
    • Breakeven analysis
    • Effort required to implement
    • Cost to implement

    Qualitative Metrics

    Qualitative metrics are less easily comparable but are equally important when it comes to evaluating ideas. These should be developed based on your organization strategy and innovation goals.
    Examples:

    • Strategy alignment
    • Impact on users
    • Uncertainty and risk
    • Innovation potential
    • Culture impact
    • Feasibility
    • Creativity and originality
    • Type of innovation

    Activity 3.1 Develop prioritization metrics

    1-3 hours

    1. Review your mandate, purpose, innovation goals and the sample prioritization and evaluation metrics.
    2. Write down a list of your goals and their associated metrics, then prioritize which are the most important.
    3. Determine which metrics will be used to evaluate ideas before they move on to the prioritization stage, and which metrics will be used to compare initiatives in order to determine which will receive further investment.
    4. For each evaluation metric, determine the minimum threshold required for an idea to move forward. For each prioritization metric identify the definition and how it will be evaluated. Qualitative metrics may require more precise definitions than quantitative metrics.
    5. Enter your metrics into the Initiative Prioritization Template.

    Input

    • Innovation mandate
    • Innovation goals
    • Sample metrics

    Output

    • Evaluation and prioritization metrics for ideas

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Innovation Program Template

    Participants

    • Innovation leader

    Download the Initiative Prioritization Template

    3.2 Build your program to pilot initiatives

    Test and refine ideas through real-world pilot projects.

    • The purpose of your pilot is to test and refine ideas in the real world. In order to compare pilot projects, it's important to track key performance indicators throughout the pilot. Measurements should be useful and comparable.
    • Innovation facilitators are responsible for supporting pilot projects, including designing the pilot, setting up metrics, tracking outcomes, and facilitating retrospectives.
    • Pilots generally follow an Agile methodology where ideas may be refined as the pilot proceeds, and the process iterates until either the idea is discarded or it has been refined into an initiative which can be scaled.
    • Expect that most pilots will fail the first time, and many will fail completely. This is not a loss; lessons learned from the retrospective can be used to improve the process and later pilots.

    Use pilot projects to test and refine initiatives before scaling to the rest of the organization

    "Learning is as powerful as the outcome." – Brett Trelfa, CIO, Arkansas Blue Cross

    1. Clearly define the goals and objectives of the pilot project. Goals and objectives ensure that the pilot stays on track and can be measured.
    2. Your pilot group should include a variety of participants with diverse perspectives and skill sets, in order to gather unique insights.
    3. Continuously track the progress of the pilot project. Regularly identify areas of improvement and implement changes as necessary to refine ideas.
    4. Regularly elicit feedback from participants and iterate in order to improve the final innovation. Not all pilots will be successful, but every failure can help refine future solutions.
    5. Consider scalability. If the pilot project is successful, it should be scalable and the lessons learned should be implemented in the larger organization.

    Sample pilot metrics

    Metrics are used to validate and test pilot projects to ensure they deliver value. This is an important step before scaling to the rest of the organization.

    Adoption: How many end users have adopted the pilot solution?

    Utilization: Is the solution getting utilized?

    Support Requests: How many support requests have there been since the pilot was initiated?

    Value: Is the pilot delivering on the value that it proposed? For example, time savings.

    Feasibility: Has the feasibility of the solution changed since it was first proposed?

    Satisfaction: Focus groups or surveys can provide feedback on user/customer satisfaction.

    A/B Testing: Compare different methods, products or services.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Ensure standard core metrics are used across all pilot projects so that outcomes can be compared. Additional metrics may be used to refine and test hypotheses through the pilot process.

    Activity 3.2 Build your program to pilot initiatives

    1-2 hours

    1. Gather the innovation team and review your mandate, purpose, goals, and the sample innovation operating model and metrics.
    2. As a group, brainstorm the steps needed from idea generation to business case. Use sticky notes if in person, or a collaboration tool if remote.
    3. Determine the metrics that will be used to evaluate ideas at each decision step (for example, prior to piloting). Outline what the different decisions might be (for example, proceed, refine or discard) and what happens as a result of each decision.
    4. Document your final steps and metrics in the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Innovation mandate
    • Innovation goals
    • Sample metrics

    Output

    • Pilot project methodology
    • Pilot project metrics

    Materials

    • Innovation Program Template
    • Sticky notes (in person) or digital collaboration tool (if remote)

    Participants

    • Innovation leader
    • Innovation team

    3.3 Conduct a program retrospective

    Generate value from your successful pilots by scaling ideas across the organization.

    • The final step in the innovation process is to scale ideas to the enterprise in order to realize the full potential.
    • Keeping track of notable wins is important for showing the value of the innovation program. Track performance of initiatives that come out of the innovation program, including their financial, cultural, market, and brand impacts.
    • Track the success of the innovation program itself by evaluating the number of ideas generated, the number of pilots run and the success of the pilots. Keep in mind that many failed pilots is not a failure of the program if the lessons learned were valuable.
    • Complete an innovation program retrospective every 6 to 12 months in order to adjust and make any changes if necessary to improve your process.

    Retrospectives should be objective, constructive, and action-oriented

    A retrospective is a review of your innovation program with the aim of identifying lessons learned, areas for improvement, and opportunities for growth.

    During a retrospective, the team will reflect on past experiences and use that information to inform future decision making and improve outcomes.

    The goal of a retrospective is to learn from the past and use that knowledge to improve in the future.

    Objective

    Ensure that the retrospective is based on facts and objective data, rather than personal opinions or biases.

    Constructive

    Ensure that the retrospective is a positive and constructive experience, with a focus on finding solutions rather than dwelling on problems.

    Action-Oriented

    The retrospective should result in a clear action plan with specific steps to improve future initiatives.

    Activity 3.3 Conduct a program retrospective

    1-2 hours

    1. Post a large piece of paper on the wall with a timeline from the last year. Include dates and a few key events, but not much more. Have participants place sticky notes in the spots to describe notable wins or milestones that they were proud of. This can be done as part of a formal meeting or asynchronously outside of meetings.
    2. Bring the innovation team together and review the poster with notable wins. Do any themes emerge? How does the team feel the program is doing? Are there any changes needed?
    3. Consider the metrics you use to track your innovation program success. Did the scaled projects meet their targets? Is there anything that could be refined about the innovation process?
    4. Evaluate the outcomes of your innovation program. Did it meet the targets set for it? Did the goals and innovation ambitions come to fruition?
    5. Complete this step every 6 to 12 months to assess the success of your program.
    6. Complete the "Notable Wins" section of the Innovation Program Template.

    Input

    • Innovation mandate
    • Innovation goals
    • Sample metrics

    Output

    • Notable wins
    • Action items for refining the innovation process

    Materials

    • Innovation Program Template
    • Sticky notes (in person) or digital collaboration tool (if remote)

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Innovation team
    • Others who have participated in the innovation process

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    Summary of Accomplishment

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    You have now completed your innovation strategy, covering the following topics:

    • Executive Summary
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    • Scope and Value Proposition
    • Guiding Principles
    • Building an Innovative Culture
    • Program Structure
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    • Notable Wins

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    Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Joanne was a management consultant within KPMG's CIO management consulting services and the Western Canadas Digital Health Practice lead. She has held several executive roles in the industry with the most recent position as Chief Program Officer for a large $450M EHR implementation. Her expertise spans cloud strategy, organizational design, data and analytics, governance, process redesign, transformation, and PPM. She is passionate about connecting people, concepts, and capital.
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    Mike holds a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from Ryerson University.

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    Mike Schembri
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    Mike is the former CIO of Fuji Xerox Australia and has 20+ years' experience serving IT and wider business leadership roles. Mike has led technical and broader business service operations teams to value and growth successfully in organizations ranging from small tech startups through global IT vendors, professional service firms, and manufacturers.
    Mike has passion for strategy and leadership and loves working with individuals/teams and seeing them grow.

    John Leidl

    John Leidl
    Senior Director, Member Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

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    Joe Riley
    Senior Workshop Director
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    Managing Partner
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    Activities

    1.1 Document the current business model along with value proposition and key assets (that provide competitive advantage).

    1.2 Transformation narrative.

    1.3 Platform model canvas.

    1.4 Document the platform strategies in the context of the enterprise.

    Outputs

    Documentation of current business model along with value proposition and key assets (that provide competitive advantage).

    Documentation of the selected platform strategies.

    2 Planning for Platform Business Model

    The Purpose

    Understand transformation approaches.

    Understand various layers of platforms.

    Ask fundamental and evolutionary questions about the platform.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of the transformational model so that the enterprise can realize the differences.

    Understanding of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses for a DX.

    Extraction of strategic themes to plan and develop a digital platform roadmap.

    Activities

    2.1 Discuss and document decision about DX approach and next steps.

    2.2 Discuss and document high-level strategic themes for platform business model and associated roadmap.

    Outputs

    Documented decision about DX approach and next steps.

    Documented high-level strategic themes for platform business model and associated roadmap.

    3 Digital Platform Strategy

    The Purpose

    Understand the design goals for the digital platform.

    Understand gaps between the platform’s capabilities and the DX strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Design goals set for the digital platform that are visible to all stakeholders.

    Gap analysis performed between enterprise’s digital strategy and platform capabilities; this helps understand the current situation and thus informs strategies and roadmaps.

    Activities

    3.1 Discuss and document design goals for digital platform.

    3.2 Discuss DX themes and platform capabilities – document the gaps.

    3.3 Discuss gaps and strategies along with timelines.

    Outputs

    Documented design goals for digital platform.

    Documented DX themes and platform capabilities.

    DX themes and platform capabilities map.

    4 Digital Platform Design: Key Components

    The Purpose

    Understanding of key components of a digital platform, including technology and teams.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of the key components of a digital platform and designing the platform.

    Understanding of the team structure, culture, and practices needed for successful platform engineering teams.

    Activities

    4.1 Confirmation and discussion on existing UX/UI and API strategies.

    4.2 Understanding of microservices architecture and filling of microservices canvas.

    4.3 Real-time stream processing data pipeline and tool map.

    4.4 High-level architectural view.

    4.5 Discussion on platform engineering teams, including culture, structure, principles, and practices.

    Outputs

    Filled microservices canvas.

    Documented real-time stream processing data pipeline and tool map.

    Documented high-level architectural view.

    Build a Security Compliance Program

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    • member rating overall impact: 9.6/10 Overall Impact
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    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • Most organizations spend between 25 and 40 percent of their security budget on compliance-related activities.
    • Despite this growing investment in compliance, only 28% of organizations believe that government regulations help them improve cybersecurity.
    • The cost of complying with cybersecurity and data protection requirements has risen to the point where 58% of companies see compliance costs as barriers to entering new markets.
    • However, recent reports suggest that while the costs of complying are higher, the costs of non-compliance are almost three times greater.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Test once, attest many. Having a control framework allows you to satisfy multiple compliance requirements by testing a single control.
    • Choose your own conformance adventure. Conformance levels allow your organization to make informed business decisions on how compliance resources will be allocated.
    • Put the horse before the cart. Take charge of your audit costs by preparing test scripts and evidence repositories in advance.

    Impact and Result

    • Reduce complexity within the control environment by using a single framework to align multiple compliance regimes.
    • Provide senior management with a structured framework for making business decisions on allocating costs and efforts related to cybersecurity and data protection compliance obligations.
    • Reduces costs and efforts related to managing IT audits through planning and preparation.
    • This blueprint can help you comply with NIST, ISO, CMMC, SOC2, PCI, CIS, and other cybersecurity and data protection requirements.

    Build a Security Compliance Program Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should manage your security compliance obligations, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build a Security Compliance Program

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

    1 Establish the Program

    The Purpose

    Establish the security compliance management program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Reviewing and adopting an information security control framework.

    Understanding and establishing roles and responsibilities for security compliance management.

    Identifying and scoping operational environments for applicable compliance obligations.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the business context.

    1.2 Review the Info-Tech security control framework.

    1.3 Establish roles and responsibilities.

    1.4 Define operational environments.

    Outputs

    RACI matrix

    Environments list and definitions

    2 Identify Obligations

    The Purpose

    Identify security and data protection compliance obligations.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identifying the security compliance obligations that apply to your organization.

    Documenting obligations and obtaining direction from management on conformance levels.

    Mapping compliance obligation requirements into your control framework.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify relevant security and data protection compliance obligations.

    2.2 Develop conformance level recommendations.

    2.3 Map compliance obligations into control framework.

    2.4 Develop process for operationalizing identification activities.

    Outputs

    List of compliance obligations

    Completed Conformance Level Approval forms

    (Optional) Mapped compliance obligation

    (Optional) Identification process diagram

    3 Implement Compliance Strategy

    The Purpose

    Understand how to build a compliance strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Updating security policies and other control design documents to reflect required controls.

    Aligning your compliance obligations with your information security strategy.

    Activities

    3.1 Review state of information security policies.

    3.2 Recommend updates to policies to address control requirements.

    3.3 Review information security strategy.

    3.4 Identify alignment points between compliance obligations and information security strategy.

    3.5 Develop compliance exception process and forms.

    Outputs

    Recommendations and plan for updates to information security policies

    Compliance exception forms

    4 Track and Report

    The Purpose

    Track the status of your compliance program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Tracking the status of your compliance obligations.

    Managing exceptions to compliance requirements.

    Reporting on the compliance management program to senior stakeholders.

    Activities

    4.1 Define process and forms for self-attestation.

    4.2 Develop audit test scripts for selected controls.

    4.3 Review process and entity control types.

    4.4 Develop self-assessment process.

    4.5 Integrate compliance management with risk register.

    4.6 Develop metrics and reporting process.

    Outputs

    Self-attestation forms

    Completed test scripts for selected controls

    Self-assessment process

    Reporting process

    Recommended metrics

    Leadership Workshop Overview

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    • Parent Category Name: Leadership Development Programs
    • Parent Category Link: /leadership-development-programs

    Leadership has evolved over time. The velocity of change has increased and leadership for the future looks different than the past.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Development of the leadership mind should never stop. This program will help IT leaders continue to craft their leadership competencies to navigate the ever-changing world in which we operate.

    Impact and Result

    • Embrace and lead change through active sharing, transparency, and partnerships.
    • Encourage growth mindset to enhance innovative ideas and go past what has always been done.
    • Actively delegate responsibilities and opportunities that engage and develop team members to build on current skills and prepare for the future.

    Leadership Workshop Overview Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Workshop Overview

    Read our concise Workshop Overview to find out how this program can support the development needs of your IT leadership teams.

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

    • Info-Tech Leadership Workshop Overview
    [infographic]

    Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model

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    • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
    • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
    • DR deployment has many possibilities. It becomes overwhelming and difficult to sift through all of the options and understand what makes sense for your organization.
    • The combination of high switching costs and the pressure to move applications to cloud leaves managers overwhelmed and complacent with their current DR model.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    1. Cut to the chase and evaluate the feasibility of cloud first. Gauge your organization’s current capabilities for DR in the cloud before becoming infatuated with the idea.
    2. A mixed model gives you the best of both worlds. Diversify your strategy by identifying fit for purpose and balancing the work required to maintain various models.
    3. Begin with the end in mind. Commit to mastering the selected model and leverage your vendor relationship for effective DR.

    Impact and Result

    • By efficiently eliminating models that are not suited for your organization and narrowing the scope of DR deployment possibilities, you spend more time focusing on what works rather than what doesn’t.
    • Taking a funneled approach ensures that you are not wasting time evaluating application-level considerations when organizational constraints prevent you from moving forward.
    • Comparing the total cost of ownership among candidate models helps demonstrate to the business the reason behind choosing one method over another.

    Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build the optimal DR deployment model, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Target the relevant DR options for your organization

    Complete Phase 1 to outline your DR site requirements, review any industry or organizational constraints on your DR strategy, and zero in on relevant DR models.

    • Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model – Phase 1: Target Relevant DR Options for Your Organization
    • DR Decision Tree (Visio)
    • DR Decision Tree (PDF)
    • Application Assessment Tool for Cloud DR

    2. Conduct a comprehensive analysis and vet the DR vendors

    Complete Phase 2 to explore possibilities of deployment models, conduct a TCO comparison analysis, and select the best-fit model.

    • Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model – Phase 2: Conduct a Comprehensive Analysis and Vet the DR Vendors
    • DR Solution TCO Comparison Tool

    3. Make the case and plan your transition

    Complete Phase 3 to assess outsourcing best practices, address implementation considerations, and build an executive presentation for business stakeholders.

    • Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model – Phase 3: Make the Case and Plan Your Transition
    • DR Solution Executive Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model

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

    1 Target Relevant DR Options for Your Organization

    The Purpose

    Identify potential DR models

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Take a funneled approach and avoid getting lost among all of the DR models available

    Activities

    1.1 Define DR site requirements

    1.2 Document industry and organizational constraints

    1.3 Identify potential DR models

    Outputs

    Determine the type of site, replication, and risk mitigation initiatives required

    Rule out unfit models

    DR Decision Tree

    Application Assessment Tool for Cloud DR

    2 Conduct a Comprehensive Analysis of Appropriate Models

    The Purpose

    Explore relevant DR models

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop supporting evidence for the various options

    Activities

    2.1 Explore pros and cons of potential solutions

    2.2 Understand the use case for DRaaS

    2.3 Review DR model diagrams

    Outputs

    Qualitative analysis on candidate models

    Evaluate the need for DRaaS

    DR diagrams for candidate models

    3 Build the DR Solution TCO Comparison Tool

    The Purpose

    Determine best cost models

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Save money by selecting the most cost effective option to meet your DR requirements

    Activities

    3.1 Gather hardware requirements for production site

    3.2 Define capacity requirements for DR

    3.3 Compare cost across various models

    Outputs

    Populate the production summary tab in TCO tool

    Understand how much hardware will need to be on standby and how much will be procured at the time of disaster

    Find the most cost effective method

    4 Make the Case and Plan Your Transition

    The Purpose

    Build support from business stakeholders by having a clear and defendable proposal for DR

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Effective and ready DR deployment model

    Activities

    4.1 Address implementation considerations for network, capacity, and day-to-day operations

    4.2 Build presentation for business stakeholders

    Outputs

    Define implementation projects necessary for deployment and appoint staff to execute them

    PowerPoint presentation to summarize findings from the course of the project

    Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan

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    • Parent Category Name: Storage & Backup Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /storage-and-backup-optimization
    • Business requirements can be vague. Not knowing the business needs often results in overspending and overexposure to liability through data hoarding.
    • Backup options are abundant. Disk, tape, or cloud? Each has drawbacks, efficiencies, and cost factors that should be considered.
    • Backup infrastructure is never greenfield. Any organization with a history has been doing backup. Existing software was likely determined by past choices and architecture.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Don’t let failure be your metric.
      The past is not an indication of future performance! Quantify the cost of your data being unavailable to demonstrate value to the business.
    • Stop offloading backup to your most junior staff.
      Data protection should not exist in isolation. Get key leadership involved to ensure you can meet organizational requirements.
    • A lot of data is useless. Neglecting to properly tag and classify data will lead to a costly data protection solution that protects redundant, useless, or outdated data

    Impact and Result

    • Determine the current state of your data protection strategy by identifying the pains and gains of the solution and create a business-facing diagram to present to relevant stakeholders.
    • Quantify the value of data to the business to properly understand the requirements for data protection through a business impact analysis.
    • Identify the attributes and necessary requirements for your data tiers to procure a fit-for-purpose solution.

    Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand why the business should be involved in your data protection plan, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Define the current state of your data protection plan

    Define the current state of your data protection practices by documenting the backup process and identifying problems and opportunities for the desired state.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 1: Define the Current State of Your Data Protection Plan
    • Data Protection Value Proposition Canvas Template

    2. Conduct a business impact analysis to understand requirements for restoring data

    Understand the business priorities.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 2: Conduct a Business Impact Analysis to Understand Requirements for Restoring Data
    • DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
    • Legacy DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
    • Data Protection Recovery Workflow

    3. Propose the future state of your data protection plan

    Determine the desired state.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 3: Propose the Future State of Your Data Protection Plan

    4. Establish proper governance for your data protection plan

    Explore the component of governance required.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 4: Establish Proper Governance for Your Data Protection Plan
    • Data Protection Proposal Template
    [infographic]

    Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • Measuring the business value provided by IT is very challenging.
    • You have a number of metrics, but they may not be truly meaningful, contextual, or actionable.
    • You know you need more than a single metric to tell the whole story. You also suspect that metrics from different systems combined will tell an even fuller story.
    • You are being asked to provide information from different levels of management, for different audiences, conveying different information.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Many organizations collect metrics to validate they are keeping the lights on. But the Infrastructure and Operations managers who are benefitting the most are taking steps to ensure they are getting the right metrics to help them make decisions, manage costs, and plan for change.
    • Complaints about metrics are often rooted in managers wading through too many individual metrics, wrong metrics, or data that they simply can’t trust.
    • Info-Tech surveyed and interviewed a number of Infrastructure managers, CIOs, and IT leaders to understand how they are leveraging metrics. Successful organizations are using metrics for everything from capacity planning to solving customer service issues to troubleshooting system failures.

    Impact and Result

    • Manage metrics so they don’t become time wasters and instead provide real value.
    • Identify the types of metrics you need to focus on.
    • Build a metrics process to ensure you are collecting the right metrics and getting data you can use to save time and make better decisions.

    Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement a metrics program in your Infrastructure and Operations practice, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Gap analysis

    This phase will help you identify challenges that you want to avoid by implementing a metrics program, discover the main IT goals, and determine your core metrics.

    • Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics – Phase 1: Gap Analysis
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Executive Presentation

    2. Build strategy

    This phase will help you make an actionable plan to implement your metrics program, define roles and responsibilities, and communicate your metrics project across your organization and with the business division.

    • Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics – Phase 2: Build Strategy
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Definition Template
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Tracking and Reporting Tool
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Program Roles & Responsibilities Guide
    • Weekly Metrics Review With Your Staff
    • Quarterly Metrics Review With the CIO
    [infographic]

    Build and Deliver an Optimized IT Update Presentation

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    • Parent Category Name: Manage Business Relationships
    • Parent Category Link: /manage-business-relationships
    • IT update presentation success comes with understanding the business and the needs of your stakeholders. It often takes time and effort to get it right.
    • Many IT updates are too technically focused and do not engage nor demonstrate value in the eyes of the business.
    • This is not the time to boast about technical metrics that lack relevance.
    • Too often IT updates are prepared without the necessary pre-discussions required to validate content and hone priorities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • CIOs need to take charge of the IT value proposition, increasing the impact and strategic role of IT.
    • Use your IT update to focus decisions, improve relationships, find new sources of value, and drive credibility.
    • Evolve the strategic partnership with your business using key metrics to help guide the conversation.

    Impact and Result

    • Build and deliver an IT update that focuses on what is most important.
    • Achieve the buy-in you require while driving business value.
    • Gain clarity on your scope, goals, and outcomes.
    • Validate IT’s role as a strategic business partner.

    Build and Deliver an Optimized IT Update Presentation Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our Executive Brief to find out how an optimized IT update presentation is your opportunity to drive business value.Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand how we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Scope and goals

    Confirm the “why” of the IT update presentation by determining its scope and goals.

    • Build and Deliver an Optimized IT Update Presentation – Phase 1: Scope and Goals

    2. Assess and build

    Confirm the “what” of the presentation by focusing on business requirements, metrics, presentation creation, and stakeholder validation.

    • Build and Deliver an Optimized IT Update Presentation – Phase 2: Assess and Build
    • IT Update Stakeholder Interview Guide
    • IT Metrics Prioritization Tool

    3. Deliver and inspire

    Confirm the “how” of the presentation by focusing on engaging your audience, getting what you need, and creating a feedback cycle.

    • Build and Deliver an Optimized IT Update Presentation – Phase 3: Deliver and Inspire
    • IT Update Open Issues Tracking Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build and Deliver an Optimized IT Update Presentation

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

    1 Scope, Goals, and Requirements

    The Purpose

    Determine the IT update’s scope and goals and identify stakeholder requirements

    Key Benefits Achieved

    IT update scope and goals

    Business stakeholder goals and requirements

    Activities

    1.1 Determine/validate the IT update scope

    1.2 Determine/validate the IT update goals

    1.3 Business context analysis

    1.4 Determine stakeholder needs and expectations

    1.5 Confirm business goals and requirements

    Outputs

    Documented IT update scope

    Documented IT update goals

    Validated business context

    Stakeholder requirements analysis

    Confirmed business goals and requirements

    2 Validate Metrics With Business Needs

    The Purpose

    Analyze metrics and content and validate against business needs

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Selection of key metrics

    Metrics and content validated to business needs

    Activities

    2.1 Analyze current IT metrics

    2.2 Review industry best-practice metrics

    2.3 Align metrics and content to business stakeholder needs

    Outputs

    Identification of key metrics

    Finalization of key metrics

    Metrics and content validated to business stakeholder needs

    3 Create an optimized IT update

    The Purpose

    Create an IT update presentation that is optimized to business needs

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Optimized IT update presentation

    Activities

    3.1 Understand the audience and how to best engage them

    3.2 Determine how to present the pertinent data

    3.3 IT update review with key business stakeholders

    3.4 Final edits and review of IT update presentation

    3.5 Pre-presentation checklist

    Outputs

    Clarity on update audience

    Draft IT update presentation

    Business stakeholder feedback

    Finalized IT update presentation

    Confirmation on IT update presentation readiness

    IT Project Management Lite

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    • Parent Category Name: Project Management Office
    • Parent Category Link: /project-management-office
    • Organizations want reliable project reporting and clear, consistent project management standards, but many are unwilling or unable to allocate time for it.
    • Many IT project managers are given project management responsibilities in addition to other full-time roles – without any formal allocation of time, authority, or training.
    • Most IT project managers and stakeholders actually want clear and consistent standards but resist tools and procedures they believe are too time consuming and inflexible.
    • Standard project management procedures must be “light” enough for project managers to adapt to a wide range of projects without increasing the total time required to manage projects successfully.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Most IT project management advice is focused on the largest 10-20% of projects – projects with large enough budgets to allocate time to project management. This leaves most IT projects (and most people who manage IT projects) in limbo between high-risk ad hoc management and high-cost project management best practices.
    • Project management success doesn’t equate to project success. While formal methodologies are a key ingredient in the success of large, complex projects, most IT projects do not require the same degree of rigorous record-keeping and planning.
    • Consistent, timely, and accurate reporting is the “linchpin” in any sustainable project and portfolio management practice.

    Impact and Result

    • Maintain timely and accurate project portfolio reporting with right-sized tools and processes.
    • Establish clear and consistent project management standards that make better use of time already spent managing projects.
    • Enable project managers to manage their projects more successfully with a set of flexible and lightweight tools and templates.

    IT Project Management Lite Research & Tools

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

    1. Assess the value of a minimum-viable PMO strategy

    Perform a measured value assessment for building and managing a minimum-viable PMO.

    • IT Project Management Lite Storyboard

    2. Perform a project and portfolio needs assessment

    Focus on the minimum required to maintain accuracy of portfolio reporting and effectiveness in managing projects.

    • Minimum-Viable PMO Needs Assessment

    3. Establish standards for realistic, accurate, and consistent portfolio reporting

    Emphasize reporting high-level project status as a way to identify and address issues to achieve the best results with the least effort.

    • Minimum-Viable Project and Portfolio Management SOP

    4. Create a standard, right-sized project management toolkit

    Free PMs to focus on actually managing the project while still delivering accurate portfolio metrics.

    • Zero-Allocation Project Management Workbook

    5. Train PMs for zero allocation

    Ensure project manager compliance with the portfolio reporting process by incorporating activities that create value.

    • Zero-Allocation Project Manager Development Plan
    • Zero-Allocation Project Management Survival Guide

    6. Perform a post-implementation assessment

    Evaluate success and identify opportunities for further improvement.

    Infographic

    Workshop: IT Project Management Lite

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

    1 Preparation

    The Purpose

    Define goals and success criteria.

    Finalize agenda.

    Gather information: update project and resource lists (Info-Tech recommends using the Project Portfolio Workbook).

    Key Benefits Achieved

    More efficiently organized and executed workshop.

    Able to better customize and tailor content to your specific needs.

    Activities

    1.1 Discuss specific pain points with regards to project manager allocations

    1.2 Review project lists, tools and templates, and other documents

    1.3 Map existing strategies to Info-Tech’s framework

    Outputs

    Understanding of where efforts must be focused in workshop

    Assessment of what existing tools and templates may need to be included in zero-allocation workbook

    Revisions that need to be made based on existing strategies

    2 Make the Case and Assess Needs

    The Purpose

    Assess current state (including review of project and resource lists).

    Discuss and analyze SWOT around project and portfolio management.

    Define target state.

    Define standards / SOP / processes for project and portfolio management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain perspective on how well your processes match up with the amount of time your project managers have for their PM duties.

    Determine the value of the time and effort that your project teams are investing in project management activities.

    Begin to define resource optimized processes for zero-allocation project managers.

    Ensure consistent implementation of processes across your portfolio.

    Establish project discipline and best practices that are grounded in actual project capacity.

    Activities

    2.1 Perform and/or analyze Minimum-Viable PMO Needs Assessment

    2.2 SWOT analysis

    2.3 Identify target allocations for project management activities

    2.4 Begin to define resource optimized processes for zero-allocation project managers

    Outputs

    Current state analysis based on Minimum-Viable PMO Needs Assessment

    Overview of current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

    Target state analysis based on Minimum-Viable PMO Needs Assessment

    A refined Minimum-Viable Project and Portfolio Management SOP

    3 Establish Strategy

    The Purpose

    Select and customize project and portfolio management toolkit.

    Implement (test/pilot) toolkit and processes.

    Customize project manager training plan.

    Evaluate and refine toolkit and processes as needed.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Ensure consistent implementation of processes across your portfolio.

    Establish project discipline and best practices that are grounded in actual project capacity.

    A customized training session that will suit the needs of your project managers.

    Activities

    3.1 Customize the Zero-Allocation Toolkit to accommodate the needs of your projects

    3.2 Test toolkit on projects currently underway

    3.3 Tweak project manager training to suit the needs of your team

    Outputs

    Customized Zero-Allocation Project Management Workbook

    A tested and standardized copy of the workbook

    A customized training session for your project managers (to take place on Day 4 of Info-Tech’s workshop)

    4 Train Your Zero-Allocation Project Managers

    The Purpose

    Communicate project and portfolio management SOP to Project Managers.

    Deliver project manager training: standards for portfolio reporting and toolkit.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Equip project managers to improve their level of discipline and documentation without spending more time in record keeping and task management.

    Execute a successful training session that clearly and succinctly communicates your minimal and resource-optimized processes.

    Activities

    4.1 Project Manager Training, including communication of the processes and standard templates and reports that will be adopted by all project managers

    Outputs

    Educated and disciplined project managers, aware of the required processes for portfolio reporting

    5 Assess Strategy and Next Steps

    The Purpose

    Debrief from the training session.

    Plan for ongoing evaluation and improvement.

    Evaluate and refine toolkit and processes if needed.

    Answer any remaining questions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Assess portfolio and project manager performance in light of the strategy implemented.

    Understanding of how to keep living documents like the workbook and SOP up to date.

    Clearly defined next steps.

    Activities

    5.1 Review the customized tools and templates

    5.2 Send relevant documentation to relevant stakeholders

    5.3 Schedule review call

    5.4 Schedule follow-up call with analysts to discuss progress in six months

    Outputs

    Finalized workbook and processes

    Satisfied and informed stakeholders

    Scheduled review call

    Scheduled follow-up call

    Measure and Manage Customer Satisfaction Metrics That Matter the Most

    • member rating overall impact: N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Lack of understanding of what is truly driving customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
    • Lack of insight into who our satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Lack of a system for early detection of declines in satisfaction.
    • Lack of clarity on what to improve and how resources should be allocated.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • All software companies measure satisfaction in some way, but many lack understanding of what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true drivers of satisfaction, solution providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, pull actionable insights and feedback, and make changes to products and services that customers really care about and will keep them coming back to you to have their needs met.
    • Obstacles:
      • Use of metrics that don’t provide the insight needed to make impactful changes that will boost satisfaction and ultimately, retention and profit.
      • Lack of a clear definition of what satisfaction means to customers, metric definitions and/or standard methods of measurement, and a consistent monitoring cadence.

    Impact and Result

    • Understanding of who your satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Understanding of the true drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among your customer segments.
    • Establishment of a repeatable process and cadence for effective satisfaction measurement and monitoring.
    • Development of an executable customer satisfaction improvement plan that identifies customer journey pain points and areas of dissatisfaction, and outlines how to improve them.
    • Knowledge of where money, time, and other resources are needed most to improve satisfaction levels and ultimately increase retention.

    Measure and Manage Customer Satisfaction Metrics That Matter the Most Research & Tools

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

    1. Measure and Manage the Customer Satisfaction Metrics that Matter the Most Deck – An overview of how to understand what drives customer satisfaction and how to measure and manage it for improved business outcomes.

    Understand the true drivers of customer satisfaction and build a process for managing and improving customer satisfaction.

    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Measure and Manage the Customer Satisfaction Metrics that Matter the Most

    Understand what truly keeps your customer satisfied. Start to measure what matters to improve customer experience and increase satisfaction and advocacy. 

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst perspective

    Understanding and measuring the true drivers of satisfaction enable the delivery of real customer value

    The image contains a picture of Emily Wright.

    “Healthy customer relationships are the paramount to long-term growth. When customers are satisfied, they remain loyal, spend more, and promote your company to others in their network. The key to high satisfaction is understanding and measuring the true drivers of satisfaction to enable the delivery of real customer value.

    Most companies believe they know who their satisfied customers are and what keeps them satisfied, and 76% of B2B buyers expect that providers understand their unique needs (Salesforce Research, 2020). However, on average B2B companies have customer experience scores of less than 50% (McKinsey, 2016). This disconnect between customer expectations and provider experience indicates that businesses are not effectively measuring and monitoring satisfaction and therefore are not making meaningful enhancements to their service, offerings, and overall experience.

    By focusing on the underlying drivers of customer satisfaction, organizations develop a truly accurate picture of what is driving deep satisfaction and loyalty, ensuring that their company will achieve sustainable growth and stay competitive in a highly competitive market.”

    Emily Wright

    Senior Research Analyst, Advisory

    SoftwareReviews

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    Getting a truly accurate picture of satisfaction levels among customers, and where to focus efforts to improve satisfaction, is challenging. Providers often find themselves reacting to customer challenges and being blindsided when customers leave. More effective customer satisfaction measurement is possible when providers self-assess for the following challenges:

    • Lack of understanding of what is truly driving customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
    • Lack of insight into who our satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Lack of a system for early detection of declines in satisfaction.
    • Lack of clarity of what needs to be improved and how resources should be allocated.
    • Lack of reliable internal data for effective customer satisfaction monitoring.

    What separates customer success leaders from developing a full view of their customers are several nagging obstacles:

    • Use of metrics that don’t provide the insight needed to make impactful changes that will boost satisfaction and ultimately, retention and profit.
    • Friction from customers participating in customer satisfaction studies.
    • Lack of data, or integrated databases from which to track, pull, and analyze customer satisfaction data.
    • Lack a clear definition of what satisfaction means to customers, metric definitions, and/or standard methods of measurement and a consistent monitoring cadence.
    • Lack of time, resources, or technology to uncover and effectively measure and monitor satisfaction drivers.

    Through the SoftwareReviews’ approach, customer success leaders will:

    • Understand who your satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Understand the true drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among your customer segments.
    • Establish a repeatable process and cadence for effective satisfaction measurement and monitoring.
    • Develop an executable customer satisfaction improvement plan that identifies customer journey pain points and areas of dissatisfaction, and outlines how to improve them.
    • Know where money, time, and resources are needed most to improve satisfaction levels and ultimately retention.

    Overarching SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    All companies measure satisfaction in some way, but many lack understanding of what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true drivers of satisfaction, solution providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, pull actionable insights and feedback, and make changes to products and services that customers really care about. This will keep them coming back to you to have their needs met.

    Healthy Customer Relationships are vital for long-term success and growth

    Measuring customer satisfaction is critical to understanding the overall health of your customer relationships and driving growth.

    Through effective customer satisfaction measurement, organizations can:

    Improve Customer Experience

    Increase Retention and CLV

    Increase Profitability

    Reduce Costs

    • Provide insight into where and how to improve.
    • Enhance experience, increase loyalty.
    • By providing strong CX, organizations can increase revenue by 10-15% (McKinsey, 2014).
    • Far easier to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones.
    • Ensuring high satisfaction among customers increases Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through longer tenure and higher spending.
    • NPS Promoter score has a customer lifetime value that's 600%-1,400% higher than a Detractor (Bain & Company, 2015).
    • Highly satisfied customers spend more through expansions and add-ons, as well as through their long tenure with your company.
    • They also spread positive word of mouth, which brings in new customers.
    • “Studies demonstrate a strong correlation between customer satisfaction and increased profits — with companies with high customer satisfaction reporting 5.7 times more revenue than competitors.” (Matthew Loper, CEO and Co-Founder of WELLTH, 2022)
    • Measuring, monitoring, and maintaining high satisfaction levels reduces costs across the board.
    • “Providing a high-quality customer experience can save up to 33% of customer service costs” (Deloitte, 2018).
    • Satisfied customers are more likely to spread positive word of mouth which reduces acquisition / marketing costs for your company.

    “Measuring customer satisfaction is vital for growth in any organization; it provides insights into what works and offers opportunities for optimization. Customer satisfaction is essential for improving loyalty rate, reducing costs and retaining your customers.”

    -Ken Brisco, NICE, 2019

    Poor customer satisfaction measurement is costly

    Virtually all companies measure customer satisfaction, but few truly do it well. All too often, customer satisfaction measurement consists of a set of vanity metrics that do not result in actionable insight for product/service improvement. Improper measurement can result in numerous consequences:

    Direct and Indirect Costs

    Being unaware of true drivers of satisfaction that are never remedied costs your business directly through customer churn, service costs, etc.

    Tarnished Brand

    Tarnished brand through not resolving issues drives dissatisfaction; dissatisfied customers share their negative experiences, which can damage brand image and reputation.

    Waste Limited Resources

    Putting limited resources towards vanity programs and/or fixes that have little to no bearing on core satisfaction drivers wastes time and money.

    “When customer dissatisfaction goes unnoticed, it can slowly kill a company. Because of the intangible nature of customer dissatisfaction, managers regularly underestimate the magnitude of customer dissatisfaction and its impact on the bottom line.”

    - Lakshmiu Tatikonda, “The Hidden Costs of Customer Dissatisfaction”, 2013

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Most companies struggle to understand what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true satisfaction drivers, tech providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, avoiding the numerous harmful consequences that result from average customer satisfaction measurement.

    Does your customer satisfaction measurement process need improvement?

    Getting an accurate picture of customer satisfaction is no easy task. Struggling with any of the following means you are ready for a detailed review of your customer satisfaction measurement efforts:

    • Not knowing who your most satisfied customers are.
    • Lacking early detection for declining satisfaction – either reactive, or unaware of dissatisfaction as it’s occurring.
    • Lacking a process for monitoring changes in satisfaction and lack ability to be proactive; you feel blindsided when customers leave.
    • Inability to fix the problem and wasting money on the wrong areas, like vanity metrics that don’t bring value to customers.
    • Spending money and other resources towards fixes based on a gut feeling, without quantifying the real root cause drivers and investing in their improvement.
    • Having metrics and data but lacking context; don’t know what contributed to the metrics/results, why people are dissatisfied or what contributes to satisfaction.
    • Lacking clear definition of what satisfaction means to customers / customer segments.
    • Difficulty tying satisfaction back to financial results.

    Customers are more satisfied with software vendors who understand the difference between surface level and short-term satisfaction, and deep or long-term satisfaction

    Surface-level satisfaction

    Surface-level satisfaction has immediate effects, but they are usually short-term or limited to certain groups of users. There are several factors that contribute to satisfaction including:

    • Novelty of new software
    • Ease of implementation
    • Financial savings
    • Breadth of features

    Software Leaders Drive Deep Satisfaction

    Deep satisfaction has long-term and meaningful impacts on the way that organizations work. Deep satisfaction has staying power and increases or maintains satisfaction over time, by reducing complexity and delivering exceptional quality for end-users and IT alike. This report found that the following capabilities provided the deepest levels of satisfaction:

    • Usability and intuitiveness
    • Quality of features
    • Ease of customization
    • Vendor-specific capabilities

    The above solve issues that are part of everyday problems, and each drives satisfaction in deep and meaningful ways. While surface-level satisfaction is important, deep and impactful capabilities can sustain satisfaction for a longer time.

    Deep Customer Satisfaction Among Software Buyers Correlates Highly to “Emotional Attributes”

    Vendor Capabilities and Product Features remain significant but are not the primary drivers

    The image contains a graph to demonstrate a correlation to Satisfaction, all Software Categories.
    Source: SoftwareReviews buyer reviews (based on 82,560 unique reviews).

    Driving deep satisfaction among software customers vs. surface-level measures is key

    Vendor capabilities and product features correlate significantly to buyer satisfaction

    Yet, it’s the emotional attributes – what we call the “Emotional Footprint”, that correlate more strongly

    Business-Value Created and Emotional Attributes are what drives software customer satisfaction the most

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate Software Buyer Satisfaction Drivers and Emotional Attributes are what drives software customer satisfaction.

    Software companies looking to improve customer satisfaction will focus on business value created and the Emotional Footprint attributes outlined here.

    The essential ingredient is understanding how each is defined by your customers.

    Leaders focus on driving improvements as described by customers.

    SoftwareReviews Insight:

    These true drivers of satisfaction should be considered in your customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring efforts. The experience customers have with your product and brand is what will differentiate your brand from competitors, and ultimately, power business growth. Talk to a SoftwareReviews Advisor to learn how users rate your product on these satisfaction drivers in the SoftwareReviews Emotional Footprint Report.

    Benefits of Effective Customer Satisfaction Measurement

    Our research provides Customer Success leaders with the following key benefits:

    • Ability to know who is satisfied, dissatisfied, and why.
    • Confidence in how to understand or uncover the factors behind customer satisfaction; understand and identify factors driving satisfaction, dissatisfaction.
    • Ability to develop a clear plan for improving customer satisfaction.
    • Knowledge of how to establish a repeatable process for customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring that allows for proactivity when declines in satisfaction are detected.
    • Understanding of what metrics to use, how to measure them, and where to find the right information/data.
    • Knowledge of where money, time, and other resources are needed most to drive tangible customer value.

    “81% of organizations cite CX as a competitive differentiator. The top factor driving digital transformation is improving CX […] with companies reporting benefits associated with improving CX including:

    • Increased customer loyalty (92%)
    • An uplift in revenue (84%)
    • Cost savings (79%).”

    – Dan Cote, “Advocacy Blooms and Business Booms When Customers and Employees Engage”, Influitive, 2021

    The image contains a screenshot of a thought model that focuses on Measure & Manage the Customer Satisfaction Metrics That Matter the Most.

    Who benefits from improving the measurement and monitoring of customer satisfaction?

    This Research Is Designed for:

    • Customer Success leaders and marketers who are:
      • Responsible for understanding how to benchmark, measure, and understand customer satisfaction to improve satisfaction, NPS, and ROI.
      • Looking to take a more proactive and structured approach to customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring.
      • Looking for a more effective and accurate way to measure and understand how to improve customer satisfaction around products and services.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Understand the factors driving satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
    • Know which customers are satisfied/dissatisfied.
    • Know where time, money, and resources are needed the most in order to improve or maintain satisfaction levels.
    • Develop a formal plan to improve customer satisfaction.
    • Establish a repeatable process for customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring that allows for proactivity when declines in satisfaction are detected.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Customer Success Leaders, Marketing and Sales Directors and Managers, Product Marketing Managers, and Advocacy Managers/Coordinators who are responsible for:
      • Product improvements and enhancements
      • Customer service and onboarding
      • Customer advocacy programs
      • Referral/VoC programs

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Coordinate and align on customer experience efforts and actions.
    • Gather and make use of customer feedback to improve products, solutions, and services provided.
    • Provide an amazing customer experience throughout the entirety of the customer journey.

    SoftwareReviews’ methodology for measuring the customer satisfaction metrics that matter the most

    1. Identify true customer satisfaction drivers

    2. Develop metrics dashboard

    3. Develop customer satisfaction measurement and management plan

    Phase Steps

    1. Identify data sources, documenting any gaps in data
    2. Analyze all relevant data on customer experiences and outcomes
    3. Document top satisfaction drivers
    1. Identify business goals, problems to be solved / define business challenges and marketing/customer success goals
    2. Use SR diagnostic to assess current state of satisfaction measurement, assessing metric alignment to satisfaction drivers
    3. Define your metrics dashboard
    4. Develop common metric definitions, language for discussing, and standards for measuring customer satisfaction
    1. Determine committee structure to measure performance metrics over time
    2. Map out gaps in satisfaction along customer journey/common points in journey where customers are least dissatisfied
    3. Build plan that identifies weak areas and shows how to fix using SR’s emotional footprint, other measures
    4. Create plan and roadmap for CSat improvement
    5. Create communication deck

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Documented satisfaction drivers
    2. Documented data sources and gaps in data
    1. Current state customer satisfaction measurement analysis
    2. Common metric definitions and measurement standards
    3. Metrics dashboard
    1. Customer satisfaction measurement plan
    2. Customer satisfaction improvement plan
    3. Customer journey maps
    4. Customer satisfaction improvement communication deck
    5. Customer Satisfaction Committee created

    Insight summary

    Understanding and measuring the true drivers of satisfaction enable the delivery of real customer value

    All software companies measure satisfaction in some way, but many lack understanding of what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true drivers of satisfaction, solution providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, pull actionable insights and feedback, and make changes to products and services that customers really care about and which will keep them coming back to you to have their needs met.

    Positive experiences drive satisfaction more so than features and cost

    According to our analysis of software buyer reviews data*, the biggest drivers of satisfaction and likeliness to recommend are the positive experiences customers have with vendors and their products. Customers want to feel that:

    1. Their productivity and performance is enhanced, and the vendor is helping them innovate and grow as a company.
    2. Their vendor inspires them and helps them to continually improve.
    3. They can rely on the vendor and the product they purchased.
    4. They are respected by the vendor.
    5. They can trust that the vendor will be on their side and save them time.
    *8 million data points across all software categories

    Measure Key Relationship KPIs to gauge satisfaction

    Key metrics to track include the Business Value Created score, Net Emotional Footprint, and the Love/Hate score (the strength of emotional connection).

    Orient the organization around customer experience excellence

    1. Arrange staff incentives around customer value instead of metrics that are unrelated to satisfaction.
    2. Embed customer experience as a core company value and integrate it into all functions.
    3. Make working with your organization easy and seamless for customers.

    Have a designated committee for customer satisfaction measurement

    Best in class organizations create customer satisfaction committees that meet regularly to measure and monitor customer satisfaction, resolve issues quickly, and work towards improved customer experience and profit outcomes.

    Use metrics that align to top satisfaction drivers

    This will give you a more accurate and fulsome view of customer satisfaction than standard satisfaction metrics alone will.

    Guided Implementation

    What is our GI on measuring and managing the customer satisfaction metrics that matter most?

    Identify True Customer Satisfaction Drivers

    Develop Metrics Dashboard Develop Customer Satisfaction Measurement and Management Plan

    Call #1: Discuss current pain points and barriers to successful customer satisfaction measurement, monitoring and maintenance. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #2: Discuss all available data, noting any gaps. Develop plan to fill gaps, discuss feasibility and timelines. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #3: Walk through SoftwareReviews reports to understand EF and satisfaction drivers. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #4: Segment customers and document key satisfaction drivers. Plan next call – 2 week.

    Call #5: Document business goals and align them to metrics. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #6: Complete the SoftwareReviews satisfaction measurement diagnostic. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #7: Score list of metrics that align to satisfaction drivers. Plan next call – 2 days.

    Call #8: Develop metrics dashboard and definitions. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #9: Finalize metrics dashboard and definitions. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #10: Discuss committee and determine governance. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #11: Map out gaps in satisfaction along customer journey as they relate to top satisfaction drivers. Plan next call –2 weeks.

    Call #12: Develop plan and roadmap for satisfaction improvement. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #13: Finalize plan and roadmap. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call # 14: Review and coach on communication deck.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst.

    Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    Software Reviews offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.” “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.” “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.” “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”
    Included within Advisory Membership Optional add-ons

    Bibliography

    “Are you experienced?” Bain & Company, Apr. 2015. Accessed 6 June. 2022.

    Brisco, Ken. “Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Why It’s So Important.” NICE, Feb. 2019. Accessed 6 June. 2022.

    CMO.com Team. “The Customer Experience Management Mandate.” Adobe Experience Cloud Blog, July 2019. Accessed 14 June. 2022.

    Cote, Dan. “Advocacy Blooms and Business Booms When Customers and Employees Engage.” Influitive, Dec. 2021. Accessed 15 June. 2022.

    Fanderl, Harald and Perrey, Jesko. “Best of both worlds: Customer experience for more revenues and lower costs.” McKinsey & Company, Apr. 2014. Accessed 15 June. 2022.

    Gallemard, Jeremy. “Why – And How – Should Customer Satisfaction Be Measured?” Smart Tribune, Feb. 2020. Accessed 6 June. 2022.

    Kumar, Swagata. “Customer Success Statistics in 2021.” Customer Success Box, 2021. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    Lakshmiu Tatikonda, “The Hidden Costs of Customer Dissatisfaction”, Management Accounting Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 3, 2013, pp 38. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    Loper, Matthew. “Why ‘Customer Satisfaction’ Misses the Mark – And What to Measure Instead.” Newsweek, Jan. 2022. Accessed 16 June. 2022.

    Maechler, Nicolas, et al. “Improving the business-to-business customer experience.” McKinsey & Company, Mar. 2016. Accessed 16 June.

    “New Research from Dimension Data Reveals Uncomfortable CX Truths.” CISION PR Newswire, Apr. 2017. Accessed 7 June. 2022.

    Sheth, Rohan. 75 Must-Know Customer Experience Statistics to move Your Business Forward in 2022.” SmartKarrot, Feb. 2022. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    Smith, Mercer. “111 Customer Service Statistics and Facts You Shouldn’t Ignore.” HelpScout, May 2022. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    “State of the Connected Customer.” Salesforce, 2020. Accessed 14 June. 2022

    “The true value of customer experiences.” Deloitte, 2018. Accessed 15 June. 2022.

    Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}296|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact: 9.2/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $122,947 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 34 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
    • Parent Category Link: /threat-intelligence-incident-response
    • Vulnerability scanners, industry alerts, and penetration tests are revealing more and more vulnerabilities, and it is unclear how to manage them.
    • Organizations are struggling to prioritize the vulnerabilities for remediation, as there are many factors to consider, including the threat of the vulnerability and the potential remediation option itself.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Patches are often considered the only answer to vulnerabilities, but these are not always the most suitable solution.
    • Vulnerability management does not equal patch management. It includes identifying and assessing the risk of the vulnerability, and then selecting a remediation option which goes beyond just patching alone.
    • There is more than one way to tackle the problem. Leverage your existing security controls to protect the organization.

    Impact and Result

    • After this blueprint, you will have created a full vulnerability management program that allows you to take a risk-based approach to vulnerability remediation.
    • Assessing a vulnerability’s risk will enable you to properly determine the true urgency of a vulnerability within the context of your organization; this ensures you are not just blindly following what the tool is reporting.
    • The risk-based approach allows you to prioritize your discovered vulnerabilities and take immediate action on critical and high vulnerabilities, while allowing your standard remediation cycle to address the medium to low vulnerabilities.
    • With your program defined and developed, you now need to configure your vulnerability scanning tool, or acquire one if you don’t already have a tool in place.
    • Lastly, while vulnerability management will help address your systems and applications, how do you know if you are secure from external malicious actors? Penetration testing will offer visibility, allowing you to plug those holes and attain an environment with a smaller risk surface.

    Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should design and implement a vulnerability management program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    • Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management – Phases 1-4

    1. Identify vulnerability sources

    Begin the project by creating a vulnerability management team and determine how vulnerabilities will be identified through scanners, penetration tests, third-party sources, and incidents.

    • Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    2. Triage vulnerabilities and assign priorities

    Determine how vulnerabilities will be triaged and evaluated based on intrinsic qualities and how they may compromise business functions and data sensitivity.

    • Vulnerability Tracking Tool
    • Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool
    • Vulnerability Management Workflow (Visio)
    • Vulnerability Management Workflow (PDF)

    3. Remediate vulnerabilities

    Address the vulnerabilities based on their level of risk. Patching isn't the only risk mitigation action; some systems simply cannot be patched, but other options are available. Reduce the risk down to medium/low levels and engage your regular operational processes to deal with the latter.

     

    4. Measure and formalize

    Evolve the program continually by developing metrics and formalizing a policy.

    • Vulnerability Management Policy Template
    • Vulnerability Scanning Tool RFP Template
    • Penetration Test RFP Template

    Infographic

    Workshop: Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

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

    1 Identify Vulnerability Sources

    The Purpose

    Establish a common understanding of vulnerability management, and define the roles, scope, and information sources of vulnerability detection.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Attain visibility on all of the vulnerability information sources, and a common understanding of vulnerability management and its scope.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the scope & boundary of your organization’s security program.

    1.2 Assign responsibility for vulnerability identification and remediation.

    1.3 Develop a monitoring and review process of third-party vulnerability sources.

    1.4 Review incident management and vulnerability management

    Outputs

    Defined scope and boundaries of the IT security program

    Roles and responsibilities defined for member groups

    Process for review of third-party vulnerability sources

    Alignment of vulnerability management program with existing incident management processes

    2 Triage and Prioritize

    The Purpose

    We will examine the elements that you will use to triage and analyze vulnerabilities, prioritizing using a risk-based approach and prepare for remediation options.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A consistent, documented process for the evaluation of vulnerabilities in your environment.

    Activities

    2.1 Evaluate your identified vulnerabilities.

    2.2 Determine high-level business criticality.

    2.3 Determine your high-level data classifications.

    2.4 Document your defense-in-depth controls.

    2.5 Build a classification scheme to consistently assess impact.

    2.6 Build a classification scheme to consistently assess likelihood.

    Outputs

    Adjusted workflow to reflect your current processes

    List of business operations and their criticality and impact to the business

    Adjusted workflow to reflect your current processes

    List of defense-in-depth controls

    Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment tool formatted to your organization

    Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment tool formatted to your organization

    3 Remediate Vulnerabilities

    The Purpose

    Identifying potential remediation options.

    Developing criteria for each option in regard to when to use and when to avoid.

    Establishing exception procedure for testing and remediation.

    Documenting the implementation of remediation and verification.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identifying and selecting the remediation option to be used

    Determining what to do when a patch or update is not available

    Scheduling and executing the remediation activity

    Planning continuous improvement

    Activities

    3.1 Develop risk and remediation action.

    Outputs

    List of remediation options sorted into “when to use” and “when to avoid” lists

    4 Measure and Formalize

    The Purpose

    You will determine what ought to be measured to track the success of your vulnerability management program.

    If you lack a scanning tool this phase will help you determine tool selection.

    Lastly, penetration testing is a good next step to consider once you have your vulnerability management program well underway.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Outline of metrics that you can then configure your vulnerability scanning tool to report on.

    Development of an inaugural policy covering vulnerability management.

    The provisions needed for you to create and deploy an RFP for a vulnerability management tool.

    An understanding of penetration testing, and guidance on how to get started if there is interest to do so.

    Activities

    4.1 Measure your program with metrics, KPIs, and CSFs.

    4.2 Update the vulnerability management policy.

    4.3 Create an RFP for vulnerability scanning tools.

    4.4 Create an RFP for penetration tests.

    Outputs

    List of relevant metrics to track, and the KPIs, CSFs, and business goals for.

    Completed Vulnerability Management Policy

    Completed Request for Proposal (RFP) document that can be distributed to vendor proponents

    Completed Request for Proposal (RFP) document that can be distributed to vendor proponents

    Further reading

    Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

    Get off the patching merry-go-round and start mitigating risk!

    Table of Contents

    4 Analyst Perspective

    5 Executive Summary

    6 Common Obstacles

    8 Risk-based approach to vulnerability management

    16 Step 1.1: Vulnerability management defined

    24 Step 1.2: Defining scope and roles

    34 Step 1.3: Cloud considerations for vulnerability management

    33 Step 1.4: Vulnerability detection

    46 Step 2.1: Triage vulnerabilities

    51 Step 2.2: Determine high-level business criticality

    56 Step 2.3: Consider current security posture

    61 Step 2.4: Risk assessment of vulnerabilities

    71 Step 3.1: Assessing remediation options

    Table of Contents

    80 Step 3.2: Scheduling and executing remediation

    85 Step 3.3: Continuous improvement

    89 Step 4.1: Metrics, KPIs, and CSFs

    94 Step 4.2: Vulnerability management policy

    97 Step 4.3: Select & implement a scanning tool

    107 Step 4.4: Penetration testing

    118 Summary of accomplishment

    119 Additional Support

    120 Bibliography

    Analyst Perspective

    Vulnerabilities will always be present. Know the unknowns!

    In this age of discovery, technology changes at such a rapid pace. New things are discovered, both in new technology and in old. The pace of change can often be very confusing as to where to start and what to do.

    The ever-changing nature of technology means that vulnerabilities will always be present. Taking measures to address these completely will consume all your department’s time and resources. That, and your efforts will quickly become stale as new vulnerabilities are uncovered. Besides, what about the systems that simply can’t be patched? The key is to understand the vulnerabilities and the levels of risk they pose to your organization, to prioritize effectively and to look beyond patching.

    A risk-based approach to vulnerability management will ensure you are prioritizing appropriately and protecting the business. Reduce the risk surface!

    Vulnerability management is more than just systems and application patching. It is a full process that includes patching, compensating controls, segmentation, segregation, and heightened diligence in security monitoring.

    Jimmy Tom, Research Advisor – Security, Privacy, Risk, and Compliance, Info-Tech Research Group. Jimmy Tom
    Research Advisor – Security, Privacy, Risk, and Compliance
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Vulnerability scanners, industry alerts, and penetration tests are revealing more and more vulnerabilities, and it is unclear how to manage them.

    Organizations are struggling to prioritize the vulnerabilities for remediation, as there are many factors to consider, including the threat of the vulnerability and the potential remediation option.

    Common Obstacles

    Patches are often seen as the answer to vulnerabilities, but these are not always the most suitable solution.

    Some systems deemed vulnerable simply cannot be patched or easily replaced.

    Companies are unaware of the risk implications that come from leaving the vulnerability open and from the remediation option itself.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Design and implement a vulnerability management program that identifies, prioritizes, and remediates vulnerabilities.

    Understand what needs to be considered when implementing remediation options, including patches, configuration changes, and defense-in-depth controls.

    Build a process that is easy to understand and allows vulnerabilities to be remediated proactively, instead of in an ad hoc fashion.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vulnerability management does not always equal patch management. There is more than one way to tackle the problem, particularly if a system cannot be easily patched or replaced. If a vulnerability cannot be completely remediated, steps to reduce the risk to a tolerable level must be taken.

    Common obstacles

    These barriers make vulnerability management difficult to address for many organizations:
    • The value of vulnerability management is not well articulated in many organizations. As a result, investment in vulnerability scanning technology is often insufficient.
    • Many organizations feel that a “patch everything” approach is the most effective path.
    • Vulnerability management is commonly misunderstood as being a process that only supports patch management.
    • There is often misalignment between SecOps and ITOps in remediation action and priority, affecting the timeliness of remediation.
    CVSS Score Distribution From the National Vulnerability Database: Pie Charts presenting the CVSS Core Distribution for the National Vulnerability Database. The left circle represents 'V3' and the right 'V2', where V3 has an extra option for 'Critical', above 'High', 'Medium', and 'Low', and V2 does not.
    (Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database Dashboard)

    Leverage risk to sort, triage, and prioritize vulnerabilities

    Reduce your risk surface to avoid cost to your business; everything else is table stakes.

    Reduce the critical and high vulnerabilities below the risk threshold and operationalize the remediation of medium/low vulnerabilities by following your effective vulnerability management program cycles.

    Identify vulnerability sources

    An inventory of your scanning tool and vulnerability threat intelligence data sources will help you determine a viable strategy for addressing vulnerabilities. Defining roles and responsibilities ahead of time will ensure you are not left scrambling when dealing with vulnerabilities.

    Triage and prioritize

    Bring the vulnerabilities into context by assessing vulnerabilities based on your security posture and mechanisms and not just what your data sources report. This will allow you to gauge the true urgency of the vulnerabilities based on risk and determine an effective mitigation plan.

    Remediate vulnerabilities

    Address the vulnerabilities based on their level of risk. Patching isn't the only risk mitigation action; some systems simply cannot be patched, but other options are available.

    Reduce the risk down to medium/low levels and engage your regular operational processes to deal with the latter.

    Measure and formalize

    Upon implementation of the program, measure with metrics to ensure that the program is successful. Improve the program with each iteration of vulnerability mitigation to ensure continuous improvement.

    Tactical Insight 1

    All actions to address vulnerabilities should be based on risk and the organization’s established risk tolerance.

    Tactical Insight 2

    Reduce the risk surface down below the risk threshold.

    The industry has shifted to a risk-based approach

    Traditional vulnerability management is no longer viable.

    “For those of us in the vulnerability management space, ensuring that money, resources, and time are strategically spent is both imperative and difficult. Resources are dwindling fast, but the vulnerability problem sure isn’t.” (Kenna Security)

    “Using vulnerability scanners to identify unpatched software is no longer enough. Keeping devices, networks, and digital assets safe takes a much broader, risk-based vulnerability management strategy – one that includes vulnerability assessment and mitigation actions that touch the entire ecosystem.” (Balbix)

    “Unlike legacy vulnerability management, risk-based vulnerability management goes beyond just discovering vulnerabilities. It helps you understand vulnerability risks with threat context and insight into potential business impact.” (Tenable)

    “A common mistake when prioritizing patching is equating a vulnerability’s Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score with risk. Although CVSS scores can provide useful insight into the anatomy of a vulnerability and how it might behave if weaponized, they are standardized and thus don’t reflect either of the highly situational variables — namely, weaponization likelihood and potential impact — that factor into the risk the vulnerability poses to an organization.” (SecurityWeek)

    Why a take risk-based approach?

    Vulnerabilities, by the numbers

    60% — In 2019, 60% of breaches were due to unpatched vulnerabilities.

    74% — In the same survey, 74% of survey responses said they cannot take down critical applications and systems to patch them quickly. (Source: SecurityBoulevard, 2019)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Taking a risk-based approach will allow you to focus on mitigating risk, rather than “just patching” your environment.

    The average cost of a breach in 2020 is $3.86 million, and “…the price tag was much less for mature companies and industries and far higher for firms that had lackluster security automation and incident response processes.” (Dark Reading)

    Vulnerability Management

    A risk-based approach

    Reduce the risk surface to avoid cost to your business, everything else is table stakes

    Logo for Info-Tech.
    Logo for #iTRG.

    1

    Identify

    4

    Address

      Mitigate the risk surface by reducing the time across the phases › Mitigate the risk by implementing:
    • patch systems & apps
    • compensating controls
    • systems and apps hardening
    • systems segregation
    Chart presenting an example of 'Risk Surface' with the axes 'Risk Level' and 'Time' with lines created by individual risks. The highlighted line begins in 'Critical' and eventually drops to low. The area between the line and your organization's risk tolerance is labelled 'Risk Surface'.

    Objective: reduce risk surface by reducing time to address

    Your organization's risk tolerance threshold

      Identify vulnerability management scanning tools & external threat intel sources (Mitre CVE, US-CERT, vendor alerts, etc.) Vulnerability information feeds:
    • scanning tool
    • external threat intel
    • internal threat intel

    2

    Analyze

      Assign actual risk (impact x urgency) to the organization based on current security posture

    Triage based on risk ›

    Your organization's risk tolerance threshold

    Risk tolerance threshold map with axes 'Impact' and 'Likelihood'. High levels of one and low levels of the other, or medium levels of both, is 'Medium', High level of one and Medium levels of the other is 'High', and High levels of both is 'Critical'.

    3

    Assess

      Plan risk mitigation strategy › Consider:
    • risk tolerance
    • compensating controls
    • business impact

    Info-Tech’s vulnerability management methodology

    Focus on developing the most efficient processes.

    Vulnerability management isn’t “old school.”

    The vulnerability management market is relatively mature; however, vulnerability management remains a very relevant and challenging topic.

    Security practitioners are inundated with the advice they need to prioritize their vulnerabilities. Every vulnerability scanning vendor will proclaim their ability to prioritize the identified vulnerabilities.

    Third-party prioritization methodology can’t be effectively applied across all organizations. Each organization is too unique with different constraints. No tool or service can account for these variables.

    Equation to find 'Vulnerability Priority'.

    When patching is not possible, other options exist: configuration changes (hardening), defense-in-depth, compensating controls, and even elevated security monitoring are possible options.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vulnerability management is not only patch management. Patching is only one aspect.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable:

    Vulnerability Management SOP

    The Standard operating procedure (SOP) will comprise the end-to-end description of the program: roles & responsibilities, data flow, and expected outcomes of the program.

    Sample of the key deliverable, Vulnerability Management SOP.
    Vulnerability Management Policy

    Template for your vulnerability management policy.

    Sample of the Vulnerability Management Policy blueprint. Vulnerability Tracking Tool

    This tool offers a template to track vulnerabilities and how they are remedied.

    Sample of the Vulnerability Tracking Tool blueprint.
    Vulnerability Scanning RFP Template

    Request for proposal template for the selection of a vulnerability scanning tool.

    Sample of the Vulnerability Scanning RFP Template blueprint. Vulnerability Risk Assessment Tool

    Methodology to assess vulnerability risk by determining impact and likelihood.

    Sample of the Vulnerability Risk Assessment Tool blueprint.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • A standardized, consistent methodology to assess, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities.
    • A risk-based approach that aligns with what’s important to the business.
    • A way of dealing with the high volumes of vulnerabilities that your scanning tool is reporting.
    • Identification of “where to start” in terms of vulnerability management.
    • Ability to not lose yourself in the patch madness but rather take a sound approach to scheduling and prioritizing patches and updates.
    • Knowledge of what to do when patching is simply not possible or feasible.

    Business Benefits

    • Alignment with IT in ensuring that business processes are only interrupted when absolutely necessary while maintaining a regular cadence of vulnerability remediation.
    • A consistent program that the business can plan around and predict when interruptions will occur.
    • IT’s new approach being integrated with existing IT operations processes, offering the most efficient yet expedient method of dealing with vulnerabilities.

    Info-Tech’s process can save significant financial resources

    Phase Measured Value
    Phase 1: Identify vulnerability sources
      Define the process, scope, roles, vulnerability sources, and current state
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 16 hours = $1,600
    Phase 2: Triage vulnerabilities and assign urgencies
      Establish triaging and vulnerability evaluation process
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 16 hours = $1,600
      Determine high-level business criticality and data classifications
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 40 hours = $4,000
      Assign urgencies to vulnerabilities
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 8 hours = $800
    Phase 3: Remediate vulnerabilities
      Prepare documentation for the vulnerability process
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 8 hours = $800
      Establish defense-in-depth modelling
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 24 hours = $2,400
      Identify remediation options and establish criteria for use
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 40 hours = $4,000
      Formalize backup and testing procedures, including exceptions
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 8 hours = $800
      Remediate vulnerabilities and verify
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 24 hours = $2,400
    Phase 4: Continually improve the vulnerability management process
      Establish a metrics program for vulnerability management
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 16 hours = $1,600
      Update vulnerability management policy
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 8 hours = $800
      Develop a vulnerability scanning tool RFP
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 40 hours = $4,000
      Develop a penetration test RFP
      • Consultant at $100 an hour for 40 hours = $4,000
    Potential financial savings from using Info-Tech resources Phase 1 ($1,600) + Phase 2 ($6,400) + Phase 3 ($10,400) + Phase 4 ($10,400) = $28,800

    Guided Implementation

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

    A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

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

    Call #2: Discuss current state and vulnerability sources.

    Call #3: Identify triage methods and business criticality.

    Call #4:Review current defense-in-depth and discuss risk assessment.

    Call #5: Discuss remediation options and scheduling.

    Call #6: Review release and change management and continuous improvement.

    Call #7: Identify metrics, KPIs, and CSFs.

    Call #8: Review vulnerability management policy.

    Workshop Overview

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

      Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Activities
    Identify vulnerability sources

    1.1 What is vulnerability management?

    1.2 Define scope and roles

    1.3 Cloud considerations for vulnerability management

    1.4 Vulnerability detection

    Triage and prioritize

    2.1 Triage vulnerabilities

    2.2 Determine high-level business criticality

    2.3 Consider current security posture

    2.4 Risk assessment of vulnerabilities

    Remediate vulnerabilities

    3.1 Assess remediation options

    3.2 Schedule and execute remediation

    3.3 Drive continuous improvement

    Measure and formalize

    4.1 Metrics, KPIs & CSFs

    4.2 Vulnerability Management Policy

    4.3 Select & implement a scanning tool

    4.4 Penetration testing

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps

    Deliverables
    1. Scope and boundary definition of vulnerability management program
    2. Responsibility assignment for vulnerability identification and remediation
    3. Monitoring and review process of third-party vulnerability sources
    4. Incident management and vulnerability convergence
    1. Methodology for evaluating identified vulnerabilities
    2. Identification of high-level business criticality
    3. Defined high-level data classifications
    4. Documented defense-in-depth controls
    5. Risk assessment criteria for impact and likelihood
    1. Documented risk assessment methodology and remediation options
    1. Defined metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and critical success factors (CSFs)
    2. Initial draft of vulnerability management policy
    3. Scanning tool selection criteria
    4. Introduction to penetration testing
    1. Completed vulnerability management standard operating procedure
    2. Defined vulnerability management risk assessment criteria
    3. Vulnerability management policy draft

    Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

    Phase 1

    Identify Vulnerability Sources

    Phase 1

    1.1 What is vulnerability management?
    1.2 Define scope and roles
    1.3 Cloud considerations for vulnerability management
    1.4 Vulnerability detection

     

    Phase 2

    2.1 Triage vulnerabilities
    2.2 Determine high-level business criticality
    2.3 Consider current security posture
    2.4 Risk assessment of vulnerabilities

     

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assessing remediation options
    3.2 Scheduling and executing remediation
    3.3 Continuous improvement

     

    Phase 4

    4.1 Metrics, KPIs & CSFs
    4.2 Vulnerability management policy
    4.3 Select and implement a scanning tool
    4.4 Penetration testing

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Establish a common understanding of vulnerability management, define the roles, scope, and information sources of vulnerability detection.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Security operations team
    • IT Security Manager
    • IT Director
    • CISO

    Step 1.1

    Vulnerability Management Defined

    Activities

    None for this section

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Establish a common understanding of vulnerability management and its place in the IT organization.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Security operations team
    • IT Security Manager
    • IT Director
    • CISO

    Outcomes of this step

    Foundational knowledge of vulnerability management in your organization.

    Identify vulnerability sources
    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

    What is vulnerability management?

    It’s more than just patching.

    • Vulnerability management is the regular and ongoing practice of scanning an operating environment to uncover vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can be outdated applications, unpatched operating systems and software, open ports, obsolete hardware, or any combination of these.
    • The scanning and detection of vulnerabilities is the first step. Planning and executing of remediation is next, along with the approach, prioritized sequence of events, and timing.
    • A vendor-supplied software patch or firmware update is often the easy answer, however, this is not always a viable solution. What if you can’t patch in a timely fashion? What if patching is not possible as it will break the application and bring down operations? What if no patch exists due to the age of the application or operating platform?

    “Most organizations do not have a formal process for vulnerability management.” (Morey Haber, VP of Technology, BeyondTrust, 2016)

    Effective vulnerability management

    It’s not easy, but it’s much harder without a process in place.
    • Effective vulnerability management requires a formal process for organizations to follow; without one, vulnerabilities are dealt with in an ad hoc fashion.
    • Patching isn’t the only solution, but it’s the one that often draws focus.
    • Responsibilities for the different aspects of vulnerability management are often unclear, such as for testing, remediation, and implementation.
    • Identifying new threats without proper vulnerability scanning tools can be a near-impossible task.
    • Determining which vulnerabilities are most urgent can be an inconsistent process, increasing the organizational risk.
    • Measuring the effectiveness of your vulnerability remediation activities can help you better manage resources in SecOps and ITOps. Your staff will be spending the appropriate effort on vulnerabilities that warrant that level of attention.

    You’re not just doing this for yourself. It’s also for your auditors.

    Many compliance and regulatory obligations require organizations to have thorough documentation of their vulnerability management practices.

    Vulnerability management revolves around your asset security services

    Diagram with 'Asset Security Services' at the center. On either side are 'Network Security Services' and 'Identity Security Services', all three of which flow up into 'Security Analytics | Security Incident Response', and all four share a symbiotic flow with 'Management' below and contribute to 'Mega Trend Mapping' above. Management is supported by 'Governance'. Vulnerabilities can be found primarily within your assets but also connect to your information risk management. These must be effectively managed as part of a holistic security program.

    Without management, vulnerabilities left unattended can be easy for attackers to exploit. It becomes difficult to identify the correct remediation option to mitigate against the vulnerabilities.

    Vulnerability management works in tandem with SecOps and ITOps

    Vulnerability Management Process Inputs/Outputs:
    'Vulnerability Management (Process and Tool)' outputs are 'Incident Management', 'Release Management', 'Change Management', 'IT Asset Management', 'Application Security Testing', 'Threat Intelligence', and 'Security Risk Management'; inputs are 'Vulnerability Disclosure', 'Threat Intelligence', and 'Security Risk Management'.

    Arrows denote direction of information feed

    Vulnerability management serves as the input into a number of processes for remediation, including:
    • Incident management, to deal with issues
    • Release management, for patch management
    • Change management, for change control
    • IT asset management, to track version information, e.g. for patching
    • Application security testing, for the verification of vulnerabilities

    A two-way data flow exists between vulnerability management and:

    • Security risk management, for the overall risk posture of the organization
    • Threat intelligence, as vulnerability management reveals only one of several threat vectors

    For additional information please refer to Info-Tech’s research for each area:

    • Vulnerability management can leverage your existing processes to gain an operational element for the program.
    • As you strive to mature each of the processes on their own, vulnerability management will benefit accordingly.
    • Review our research for each of these areas and speak to one of our analysts if you wish to improve any of the listed processes.

    Info-Tech’s Information Security Program Framework

    Vulnerability management is a component of the Infrastructure Security section of Security Management

    Information Security Framework with Level 1 and Level 2 capabilities in two main sections, 'Management' and 'Governance'. Level 2 capabilities are grouped within Level 1 capabilities. For more information, review our Build an Information Security Strategy blueprint, or speak to one of our analysts.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vulnerability management is but one piece of the information security puzzle. Ensure that you have all the pieces!

    Case Study

    Logo for Cimpress.
    INDUSTRY: Manufacturing
    SOURCE: Cimpress, 2016

    One organization is seeing immediate benefits by formalizing its vulnerability management program.

    Challenge

    Cimpress was dealing with many challenges in regards to vulnerability management. Vulnerability scanning tools were used, but the reports that were generated often gave multiple vulnerabilities that were seen as critical or high and required many resources to help address them. Scanning was done primarily in an attempt to adhere to PCI compliance rather than to effectively enable security. After re-running some scans, Cimpress saw that some vulnerabilities had existed for an extended time period but were deemed acceptable.

    Solution

    The Director of Information Security realized that there was a need to greatly improve this current process. Guidelines and policies were formalized that communicated when scans should occur and what the expectations for remediations should be. Cimpress also built a tiered approach to prioritize vulnerabilities for remediation that is specific to Cimpress instead of relying on scanning tool reports.

    Results

    Cimpress found better management of the vulnerabilities within its system. There was no pushback to the adoption of the policies, and across the worldwide offices, business units have been proactively trying to understand if there are vulnerabilities. Vulnerability management has been expanded to vendors and is taken into consideration when doing any mergers and acquisitions. Cimpress continues to expand its program for vulnerability management to include application development and vulnerabilities within any existing legacy systems.

    Step 1.2

    Defining the scope and roles

    Activities
    • 1.2.1 Define the scope and boundary of your organization’s security program
    • 1.2.2 Assign responsibility for vulnerability identification and remediation

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Define and understand the scope and boundary of the security program. For example, does it include OT? Define roles and responsibilities for vulnerability identification and remediation

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Security operations team
    • IT Security Manager
    • IT Director
    • CISO

    Outcomes of this step

    Understand how far vulnerability management extends and what role each person in IT plays in the remediation of vulnerabilities

    Identify vulnerability sources
    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

    Determine the scope of your security program

    This will help you adjust the depth and breadth of your vulnerability management program.
    • Determining the scope will help you decide how much organizational risk the vulnerability management program will oversee.
    • Scope can be defined along four aspects:
      • Data Scope – What data elements in your organization does your security program cover? How is data classified?
      • Physical Scope – What physical scope, such as geographies, does the security program cover?
      • Organizational Scope – How are business units engaged with security initiatives? Does the scope cover all subsidiary organizations?
      • IT Scope – What parts of the organization does IT cover? Does their coverage include operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS)?
    Stock image of figures standing in connected circles.

    1.2.1 Define the scope and boundary of your organization’s security program

    60 minutes

    Input: List of Data Scope, Physical Scope, Organization Scope, and IT Scope

    Output: Defined scope and boundaries of the IT security program

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip Charts, Sticky Notes, Markers, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: Business stakeholders, IT leaders, Security team members

    1. On a whiteboard, write the headers: Data Scope, Physical Scope, Organizational Scope, and IT Scope.
    2. Give each group member a handful of sticky notes. Ask them to write down as many items as possible for the organization that could fall under one of the four scope buckets.
    3. In a group, discuss the sticky notes and the rationale for including them. Discuss your security-related locations, data, people, and technologies, and define their scope and boundaries.

    The goal is to identify what your vulnerability management program is responsible for and document it.

    Consider the following:

    How is data being categorized and classified? How are business units engaged with security initiatives? How are IT systems connected to each other? How are physical locations functioning in terms of information security management?

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Assets are part of the scope definition

    An inventory of IT assets is necessary if there is to be effective vulnerability management.

    • Organizations need an up-to-date and comprehensive asset inventory for vulnerability management. This is due to multiple reasons:
      • When vulnerabilities are announced, they will need to be compared to an inventory to determine if the organization has any relevant systems or versions.
      • It indicates where all IT assets can be found both physically and logically.
      • Asset inventories typically have owners assigned to the assets and systems whose responsibility it is to carry out remediations for vulnerabilities.
    • Furthermore, asset inventories can provide insight into where data can be found within the organization. This is extremely useful within a formal data classification program, which plays a large factor in vulnerability management.
    If you need assistance building your asset inventory, review Info-Tech’s Implement Hardware Asset Management and Implement Software Asset Management blueprints.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Create a formal IT asset inventory before continuing with the rest of this project. Otherwise, you risk being at the mercy of a weak vulnerability management program.

    Assign responsibility for vulnerability identification and remediation

    Determine who is critical to effectively detecting and managing vulnerabilities.
    • Some of the remediation steps will involve members of IT management to identify the true organizational risk of a vulnerability.
    • Vulnerability remediation comes in different shapes and sizes. In addition to patching, this can include implementing compensating controls, server and application hardening, or the segregating of vulnerable systems.
      • Who carries out each of these activities? Who coordinates the activities and tracks them to ensure completion?
    • The people involved may be members outside of the security team, such as members from IT operations, infrastructure, and applications. The specific roles that each of these groups play should be clearly identified.
    Stock image of many connected profile photos in a cloud network.

    1.2.2 Assign responsibility for vulnerability identification and remediation

    60 minutes

    Input: Sample list of vulnerabilities and requisite actions from each group, High-level organizational chart with area functions

    Output: Defined set of roles and responsibilities for member groups

    Materials: Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: CIO, CISO, IT Management representatives for each area of IT

    1. Display the table of responsibilities that need to be assigned.
    2. List all the positions within the IT security team.
    3. Map these to the positions that require IT security team members.
    4. List all positions that are part of the IT team.
    5. Map these to the positions that require IT team members.

    If your organization does not have a dedicated IT security team, you can perform this exercise by mapping the relevant IT staff to the different positions shown on the right.

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template Sample of the Roles and Responsibilities table from the Vulnerability Management SOP Template.

    Step 1.3

    Cloud considerations for vulnerability management

    Activities

    None for this section.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Review cloud considerations for vulnerability management

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Security operations team
    • IT Security Manager
    • IT Director
    • CISO

    Outcomes of this step

    Understand the various types of cloud offerings and the implications (and limitations) of vulnerability management in a cloud environment.

    Identify vulnerability sources
    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

    Cloud considerations

    Cloud will change your approach to vulnerability management.
    • There will be a heavy dependence on the cloud service provider to ensure that vulnerabilities in their foundational technologies have been addressed.
    • Depending on the level of “as-a-Service,” customers will have varying degrees of control and visibility into the underlying operations.
    • With vendor acquiescence, you can set your tool to scan a given cloud environment, depending on how much visibility you have into their environment based on the service you have purchased.
    • Due to compliance obligations of their customers, there is a growing trend among cloud providers to allow more scanning of cloud environments.
    • In the absence of customer scanning capability, vendors may offer attestation of vulnerability management and remediation.
    Table outlining who has control, between the 'Organization' and the 'Vendor', of different cloud capabilities in different cloud strategies.

    For more information, see Info-Tech Research Group’s Document Your Cloud Strategy blueprint.

    Cloud environment scanning

    Cloud scanning is becoming a more common necessity but still requires special consideration.

    An organization’s cloud environment is just an extension of its own environment. As such, cloud environments need to be scanned for vulnerabilities.

    Private Cloud
    If your organization owns a private cloud, these environments can be tested normally.
    Public Cloud
    Performing vulnerability testing against public, third-party cloud environments is an area experiencing rapid growth and general acceptance, although customer visibility will still be limited.

    In many cases, a customer must rely on the vendor’s assurance that vulnerabilities are being addressed in a sufficient manner.

    Security standards’ compliance requirements are driving the need for cloud suppliers to validate and assure that they are appropriately scanning for and remediating vulnerabilities.

    Infrastructure- or Platform-as-a-Service (IaaS or PaaS) Environments
    • There is a general trend for PaaS and IaaS vendors to allow testing if given due notice.
    • Your contract with the cloud vendor or the vendor’s terms and conditions will outline the permissibility of customer vulnerability scanning. In some cases, a cloud vendor will deny the ability to do vulnerability scanning if they already provide a solution as part of their service.
    • Always ensure that the vendor is aware of your vulnerability scanning activity so that false positives aren’t triggering their security measures as possible denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
    Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Environments
    • SaaS offers very limited visibility to the services behind the software that the customer sees. You therefore cannot test for patch levels or vulnerabilities.
    • SaaS customers must rely exclusively on the provider for the regular scanning and remediation of vulnerabilities in the back-end technologies supporting the SaaS application.
    • You can only test the connection points to SaaS environments. This involves trying to figure out what you can see, e.g. looking for encrypted traffic.

    Certain testing (e.g. DoS or load testing) will be very limited by your cloud vendor. Cloud vendors won’t open themselves to testing that would possibly impact their operations.

    Step 1.4

    Vulnerability detection

    Activities
    • 1.4.1 Develop a monitoring and review process of third-party vulnerability sources
    • 1.4.2 Incident management and vulnerability management

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Create an inventory of your vulnerability monitoring capability and third-party vulnerability information sources.

    Determine how incident management and vulnerability management interoperate.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Security operations team
    • IT Security Manager
    • IT Director
    • CISO

    Outcomes of this step

    Catalog of vulnerability information data sources. Understanding of the intersection of incident management and vulnerability management.

    Identify vulnerability sources
    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

    Vulnerability detection

    Vulnerabilities can be identified through numerous mediums.

    Info-Tech has determined the following to be the four most common ways to identify vulnerabilities.

    Vulnerability Assessment and Scanning Tools
    • Computer programs that function to identify and assess security vulnerabilities and weaknesses within computers, computer systems, applications, or networks.
    • Using a known vulnerability database, the tool scans targeted hosts or systems to identify flaws and generate reports and recommendations based on the results.
    • There are four main types of tools under this category: network and operating system vulnerability scanners, application scanning and testing tools, web application scanners, and exploitation tools.
    Penetration Tests
    • The act of identifying vulnerabilities on computers, computer systems, applications, or networks followed by testing of the vulnerability to validate the findings.
    • Penetration tests are considered a service that is offered by third-parties in which a variety of products, tools, and methods are used to exploit systems and gain access to data.
    Open Source Monitoring
    • New vulnerabilities are detected daily with each vulnerability’s information being uploaded to an information-sharing platform to enable other organizations to be able to identify the same vulnerability on their systems.
    • Open source platforms are used to alert and distribute information on newly discovered vulnerabilities to security professionals.
    Security Incidents
    • Any time an incident response plan is called into action to mitigate an incident, there should be formal communication with the vulnerability management team.
    • Any IT incident an organization experiences should provide a feed for analysis into your vulnerability management program.

    Automate with a vulnerability scanning tool

    Vulnerabilities are too numerous for manual scanning and detection.
    • Vulnerability management is not only the awareness of the existence of vulnerabilities but that they are actively present in your environment.
    • A vulnerability scanner will usually report dozens, if not hundreds, of vulnerabilities on a regular and recurring basis. Typical IT environments have several dozen, if not hundreds, of servers. We haven’t even considered the amount of network equipment or the hundreds of user workstations in an environment.
    • This tool will give you information of the presence of a vulnerability in your environment and the host on which the vulnerability exists. This includes information on the version of software that contains a vulnerability and whether you are running that version. The tool will also report on the criticality of the vulnerability based on industry criticality ratings.
    • The tools are continually updated by the vendor with the latest definition updates for the latest vulnerabilities out there. This ensures you are always scanning for the greatest number of potential vulnerabilities.
    Automation requires oversight.
    1. Vulnerability scanners bring great automation to the task of scanning and detecting vulnerabilities in high numbers.
    2. Vulnerability scanners, however, do not have your level of intelligence. Any compensating controls, network segregation, or other risk mitigation features that you have in place will not be known by the tool.
    3. Determining the risk and urgency of a vulnerability within the context of your specific environment will still require internal review by you or your SecOps team.

    For guidance on tool selection

    Refer to section 4.3 Selecting and Implement a Scanning Tool in this blueprint.

    Vulnerability scanning tool considerations

    Select a vulnerability scanning tool with the features you need to be effective.
    • Vulnerability scanning tool selection can be an exciting and confusing process. You will need to consider what features you desire in a tool and whether you want the tool to go beyond just scanning and reporting.
    • In addition to vulnerability scanning, some tools will integrate with your IT service management (service desk ticketing system) tool and asset, configuration, and change management modules. This can facilitate the necessary workflow that the remediation process follows once a vulnerability is discovered.
    • A number of vulnerability scanning tool vendors have started offering remediation as part of their software features. This includes the automation and orchestration functionality and configuration and asset management to track its remediation activities.
    • A side benefit of the asset discovery feature in vulnerability scanning tools is that it can help enhance an organization’s asset inventory and license compliance, particularly in cases where end users are able to install software on their workstations.
    Stock photo of a smartphone scanning a barcode.

    For guidance on tool vendors

    Visit SoftwareReviews for information on vulnerability management tools and vendors.

    Vulnerability scanning tool best practices

    How often should scans be performed?

    One-off scans provide snapshots in time. Repeated scans over time provide tracking for how systems are changing and how well patches are being applied and software is being updated.

    The results of a scan (asset inventory, configuration data, and vulnerability data) are basic information needed to understand your security posture. This data needs to be as up to date as possible.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE: Organizations should look for continuous scanning

    Continuous scanning is the concept of providing continual scanning of your systems so any asset, configuration, or vulnerability information is up to date. Most vendors will advertise continuous scanning but you need to be skeptical of how this feature is met.

    Continuous Scanning Methods

    Continuous agent scanning

    Real-time scanning that is completed through agent-based scanning. Provides real-time understanding of system changes.

    On-demand scanning

    Cyclical scanning is the method where once you’re done scanning an area, you start it again. This is usually done because doing some scans on some areas of your network take time. How long the scan takes depends on the scan itself. How often you perform a scan depends on how long a scan takes. For example, if a scan takes a day, you perform a daily scan.

    Cloud-based scanning

    Cloud-scanning-as-a-Service can provide hands-free continuous monitoring of your systems. This is usually priced as a subscription model.

    Vulnerability scanning tool best practices

    Where to perform a scan.

    What should be scanned How to point a scanner
    The general idea is that you want to scan pretty much everything. Here are considerations for three environments:
    Mobile Devices

    You need to scan mobile devices for vulnerabilities, but the problem is these can be hard to scan and often come and go on your network. There are always going to be some devices that aren’t on the network when scanning occurs.

    Several ways to scan mobile devices:

    • Intercept the device when it remotes into your network using a VPN. You catch the device with a remote scan. This can only be done if a VPN is required.
    • An agent-based approach can be used for mobile devices. Locally installed software gives the information needed to evaluate the security posture of a device. Discernibly, concerns around device processing, memory, and network bandwidth come into play. Ease of installation becomes key for agents.
    Virtualization
    • In a virtual environment, you will have servers being dynamically spun up. Ensure your tool is able to scan these new servers automatically.
    • Often, vulnerability scanning tool providers will restrict scanning to preapproved scanners. Look for tools that are preapproved by the VM vendors.
    Cloud Environments
    • You can set your tool to scan a given cloud environment. The main concern here is who owns the cloud. If it is a private cloud, there is little concern.
    • If it is a third-party cloud (AWS, Azure, etc.) you need to confirm with the cloud service provider that scanning of your cloud environment can occur.
    • There is a trend to allow more scanning of cloud environments.
    • You need to tell the scanner an IP address, a group of IP addresses, an asset group, or a combination of those.
    • You can categorize by functional classifications – internet-facing servers, workstations, network devices, etc., or by organizational structure – Finance, HR, Legal, etc.
    • If you have a strong change management system, you can better hone when and where to perform a scan based on actual changes.
    • You can set the number of concurrent outbound TCP connections that are being made. For example, set the tool so it sends out to 10 ports at a time, rather than pinging at 64k ports on a machine, which would flood the NIC.
    • Side Note: Flooding a host with pings from a scanning tool can be done to find out DoS thresholds on a machine. There are no bandwidth concerns for a network DoS, however, because the packets are so small.

    Vulnerability scanning tool best practices

    Communication and measurement

    Pre-Scan Communication With Users

    • It is always important to inform owners and users of systems that a scan will be happening.
    • Although it is unlikely any performance issues will arise, it is important to notify end users of potential impact.
    • Local admins or system owners may have controls in place that stop vulnerability scans and you need to inform the owners so that they can safelist the scanner you will be using.
    Vulnerability Scanning Tool Tracking Metrics
    • Vulnerability score by operating system, application, or organization division.
      • This provides a look at the widely accepted severity of the vulnerability as it relates across the organization’s systems.
    • Most vulnerable applications and application version.
      • This provides insight into how outdated applications are creating risk exposure for an organization.
      • This will also provide metrics on the effectiveness of your patching program.
    • Number of assets scanned within the last number of days.
      • This provides visibility into how often your assets are being scanned and thus protected.
    • Number of unowned devices or unapproved applications.
      • This metric will track how many unowned devices or unapproved applications may be on your network. Unowned devices may be rogue devices or just consultant/contractor devices.

    Third-party vulnerability information sources

    IT security forums and mailing lists are another source of vulnerability information.

    Proactively identify new vulnerabilities as they are announced.

    By monitoring for vulnerabilities as they are announced through industry alerts and open-source mechanisms, it is possible to identify vulnerabilities beyond your scanning tool’s penetration tests.

    Common sources:
    • Vendor websites and mailing lists
      • Vendors are the trusted sources for vulnerability and patch information on their products, particularly with new industry vulnerability disclosure requirements. Vendors are the most familiar with their products, downloads are most likely malware free, and additional information is often included.
      • There are some issues: vendors won’t announce a vulnerability until a patch is created, which creates a potential unknown risk exposure; numerous vendor sites will have to be monitored continually.
    • Third-party websites
      • A non-vendor site providing information on vulnerabilities. They often will cover a specific technology or an industry section, becoming a potential “one-stop shop” for some. They will often provide vulnerability information that is augmented with different remediation recommendations faster than vendors.
      • However, it’s more likely that malicious code could be downloaded and it will often not be comprehensive information on patching.
    • Third-party mailing lists, newsgroups, live paid subscriptions, and live open-source feeds
      • These are alerting and notification services for the detection and dissemination of vulnerability information. They provide information on the latest and most critical vulnerabilities, e.g. US-CERT Cybersecurity Alerts.
    • Vulnerability databases
      • These usually consist of dedicated databases on vulnerabilities. They perform the hard work of identifying and aggregating vulnerability and patch information into a central repository for end-user consumption. The commentary features on these databases provide excellent insight for practitioners, e.g. National Vulnerability Database (NVD).
    Stock photo of a student checking a bulletin board.

    Third-party vulnerability information sources

    IT security forums and mailing lists are another source of vulnerability information.

    Third-party sources for vulnerabilities

    • Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB)
      • An open-source database that is run independently of any vendors.
    • Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)
      • Free, international dictionary of publicly known information security vulnerabilities and exposures.
    • National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
      • Through NIST, the NVD is the US government’s repository of vulnerabilities and includes product names, flaws, and any impact metrics.
      • The National Checklist Repository Program (NCRP), also provided by NIST, provides security checklists for configurations of operating systems and applications.
      • The Center for Internet Security, a separate entity unrelated to NIST, provides configuration benchmarks that are often referenced by the NCRP.
    • Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)
      • OWASP is another free project helping to expose vulnerabilities within software.
    • US-CERT National Cyber Alert System (US-CERT Alerts)
      • Cybersecurity Alerts – Provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits.
      • Cybersecurity Tips – Provide advice about common security issues for the general public.
      • Cybersecurity Bulletins – Provide weekly summaries of new vulnerabilities. Patch information is provided when available.
    • US-CERT Vulnerability Notes Database (US-CERT Vulnerability Notes)
      • Database of searchable security vulnerabilities that were deemed not critical enough to be covered under US-CERT Alerts. Note that the NVD covers both US-CERT Alerts and US-CERT Notes.
    • Open Vulnerability Assessment Language (OVAL)
      • Coding language for security professionals to discuss vulnerability checking and configuration issues. Vulnerabilities are identified using tests that are disseminated in OVAL definitions (XML executables that can be used by end users).

    1.4.1 Develop a monitoring and review process for third-party vulnerability sources

    60 minutes

    Input: Third-party resources list

    Output: Process for review of third-party vulnerability sources

    Materials: Whiteboard, Whiteboard markers, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, SecOps team members, ITOps team members, CISO

    1. Identify what third-party resources are useful and relevant.
    2. Shortlist your third-party sources.
    3. Identify what is the best way to receive information from a third party.
    4. Document the method to receive or check information from the third-party source.
    5. Identify who is responsible for maintaining third-party vulnerability information sources
    6. Capture this information in the Vulnerability Management SOP Template.
    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template Sample of the Third Party Vulnerability Monitoring tables from the Vulnerability Management SOP Template.

    Incidents and vulnerability management

    Incidents can also be a sources of vulnerabilities.

    When any incident occurs, for example:

    • A security incident, such as malware detected on a machine
    • An IT incident, such as an application becomes unresponsive
    • A crisis occurs, like a worker accident

    There can be underlying vulnerabilities that need to be processed.

    Three Types of IT Incidents exist:
    1. Information Security Incident
    2. IT Incident and/or Problem
    3. Crisis

    Note: You need to have developed your various incident response plans to develop information feeds to the vulnerability mitigation process.
    If you are missing an incident response plan, take a look at Info-Tech’s Related Resources.

    Info-Tech Related Resources:
    If you do not have a formalized information security incident management program, take a look at Info-Tech’s blueprint Develop and Implement a Security Incident Management Program.

    If you do not have a formalized problem management process, take a look at Info-Tech’s blueprint Incident and Problem Management.

    If you do not have a formalized IT incident management process, take a look at Info-Tech’s blueprint Develop and Implement a Security Incident Management Program.

    If you do not have formalized crisis management, take a look at Info-Tech’s blueprint Implement Crisis Management Best Practices.

    1.4.2 Incident management and vulnerability management

    60 minutes

    Input: Existing incident response processes, Existing crisis communications plans

    Output: Alignment of vulnerability management program with existing incident management processes

    Materials: Whiteboard, Whiteboard markers, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, SecOps team members, ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3, CISO, CIO

    1. Inventory what incident response plans the organization has. These include:
      1. Information Security Incident Response Plan
      2. IT Incident Plan
      3. Problem Management Plan
      4. Crisis Management Plan
    2. Identify what part of those plans contains the post-response recap or final analysis.
    3. Formalize a communication process between the incident response plan and the vulnerability mitigation process.

    Note: Most incident processes will cover some sort of root cause analysis and investigation of the incident. If a vulnerability of any kind is detected within this analysis it needs to be reported on and treated as a detected vulnerability, thus warranting the full vulnerability mitigation process.

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

    Phase 2

    Triage & prioritize

    Phase 1

    1.1 What is vulnerability management?
    1.2 Define scope and roles
    1.3 Cloud considerations for vulnerability management
    1.4 Vulnerability detection

     

    Phase 2

    2.1 Triage vulnerabilities
    2.2 Determine high-level business criticality
    2.3 Consider current security posture
    2.4 Risk assessment of vulnerabilities

     

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assessing remediation options
    3.2 Scheduling and executing remediation
    3.3 Continuous improvement

     

    Phase 4

    4.1 Metrics, KPIs & CSFs
    4.2 Vulnerability management policy
    4.3 Select and implement a scanning tool
    4.4 Penetration testing

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Examine the elements that you will use to triage and analyze vulnerabilities, prioritizing using a risk-based approach, and prepare for remediation options.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Step 2.1

    Triage vulnerabilities

    Activities
    • 2.1.1 Evaluate your identified vulnerabilities

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Review your vulnerability information sources and determine a methodology that will be used to consistently evaluate vulnerabilities as your scanning tool alerts you to them.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    A consistent, documented process for the evaluation of vulnerabilities in your environment.

    Triage & prioritize
    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4

    Triaging vulnerabilities

    Use Info-Tech’s methodology to allocate urgencies to your vulnerabilities to assign the appropriate resources to each one.

    When evaluating numerous vulnerabilities, use the following three factors to help determine the urgency of vulnerabilities:

    • The intrinsic qualities of the vulnerability
    • The business criticality of the affected asset
    • The sensitivity of the data stored on the affected asset

    Intrinsic qualities of the vulnerability — Vulnerabilities need to be examined for the inherent risk they pose specifically to the organization, which includes if an exploit has been identified or if the industry views this as a serious and likely threat.

    Business criticality of the affected asset — Assets with vulnerabilities need to be assessed for their criticality to the business. Vulnerabilities on systems that are critical to business operations or customer interactions are usually top of mind.

    Sensitivity of the data of the affected asset — Beyond just the criticality of the business, there must be consideration of the sensitivity of the data that may be compromised or modified as a result of any vulnerabilities.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This methodology allows you to determine urgency of vulnerabilities, but your remediation approach needs to be risk-based, within the context of your organization.

    Triage your vulnerabilities, filter out the noise

    Triaging enables your vulnerability management program to focus on what it should focus on.

    Use the Info-Tech Vulnerability Mitigation Process Template to define how to triage vulnerabilities as they first appear.

    Triaging is an important step in vulnerability management, whether you are facing ten to tens of thousands of vulnerability notifications.
    Many scanning tools already provide the capability to compare known vulnerabilities against existing assets through integration with the asset inventory.

    There are two major use cases for this process:
    1. For organizations that have identified vulnerabilities but do not know their own systems well enough. This can be due to a lack of a formal asset inventory.
    2. For proactive organizations that are regularly staying up to date with industry announcements regarding vulnerabilities. Once an alert has been made publicly, this process can assist in confirming if the vulnerability is relevant to the organization.
    The Info-Tech methodology for initial triaging of vulnerabilities:
    Flowchart of the Info-Tech methodology for initial triaging of vulnerabilities, beginning with 'Vulnerability has been identified' and ending with either 'Vulnerability has been triaged' or 'No action needed'.

    Even if neither of these use cases apply to your organization, triaging still addresses the issues of false positives. Triaging provides a quick way to determine if vulnerabilities are relevant.

    After eliminating the noise, evaluate your vulnerabilities to determine urgency

    Consider the intrinsic risk to the organization.

    Is there an associated, verified exploit?
    • For a vulnerability to become a true threat to the organization, it must be exploited to cause damage. In today’s threat landscape, exploit kits are sold online that allow individuals with low technical knowledge to exploit a vulnerability.
    • Not all vulnerabilities have an associated exploit, but this does not mean that these vulnerabilities can be left alone. In many cases, it is just a matter of time before an exploit is created.
    • Another point to consider is that while exploits can exist theoretically, they may not be verified. Vulnerabilities always pose some level of risk, but if there are no known verified exploits, there is less risk attached.
    Is there a CVSS base score of 7.0 or higher?
    • Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an open-source industry scoring method to assess the potential severity of vulnerabilities.
    • CVSS takes into account: attack vector, complexity, privileges required, user interaction, scope, confidentiality impact, integrity impact, and availability impact.
    • Vulnerabilities that have a score of 4.0 or lower are classified as low vulnerabilities, while scores between 4.0 and 6.9 are put in the medium category. Scores of 7 or higher are in the high and critical categories. As we will review in the Risk Assessment section, you will want to immediately deal with high and critical vulnerabilities.
    Is there potential for significant lateral movement?
    • Even though a vulnerability may appear to be part of an inconsequential asset, it is important to consider whether it can be leveraged to gain access to other areas of the network or system by an attacker.
    • Another consideration should be whether the vulnerability can be exploited by remote or local access. Remote exploits pose a greater risk as this can mean that attackers can perform an exploit from any location. Local exploits carry less risk, although the risk of insider threats should be considered here as well.

    2.1.1 Evaluate your identified vulnerabilities

    60 minutes

    Input: Visio workflow of Info-Tech’s vulnerability management process

    Output: Adjusted workflow to reflect your current processes, Vulnerability Tracking Tool

    Materials: Whiteboard, Whiteboard markers, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, SecOps team members, ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3, CISO, CIO

    Using the criteria from the previous slide, Info-Tech has created a methodology to evaluate your vulnerabilities by examining their intrinsic qualities.

    The methodology categorizes the vulnerabilities into high, medium, and low risk importance categorizations, before assigning final urgency scores in the later steps.

    1. Review the evaluation process in the Vulnerability Management Workflow library.
    2. Determine if this process makes sense for the organization; otherwise, change the flow to include any other considerations of process flows.
    3. As this process is used to evaluate vulnerabilities, document vulnerabilities to an importance category. This can be done in the Vulnerability Tracking Tool or using a similar internal vulnerability tracking document, if one exists.

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Step 2.2

    Determine high-level business criticality

    Activities
    • 2.2.1 Determine high-level business criticality
    • 2.2.2 Determine your high-level data classifications

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Determining high-level business criticality and data classifications will help ensure that IT security is aligned with what is critical to the business. This will be very important when decisions are made around vulnerability risk and the urgency of remediation action.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • CISO

    Outcomes of this step

    Understanding and consistency in how business criticality and business data is assessed by IT in the vulnerability management process.

    Triage & prioritize
    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4

    Understanding business criticality is key to determining vulnerability urgency

    Prioritize operations that are truly critical to the operation of the business, and understand how they would be impacted by an exploited vulnerability.

    Use the questions below to help assess which operations are critical for the business to continue functioning.

    For example, email is often thought of as a business-critical operation when this is not always the case. It is important to the business, but as regular operations can continue for some time without it, it would not be considered extremely business critical.

    Questions to ask Description
    Is there a hard-dollar impact from downtime? This refers to when revenue or profits are directly impacted by a business disruption. For example, when an online ordering system is compromised and shut down, it impacts sales, and therefore, revenue.
    Is there an impact on goodwill/ customer trust? If downtime means delays in service delivery or otherwise impacts goodwill, there is an intangible impact on revenue that may make the associated systems mission critical.
    Is regulatory compliance a factor? Depending on the circumstances of the vulnerabilities, it can be a violation of regulatory compliance and would cause significant fines.
    Is there a health or safety risk? Some operations are critical to health and safety. For example, medical organizations have operations that are necessary to ensure that individuals’ health and safety are maintained. An exploited vulnerability that prevents these operations can directly impact the lives of these individuals.
    Don’t start from scratch – your disaster recovery plan (DRP) may have a business impact analysis (BIA) that can provide insight into which applications and operations are considered business critical.

    Analyst Perspective

    When assessing the criticality of business operations, most core business applications may be deemed business critical over the long term.

    Consider instead what the impact is over the first 24 or 48 hours of downtime.

    2.2.1 Determine high-level business criticality

    120 minutes; less time if a Disaster recovery plan business impact analysis exists

    Input: List of business operations, Insight into business operations impacts to the business

    Output: List of business operations and their criticality and impact to the business

    Materials: Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: Participants from the business, IT Security Manager, CISO, CIO

    1. List your core business operations at a high level.
    2. Use a High, Medium, or Low ranking to prioritize the business operations based on mission-critical criteria and the impact of the vulnerability.
    3. When using the process flow, consider if the vulnerability directly affects any of these business operations and move through the process flow based on the corresponding High, Medium, or Low ranking.
    Example prioritization of business operations for a manufacturing company: Questions to ask:
    1. Is there a hard-dollar impact from downtime?
    2. Is there impact on goodwill or customer trust?
    3. Is regulatory compliance a factor?
    4. Is there a health or safety risk?

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Determine vulnerability urgency by its data classification

    Consider how to classify your data based on if the Confidentiality, Integrity, or Availability (CIA) is compromised.

    To properly classify your data, consider how the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of that data would be affected if it were to be exploited by a vulnerability. Review the table below for an explanation for each objective.
    Confidentiality

    Preserving authorized restrictions on information access and disclosure, including means for protecting personal privacy and proprietary information.

    Integrity

    Guarding against improper information modification or destruction, and ensuring information non-repudiation and authenticity.

    Availability

    Ensuring timely and reliable access to and use of information.

    Each piece of data should be ranked as High, medium, or low across confidentiality, integrity, and availability based on adverse effect. Arrow pointing right. Low — Limited adverse effect

    Moderate — Serious adverse effect

    High — Severe or catastrophic adverse effect

    If you wish to build a whole data classification methodology, refer to our Discover and Classify Your Data blueprint.

    How to determine data classification when CIA differs:

    The overall ranking of the data will be impacted by the highest objective’s ranking.

    For example, if confidentiality and availability are low, but integrity is high, the overall impact is high.

    This process was developed in part by Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 199.

    2.2.2 Determine your high-level data classifications

    120 minutes, less time if data classification already exists

    Input: Knowledge of data use and sensitivity

    Output: Adjusted workflow to reflect your current processes, Vulnerability Tracking Tool

    Materials: Whiteboard, Whiteboard markers, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, CISO, CIO

    If your organization has formal data classification in place, it should be leveraged to determine the high, medium, and low rankings necessary for the process flows. However, if there is no formal data classification in place, the process below can be followed:

    1. List common assets or applications that are prone to vulnerabilities.
    2. Consider the data that is on these devices and provide a high (severe or catastrophic adverse effect), medium (serious adverse effect), or low (limited adverse effect) ranking based on confidentiality, availability, and integrity.
      1. Use the table on the previous slide to assist in providing the ranking.
      2. Remember that it is the highest ranking that dictates the overall ranking of the data.
    3. Document which data belongs in each of the categories to provide contextual evidence.

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    This process should be part of your larger data classification program. If you need assistance in building this out, review the Info-Tech research, Discover and Classify Your Data.

    Step 2.3

    Consider current security posture

    Activities
    • 2.3.1 Document your defense-in-depth controls

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Your defense-in-depth controls are the existing layers of security technology that protects your environment. These are relevant when considering the urgency and risk of vulnerabilities in your environment, as they will mitigate some of the risk.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    Understanding and documentation of your current defense-in-depth controls.

    Triage & prioritize
    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4

    Review your current security posture

    What you have today matters.
    • In most cases, your vulnerability scanning tool alone will not have the context of your security posture in the results of its scans. This can skew the true urgency of detected vulnerabilities in your environment.
    • What you have in place today is what comprises your organization’s overall security posture. This bears high relevance to the determination of the risk that a vulnerability poses to your environment.
    • Elements such as enterprise architecture and defense in depth mechanisms should be factored into determining the risk of a vulnerability and what kind of immediacy is warranted to address it.
    • Details of your current security posture will also contribute to the assessment and selection of remediation options.
    Stock image of toy soldiers split into two colours, facing eachother down.

    Enterprise architecture considerations

    What does your network look like?
    • Most organizations have a network topology that has been put in place with operational needs in mind. These includes specific vLANs or subnets, broadcast domains, or other methods of traffic segregation.
    • The firewall and network ACLs (access control lists) will manage traffic and the routes that data packets follow to traverse a network.
    • Organizations may physically separate data network types, for example, a network for IT services and one for operational technology (OT)(OT is often known as ICS (industrial control systems) or SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition)) or other types of production technology.
    • The deployment of distribution and access switches across an enterprise can also be a factor, where a flatter network will have fewer network devices within the topology.
    • In a directory services environment such as Windows Active Directory, servers and applications can be segregated by domains and trust relationships, organizational units, and security groups.
    What’s the relevance to vulnerability management?

    For a vulnerability to be exploited, a malicious actor must find a way to access the vulnerable system to make use of the vulnerability in question.

    Any enterprise architecture characteristics that you have in place may lessen the probability of a successful vulnerability exploit.

    This may potentially “buy time” for SecOps to address and remediate the vulnerability.

    Defense-in-depth

    Defense-in-depth provides extra layers of protection to the organization.

    • Defense-in-depth refers to the coordination of security controls to add layers of security to the organization.
      • This means that even if attackers are able to get past one control or layer, they are hindered by additional security.
    • Defense-in-depth is distinct from the previous section on enterprise architecture as these are security controls put in place with the purpose of being lines of defense within your security posture.
    • This can be extremely useful in managing vulnerabilities; thus, it is important to establish the existing defense-in-depth controls. By establishing the base model for your defense-in-depth, it will allow you to leverage these controls to manage vulnerabilities.
    • Controls are typically distributed across endpoints, network infrastructure, servers, and physical security.

    Note: Defense-in-depth controls do not entirely mitigate vulnerability risk. They provide a way in which the vulnerability cannot be exploited, but it continues to exist on the application. This must be kept in mind as the controls or applications themselves change, as it can re-open the vulnerability and cause potential problems.

    Examples of defense-in-depth controls can consist of any of the following:
    • Antivirus software
    • Authentication security
    • Multi-factor authentication
    • Firewalls
    • Demilitarized zones (DMZ)
    • Sandboxing
    • Network zoning
    • Application whitelisting
    • Access control lists
    • Intrusion detection & prevention systems
    • Airgapping
    • User security awareness training

    2.3.1 Document your defense-in-depth controls

    2 hours, less time if a security services catalog exists

    Input: List of technologies within your environment, List of IT security controls that are in place

    Output: List of defense-in-depth controls

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, Infrastructure Manager, IT Director, CISO

    1. Document the existing defense-in-depth controls within your system.
    2. Review the initial list that has been provided and see if these are controls that currently exist.
    3. Indicate any other controls that are being used by the organization. This may already exist if you have a security services catalog.
    4. Indicate who the owners of the different controls are.
    5. Track the information in the Vulnerability Management SOP Template.

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Sample table of security controls within a Defense-in-depth model with column headers 'Defense-in-depth control', 'Description', 'Workflow', and 'Control Owner'.

    Step 2.4

    Risk assessment of vulnerabilities

    Activities
    • 2.4.1 Build a classification scheme to consistently assess impact
    • 2.4.2 Build a classification scheme to consistently assess likelihood

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Assessing risk will be the cornerstone of how you evaluate vulnerabilities and what priority you place on remediation. This is actual risk to the organization and not simply what the tool reports without the context of your defense-in-depth controls.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • IT Operations Management
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    A risk matrix tailored to your organization, based on impact and likelihood. This will provide a consistent, unambiguous way to assess risk across the vulnerability types that is reported by your scanning tool.

    Triage & prioritize
    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4

    Vulnerabilities and risk

    Vulnerabilities must be addressed to mitigate risk to the business.
    • Vulnerabilities are a concern because they are potential threats to the business. Vulnerabilities that are not addressed can turn from potential threats into actual threats; it is only a matter of time and opportunity.
    • Your organization will already be familiar with risk management, as every decision carries a business risk component. There may even be a senior manager assigned as corporate risk officer to manage organizational risk.
    • The organization likely has a risk tolerance level that defines the organization’s risk appetite. This may be measured in dollars, non-productivity time, or other units of inefficiency.
    • The risk of a vulnerability can be calculated using impact and likelihood. Impact is the effect that the vulnerability will have if it is exploited by a malicious actor. Likelihood is the degree to which a vulnerability exploit can possibly occur.
    Stock image of a cartoon character in a tie hanging on the needle of a 'RISK' meter as it sits at 'LOW'.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Risk to the organization is business language that everyone can understand. This is particularly true when the risk is to productivity or to the company’s bottom line.

    A risk-based approach to vulnerability management

    CVSS scores are just the starting point!

    Vulnerabilities are constant.
    • There will always be vulnerabilities in the environment, many of which won’t be reported as they are currently unknown.
    • Don’t focus on trying to resolve all vulnerabilities in your environment. You are neither resourced for it nor can the business tolerate the downtime needed to remediate every single vulnerability.
      • The constant follow of new vulnerabilities will quickly render your efforts useless and it will become a game of “whack-a-mole.”
    • Being able to prioritize which vulnerabilities require appropriate levels of response is crucial to ensuring that an organization stays ahead of the continual flow.
    • Your vulnerability scanning tool will report the severity of a vulnerability, often using an industry Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) system ranging from 0 to 10. It will then scan your environment for the presence of the vulnerability and report accordingly.
      • Your vulnerability scanning tool will not be aware of any mitigation components in your environment, such as compensating controls, network segregation, server/application hardening, or any other measures that can reduce the risk. That is why determining actual risk is a crucial step.

    Stock image of a whack-a-mole game.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vulnerability scanning is a valuable function, but it does not tell the full picture. You must determine how urgent a vulnerability truly is, based on your specific environment.

    Prioritize remediation by levels of risk

    Address critical and high risk with high immediacy.

    • Addressing the critical and high-risk vulnerabilities with urgency will ensure that you are addressing a more manageable number of vulnerabilities.
    • An optimized vulnerability management process will address the medium and low risk vulnerabilities within the regular cycle.
    • This may be very similar to what you do today in an ad hoc fashion:
      • Zero-day vulnerabilities tend to warrant a stop in operations and are dealt with immediately (or as soon as a vendor has a fix).
      • The standard remediation process (patching/updating, change of configuration, etc.) happens within a regular controlled time cycle.
    • Formalizing this process will ensure that appropriate attention is given to vulnerabilities that warrant it and that the remaining vulnerabilities are dealt with as a regular, recurring activity.

    Mitigate the risk surface by reducing the time across the phases

    Chart titled 'Mitigate the risk surface by reducing the time across the phases' with the axes 'Risk Level' and 'Time' with lines created by individual risks. The highlighted line begins in 'Critical' and eventually drops to low. A note on the line reads 'Objective: Reduce risk surface by reducing time to address'. The area between the line and your organization's risk tolerance is labelled 'Risk Surface, to be addressed with high priority'. A bracket around Risk levels 'High' and 'Critical' reads 'Priority focus zone (risk surface)'. Risk lines within levels 'Low' and 'Medium' read 'Follow standard vulnerability management cycles'.

    Risk matrix

    Risk = Impact x Likelihood
    • Info-Tech’s Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool provides a method of calculating the risk of a vulnerability. The risk rating is assigned using the impact of the risk and the likelihood or probability that the event may occur.
    • The tool puts the vulnerability into your organization’s context: How many people will be affected? What service types are vulnerable and how does that impact the business? Is there an anticipated update from the vendor of the system being affected?
    • Urgency of remediation should be based on the business consequences if the vulnerability were to be exploited, relative to the business’ risk tolerance.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Risk determination should be done within the context of your current environment and not simply based on what your vulnerability tool is reporting.

    A risk matrix is useful in calculating a risk rating for vulnerabilities. Risk matrix with axes 'Impact' and 'Time' and individual vulnerabilities mapped onto it via their risk rating. The example 'Organizational Risk Tolerance Threshold' line runs diagonally through the 'Medium' squares.

    2.4.1 Build a classification scheme to consistently assess impact

    60 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of IT environment, Knowledge of business impact for each IT component or service

    Output: Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool formatted to your organization

    Materials: Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool

    Participants: Functional Area Managers, IT Security Manager, CISO

    Risk always has a negative impact, but the size of the impact can vary considerably in terms of cost, number of people or sites affected, and the severity of the impact. Impact questions tend to be more objective and quantifiable than likelihood questions.

    1. Define a set of questions to measure risk impact or edit existing questions in the tool.
    2. For each question, assign a weight that should be placed on that factor.
    3. Define criteria for each question that would categorize the risk. The drop-down box content can be modified in the hidden Labels tab.

    Note that you are looking to baseline vulnerability types, rather than categorizing every single vulnerability your scanning tool reports. The volume of vulnerabilities will be high, but vulnerabilities can be categorized into types on a regular basis.

    Download the Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool

    Screenshot of table from Info-Tech's Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool for assessing Impact. Column headers are 'Weight', 'Question', 'OS vulnerability', 'Application vulnerability', 'Network vulnerability', and 'Vendor patch release'.

    2.4.2 Build a classification scheme to consistently assess likelihood

    60 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of IT environment, Knowledge of business impact for each IT component or service

    Output: Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool formatted to your organization

    Materials: Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool

    Participants: Functional Area Managers, IT Security Manager, CISO

    Risk always has a negative impact, but the size of the impact can vary considerably in terms of cost, number of people or sites affected, and the severity of the impact. Impact questions tend to be more objective and quantifiable than likelihood questions.

    1. Define a set of questions to measure risk impact or edit existing questions in the tool.
    2. For each question, assign a weight that should be placed on that factor.
    3. Define criteria for each question that would categorize the risk. The drop-down box content can be modified in the hidden Labels tab.

    Note that you are looking to baseline vulnerability types, rather than categorizing every single vulnerability that your scanning tool reports. The volume of vulnerabilities will be high, but vulnerabilities can be categorized into types on a regular basis.

    Download the Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool

    Screenshot of table from Info-Tech's Vulnerability Management Risk Assessment Tool for assessing Likelihood. Column headers are 'Weight', 'Question', 'OS vulnerability', 'Application vulnerability', and 'Network vulnerability'.

    Prioritize based on risk

    Select the best remediation option to minimize risk.

    Through the combination of the identified risk and remediation steps in this phase, the prioritization for vulnerabilities will become clear. Vulnerabilities will be assigned a priority once their intrinsic qualities and threat potential to business function and data have been identified.

    • Remediation options will be identified for the higher urgency vulnerabilities.
    • Options will be assessed for whether they are appropriate.
    • They will be further tested to determine if they can be used adequately prior to full implementation.
    • Based on the assessments, the remediation will be implemented or another option will be considered.
    Prioritization
    1. Assignment of risk
    2. Identification of remediation options
    3. Assessment of options
    4. Implementation

    Remediation plays an incredibly important role in the entire program. It plays a large part in wider risk management when you must consider the risk of the vulnerability, the risk of the remediation option, and the risk associated with the overall process.

    Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

    Phase 3

    Remediate vulnerabilities

    Phase 1

    1.1 What is vulnerability management?
    1.2 Define scope and roles
    1.3 Cloud considerations for vulnerability management
    1.4 Vulnerability detection

     

    Phase 2

    2.1 Triage vulnerabilities
    2.2 Determine high-level business criticality
    2.3 Consider current security posture
    2.4 Risk assessment of vulnerabilities

     

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assessing remediation options
    3.2 Scheduling and executing remediation
    3.3 Continuous improvement

     

    Phase 4

    4.1 Metrics, KPIs & CSFs
    4.2 Vulnerability management policy
    4.3 Select and implement a scanning tool
    4.4 Penetration testing

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identifying potential remediation options.
    • Developing criteria for each option with regards to when to use and when to avoid.
    • Establishing exception procedure for testing and remediation.
    • Documenting the implementation of remediations and verification.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CISO, or equivalent
    • Security Manager/Analyst
    • Network, Administrator, System, Database Manager
    • Other members of the vulnerability management team
    • Risk managers for the risk-related steps

    Determining how to remediate

    Patching is only one option.

    This phase will allow organizations to build out the specific processes for remediating vulnerabilities. The overall process will be the same but what will be critical is the identification of the correct material. This includes building the processes around:
    • Identifying and selecting the remediation option to be used.
    • Determining what to do when a patch or update is not available.
    • Scheduling and executing the remediation activity.
    • Continuous improvement.

    Each remediation option carries a different level of risk that the organization needs to consider and accept by building out this program.

    It is necessary to be prepared to do this in real time. Careful documentation is needed when dealing with vulnerabilities. Use the Vulnerability Tracking Tool to assist with documentation in real time. This is separate from using the process template but can assist in the documentation of vulnerabilities.

    Step 3.1

    Assessing remediation options

    Activities
    • 3.1.1 Develop risk and remediation action

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    With the risk assessment from the previous activity, we can now examine remediation options and make a decision. This activity will guide us through that.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    List of remediation options and criteria on when to consider each.

    Remediate vulnerabilities
    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3

    Identify remediation options

    There are four options when it comes to vulnerability remediation.

    Patches and Updates

    Patches are software or pieces of code that are meant to close vulnerabilities or provide fixes to any bugs within existing software. These are typically provided by the vendor to ensure that any deployed software is properly protected after vulnerabilities have been detected.

    Configuration Changes

    Configuration changes involve administrators making significant changes to the system or network to remediate against the vulnerability. This can include disabling the vulnerable application or specific element and can even extend to removing the application altogether.

    Remediation

    Compensating Controls

    By leveraging security controls, such as your IDS/IPS, firewalls, or access control, organizations can have an added layer of protection against vulnerabilities beyond the typical patches and configuration changes. This can be used as a measure while waiting to implement another option (if one exists) to reduce the risk of the vulnerability in the short or long term.

    Risk Acceptance

    Whenever a vulnerability is not remediated, either indefinitely or for a short period of time, the organization is accepting the associated risk. Segregation of the vulnerable system can occur in this instance. This can occur in cases where a system or application cannot be updated without detrimental effect to the business.

    Patches and updates

    Patches are often the easiest and most common method of remediation.

    Patches are usually the most desirable remediation solution when it comes to vulnerability management. They are typically provided by the vendor of the vulnerable application or system and are meant to eliminate the existing vulnerability.

    When to use

    • When adequate testing can be performed on the patch to be implemented.
    • When there is a change window approaching for the affected systems.
    • When there is standardization across the IT assets to allow for easier installation of patches.

    When to avoid

    • When the patch cannot be adequately tested.
    • When a patch has been tested, but it caused an unfavorable consequence such as a system or application failure.
    • When there is no near change window in which to install the patches, which is often the case for critical systems.
    When to consider other remediation options
    • For critical systems, it can be difficult to implement a patch as they often require the system to be rebooted or go through some downtime. There must be consideration towards whether there is a change window approaching if a patch is to be implemented on a business-critical system.
      • If there is no opportunity to implement the patch, or no approaching change window, it is wise to leverage another remediation option.
    • When patches are not currently available from the vendor or they are in production, other remediation options are needed.
    • Other remediation options can be used in tandem with the patch. For example, if a patch is being deferred until the change window, it would be wise to use alternate remediation options to close the vulnerability.

    Compensating controls

    Compensating controls can decrease the risk of vulnerabilities that cannot be (immediately) remediated.

    • Compensating controls are measures put in place when direct remediation measures are impractical or non-existent.
    • Similar to the payment card industry’s PCI DSS 1.0 provision of compensating controls, these are meant to meet the intent or rigor of the original requirement; unlike PCI DSS, these measures are to mitigate risk rather than meet compliance.
    • The compensating control should be viewed as only a temporary measure for dealing with a vulnerability, although circumstances may dictate a degree of permanence in the application of the compensating control.
    • Examples where compensating controls may be needed are:
      • The software vendor is developing an update or patch to address a vulnerability.
      • Through your testing process, a patch will adversely affect the performance or operation of the target system and be detrimental to the business.
      • A critical application will only run on a legacy operating system, the latter of which is no longer supported by the vendor.
      • A legacy application is no longer being supported but is critical to your operations. A replacement, if one exists, will take time to implement.
    Examples of compensating controls
    • Segregating a vulnerable server or application on the network, physically or logically.
    • Hardening the operating system or application.
    • Restricting user logins to the system or application.
    • Implementing access controls on the network route to the system.
    • Instituting application whitelisting.

    Configuration changes

    Configuration changes involve making changes directly to the application or system in which there is a vulnerability. This can vary from disabling or removing the vulnerable element or, in the case of applications built in-house, changing the coding of the application itself. These are commonly used in network vulnerabilities such as open ports.

    When to use

    • A patch is not available.
    • The vulnerable element can be significantly changed, or even disabled, without significantly disrupting the business.
    • The application is built in-house, as the vulnerability must be closed internally.
    • There is adequate testing to ensure that the configuration change does not affect the business.
    • A configuration change in your network or system can affect numerous endpoints or systems, reducing endpoint patching or use of defense-in-depth controls.

    When to avoid

    • When a suitable patch is available.
    • When the vulnerability is on a business-critical element with no nearby change window or it cannot be disabled.
    • When there is no opportunity in which to perform testing to ensure that there are no unintended consequences.
    When to consider other remediation options
    • Configuration changes require careful documentation as changes are occurring to the system and applications. If there is a need to perform a back-out process and return to the original configuration, this can be extremely difficult without clear documentation of what occurred.
    • If business systems are too critical or important to the regular business function to perform any changes, it is necessary to consider other options.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Remember your existing processes: configuration changes may need to be approved and orchestrated through your organization’s configuration and change management processes.

    Case Study

    Remediation options do not have to be used separately. Use the Shellshock 2014 case as an example.

     
    INDUSTRY: All
    SOURCE: Public Domain
    Challenge

    Bashdoor, more commonly known as Shellshock, was announced on September 24, 2014.

    This bug involved the Bash shell, which normally executes user commands, but this vulnerability meant that malicious attackers could exploit it.

    This was rated a 10/10 by CVSS – the highest possible score.

    Within hours of the announcement, hackers began to exploit this vulnerability across many organizations.

    Solution

    Organizations had to react quickly and multiple remediation options were identified:

    • Configuration changes – Companies were recommended to use other shells instead of the Bash shell.
    • Defense-in-depth controls – Using HTTP server logs, it could be possible to identify if the vulnerability had been exploited.
    • Patches – Many vendors released patches to close this vulnerability including Debian, Ubuntu, and Red Hat.
    Results

    Companies began to protect themselves against these vulnerabilities.

    While many organizations installed patches as quickly as possible, some also wished to test the patch and leveraged defense-in-depth controls in the interim.

    However, even today, many still have the Shellshock vulnerability and exploits continue to occur.

    Accept the risk and do nothing

    By choosing not to remediate vulnerabilities, you must accept the associated risk. This should be your very last option.

    Every time that a vulnerability is not remediated, it continues to pose a risk to the organization. While it may seem that every vulnerability needs to be remediated, this is simply not possible due to limited resources. Further, it can take away resources from other security initiatives as opposed to low-priority vulnerabilities that are extremely unlikely to be exploited.

    Common criteria for vulnerabilities that are not remediated:
    • Affected systems are of extremely low criticality.
    • Affected systems are deemed too critical to take offline to perform adequate remediation.
    • Low urgency is assigned to those vulnerabilities.
    • Cost and time required for the remediation are too high.
    • No adequate solutions exist – the vendor has not released a patch, there are weak defense-in-depth controls, and it is not possible to perform a configuration change.

    Risk acceptance is not uncommon…

    • With an ever-increasing number of vulnerabilities, organizations are struggling to keep up and often, intentionally or unintentionally, accept the risk associated.
    • In the end, non-remediation means full acceptance of the risk and any consequences.

    Enterprise risk management
    Arrow pointing up.
    Risk acceptance of vulnerabilities

    While these are common criteria, they must be aligned to the enterprise risk management framework and approved by management.

    Don’t forget the variables that were assessed in Phase 2. This includes the risk from potential lateral movement or if there is an existing exploit.

    Risk considerations

    When determining if risk acceptance is appropriate, consider the cost of not mitigating vulnerabilities.

    Don’t accept the risk because it seems easy. Consider the financial impact of leaving vulnerabilities open.

    With risk acceptance, it is important to review the financial impact of a security incident resulting from that vulnerability. There is always the possibility of exploitation for vulnerabilities. A simple metric taken from NIST SP800-40 to use for this is:

    Cost not to mitigate = W * T * R

    Where (W) is the number of work stations, (T) is the time spent fixing systems or lost in productivity, and (R) is the hourly rate of the time spent.

    As an example provided by NIST SP800-40 Version 2.0, Creating a Patch and Vulnerability Management Program:

    “For an organization where there are 1,000 computers to be fixed, each taking an average of 8 hours of down time (4 hours for one worker to rebuild a system, plus 4 hours the computer owner is without a computer to do work) at a rate of $70/hour for wages and benefits:

    1,000 computers * 8 hours * $70/hour = $560,000”

    Info-Tech Insight

    Always consider the financial impact that can occur from an exploited vulnerability that was not remediated.

    3.1.1 Develop risk and remediation action

    90 minutes

    Input: List of remediation options

    Output: List of remediation options sorted into “when to use” and “when to avoid” lists

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, IT Infrastructure Manager, IT Operations Manager, Corporate Risk Officer, CISO

    It is important to define and document your organization-specific criteria for when a remediation option is appropriate and inappropriate.

    1. List each remediation option on a flip chart and create two headings: “When to use” and “When to avoid.”
    2. Each person will list “when to use” criteria on a green sticky note and “when to avoid” criteria on a red one for each option; these will be placed on the appropriate flip chart.
    3. Discuss as a group which criteria are appropriate and which should be removed.
    4. Move on to the next remediation option when completed.
      • Ensure to include when there are remediation options that will be connected. For example, the risk may be accepted until the next available change window, or a defense-in-depth control is used before a patch can be fully installed.
    5. Once the criteria has been established, document this in the Vulnerability Management SOP Template.
    When to use:
    • When adequate testing can be performed on the patch to be implemented.
    • When there is a change window approaching, especially for critical systems.
    • When there is standardization across the IT assets to allow for easier installation of patches.
    When to avoid:
    • When the patch cannot be adequately tested.
    • When a patch has been tested, but it has caused an unfavorable consequence such as a system or application failure.
    • When there is no near change window in which to install the patches.
    (Example from the Vulnerability Management SOP Template for Patches.)

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Step 3.2

    Scheduling and executing remediation

    Activities

    None for this section.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Although there are no specific activities for this section, it will walk you through your existing processes configuration and change management to ensure that you are leveraging those activities in your vulnerability remediation actions.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    Gained understanding of how IT operations processes configuration and change management can be leveraged for the vulnerability remediation process. Don’t reinvent the wheel!

    Remediate vulnerabilities
    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3

    Implementing the remediation

    Vulnerability management converges with your IT operations functions.
    • Once a remediation strategy has been formulated, you can leverage your release and change management processes to orchestrate the testing, version tracking, scheduling, approval, and implementation activities.
    • Each of these processes should exist in your environment in some form. Leveraging these will engage the IT operations team to carry out their tasks in the remediation process.
    • There can be a partial or full handoff to these processes, however, the owner of the vulnerability management program is responsible for verifying the application of the remediation measure and that the overall risk has been reduced.
    • Although full blueprints exist that cover each of these processes in great detail, the following slides provide an overview of each of these IT operations processes and how they intersect with vulnerability management.
    Stock image of a person on a laptop overlaid by an icon with gears indicating settings.

    Release Management

    Control the quality of deployments and releases of software updates.

    • The release management process exists to ensure that new software releases (such as patches and updates) are properly tested and documented with version control prior to their implementation into the production environment.
    • The process should map out the logistics of the deployment process to ensure that it is consistent and controlled.
    • Testing is an important part of release management and the urgency of a vulnerability remediation operation can expedite this process to ensure minimal delays. Once testing has been completed successfully, the update is then “promoted” to production-ready status and submitted into the change management process.
    • Often a separate release team may not exist, however, release management still occurs.

    For guidance on implementing or improving your release management process, refer to Info-Tech’s Stabilize Release and Deployment Management blueprint or speak to one of our experts.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Many organizations don’t have a separate release team. Rather, whomever is doing the deployment will submit a change request and the testing details are vetted through the organization’s change management process.

    For guidance on the change management process review our Optimize Change Management blueprint.

    Change Management

    Leverage change control, interruption management, approval, and scheduling.
    • Change management likely exists in some shape or form in your organization. There is usually someone or a committee, such as a change advisory board (CAB), that gives approval for a change.
    • Leveraging the change management process will ensure that your vulnerability remediation has undergone the proper review and approval before implementation. There will usually be business sign-off as part of a change management approval process.
    • Communication will also be integrated in the change management process, so the change manager will ensure that appropriate, timely communications are sent to the proper key stakeholders.
    • The change management process will link to release management and configuration management processes if they exist.

    For further guidance on implementing or improving your change management process, refer to Info-Tech’s Optimize Change Management blueprint or speak to one of our experts.

    “With no controls in place, IT gets the blame for embarrassing outages. Too much control, and IT is seen as a roadblock to innovation.” (VP IT, Federal Credit Union)

    Post-implementation activities

    Vulnerability remediation isn’t a “set it and forget it” activity.
    • Once vulnerability remediation has occurred, it is imperative that the results are reported back to the vulnerability management program manager. This ensures that the loop is closed and the tracking of the remediation activity is done properly.
      • Organizations that are subject to audit by external entities will understand the importance of such documentation.
    • The results of post-implementation review from the change management process will be of great interest, particularly if there was any deviation from the planned activities.
    • Although change execution will usually undergo some form of testing during the maintenance window, there is always the possibility that something has broken as a result of the software update. Be quick to respond to these types of incidents!
      • One example of an issue that is near impossible to test during a maintenance window is one that manifests only when the system or software comes under load. This is what makes for busy Monday mornings after a weekend change window.
    A scan with your vulnerability management software after remediation can be a way to verify that the overall risk has been reduced, if remediation was done by way of patching/updates.

    Info-Tech Insight

    After every change completion, whether due to vulnerability remediation or not, it is a good idea to ensure that your infrastructure team increases its monitoring diligence and that your service desk is ready for any sudden influx of end-user calls.

    Step 3.3

    Continuous improvement

    Activities

    None for this section.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Although this section has no activities, it will review the process by which you may continually improve vulnerability management.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • ITOps team members, including tiers 1, 2, and 3
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    An understanding of the importance of ongoing improvements to the vulnerability management program.

    Remediate vulnerabilities
    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3

    Drive continuous improvement

    • Also known as “Continual Improvement” within the ITIL best practice framework.
    • Your vulnerability management program will not be perfect on first launch. In fact, due to the ever-changing nature of vulnerabilities and the technology designed to detect and combat vulnerabilities, the processes within your vulnerability management program will need to be tweaked from time to time.
    • Continuous improvement is a sustained, proactive approach to process improvement. The practice allows for all process participants to observe and suggest incremental improvements that can help improve the overall process.
    • In many cases, continuous improvement can be triggered by changes in the environment. This makes perfect sense for vulnerability management process improvement as a change in the environment will require vulnerability scanning to ensure that such changes have not introduced new vulnerabilities into the environment, increasing your risk surface.
    • One key method to tracking continuous improvement is through the effective use of metrics, covered in Section 4.1 of this blueprint.
    “The success rate for continual improvement efforts is less than 60 percent. A major – if not the biggest – factor affecting the deployment of long-term continual improvement initiatives today is the fundamental change taking place in the way companies manage and execute work.” (Industry analyst at a consulting firm, 2014)

    Continuous Improvement

    Continuously re-evaluate the vulnerability management process.

    As your systems and assets change, your vulnerability management program may need updates in two ways.

    When new assets and systems are introduced:

    • When new systems and assets are introduced, it is important for organizations to recognize how these can affect vulnerability management.
    • It will be necessary to identify the business criticality of the new assets and systems and the sensitivity of the data that can be found on them.
    • Without doing so, these will be considered rogue systems or assets – there is no clear process for assigning urgencies.
    • This will only cause problems as actions may be taken that are not aligned with the organization’s risk management framework.

    Effective systems and asset management are needed to track this. Review Info-Tech’s Implement Systems Management to Improve Availability and Visibility blueprint for more help.

    Document any changes to the vulnerability management program in the Vulnerability Management SOP Template.

    When defense-in-depth capabilities are modified:

    • As you build an effective security program, more controls will be added that can be used to protect the organization.
    • These should be documented and evaluated based on ability to mitigate against vulnerabilities.
    • The defense-in-depth model that was previously established should be updated to include the new capabilities that can be used.
    • Defense-in-depth models are continually evolving as the security landscape evolves, and organizations must be ready for this.

    To assist in building a defense-in-depth model, review Build an Information Security Strategy.

    Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

    Phase 4

    Measure and formalize

    Phase 1

    1.1 What is vulnerability management?
    1.2 Define scope and roles
    1.3 Cloud considerations for vulnerability management
    1.4 Vulnerability detection

     

    Phase 2

    2.1 Triage vulnerabilities
    2.2 Determine high-level business criticality
    2.3 Consider current security posture
    2.4 Risk assessment of vulnerabilities

     

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assessing remediation options
    3.2 Scheduling and executing remediation
    3.3 Continuous improvement

     

    Phase 4

    4.1 Metrics, KPIs & CSFs
    4.2 Vulnerability management policy
    4.3 Select and implement a scanning tool
    4.4 Penetration testing

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • You will determine what ought to be measured to track the success of your vulnerability management program.
    • If you lack a scanning tool this phase will help you determine tool selection.
    • Lastly, penetration testing is a good next step to consider once you have your vulnerability management program well underway.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • Procurement representatives
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Step 4.1

    Metrics, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

    Activities
    • 4.1.1 Measure your program with metrics, KPIs, and CSFs

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    After a review of the differences between raw metrics, key performance indicators (KPI), and critical success factors (CSF), compile a list of what metrics you will be tracking, why, and the business goals for each.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    Outline of metrics you can configure your vulnerability scanning tool to report on.

    Measure and formalize
    Step 4.1 Step 4.2 Step 4.3 Step 4.4

    You can’t manage what you can’t measure

    Metrics provides visibility.

    • Management consultant Peter Drucker introduced the concept of metrics tied to key performance indicators (KPIs), and the concept holds true: without metrics, you lack the visibility to manage or improve a process.
    • Metrics aren’t just a collection of statistics, they have to be meaningful, they have to tell the story, and most importantly, they have to answer the “so what?” question. What is the significance of a metric – do they illustrate a trend or an anomaly? What actions should be carried out when a metric hits a certain threshold?
    • It would be prudent to track several metrics that can be combined to tell the full story. For example, tracking the number of critical vulnerabilities alone does not give a sense of the overall risk to the organization, nor does it offer any information on how quickly they have been remediated or what amount of effort was invested.
    Stock image of measuring tape.

    Metrics, KPIs, and CSFs

    Tracking the right information and making the information relevant.
    • There is often confusion between raw metrics, key performance indicators, and critical success factors.
    • Raw metrics are what is trackable from your systems and processes as a set of measurements without any context. Raw metrics in themselves are useful in telling the story of “what are we doing?”
    • KPIs are the specific metric or combination of metrics that help you track or gauge performance. KPIs tell the story of “how are we doing?” or “how well are we doing?”
    • CSFs are the specific KPIs that track the activities that are absolutely critical to accomplish for the business or business unit to be successful.
    The activity tracker on your wrist is a wealth of metrics, KPIs, and CSFs.

    If you wear an activity tracker, you are likely already familiar with the differences between metrics, key performance indicators, and critical success factors:

    • The raw metrics are your heart rate, step count, hours of sleep, caloric intake, etc.
    • KPIs are the individual goals that you have set: maintain a heart rate within the appropriate range for your age/activity level, achieve a step count goal per day, get x hours of sleep per night, consume a calorie range of y per day, etc.
    • CSFs are your overall goal: increase your cardiovascular capacity, lose weight, feel more energetic, etc.

    Your security systems can be similarly measured and tracked – transfer this skill!

    Tracking relevant information

    Tell the story in the numbers.

    Below are a number of suggested metrics to track, and why.

    Business Goal

    Critical Success Factor

    Key Performance Indicator

    Metric to track

    Minimize overall risk exposure Reduction of overall risk due to vulnerabilities Decrease in vulnerabilities Track the number of vulnerabilities year after year.
    Appropriate allocation of time and resources Proper prioritization of vulnerability mitigation activities Decrease of critical and high vulnerabilities Track the number of high-urgency vulnerabilities.
    Consistent timely remediation of threats to the business Minimize risk when vulnerabilities are detected Remediate vulnerabilities more quickly Mean time to detect: track the average time between the identification to remediation.
    Track effectiveness of scanning tool Minimize the ratio, indicating that the tool sees everything Ratio between known assets and what the scanner tracks Scanner coverage compared to known assets in the organization.
    Having effective tools to track and address Accuracy of the scanning tool Difference or ratio between reported vulnerabilities and verified ones Number of critical or high vulnerabilities verified, between the scanning tool’s criticality rating and actual criticality.
    Reduction of exceptions to ensure minimal exposure Visibility into persistent vulnerabilities and risk mitigation measures Number of exceptions granted Number of vulnerabilities in which little or no remediation action was taken.

    4.1.1 Measure your program with metrics, KPIs, and CSFs

    60 minutes

    Input: List of metrics current being measured by the vulnerability management tool

    Output: List of relevant metrics to track, and the KPIs, CSFs, and business goals related to the metric

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, IT operations management, CISO

    Metrics can offer a way to view how the organization is dealing with vulnerabilities and if there is improvement.

    1. Determine the high-level vulnerability management goals for the organization.
    2. Even with a formal process in place, the organization should be considering ways it can improve.
    3. Determine metrics that can help quantify those goals and how they can be measured.
    4. Metrics should always be easy to measure. If it’s a complex process to find the information required, it means that it is not a metric that should be used.
    5. Document your list of metrics in the Vulnerability Management SOP Template.

    Download the Vulnerability Management SOP Template

    Step 4.2

    Vulnerability Management Policy

    Activities
    • 4.2.1 Update the vulnerability management program policy

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    If you have a vulnerability management policy, this activity may help augment it. Otherwise, if you don’t have one, this would be a great starting point.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • CISO
    • CIO
    • Human resources representative

    Outcomes of this step

    An inaugural policy covering vulnerability management

    Measure and formalize
    Step 4.1 Step 4.2 Step 4.3 Step 4.4

    Vulnerability Management Program Policy

    Policies provide governance and enforcement of processes.
    • Policies offer formal guidance on the “rules” of a program, describing its purpose, scope, detailed program description, and consequences of non-compliance. Often they will have a employee sign-off acknowledging understanding.
    • In many organizations, policies are endorsed by senior executives, which gives the policy its “teeth” across the company. The human resources department will always have input due to the implications of the non-compliance aspect.
    • Policies are written to ensure an outcome of consistent expected behavior and are often written to protect the company from liability.
    • Policies should be easy to understand and unambiguous, reflect the current state, and be enforceable. Enforceability can come in the form of audit, technology, or any other means of determining compliance and enforcing behavior.
    Stock image of a judge's gavel.

    4.2.1 Update the vulnerability management policy

    60 minutes

    Input: Vulnerability Management SOP, HR guidance on policy creation and approval

    Output: Completed Vulnerability Management Policy

    Materials: Vulnerability Management SOP, Vulnerability Management Policy Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, IT operations management, CISO, Human resources representative

    After having built your entire process in this project, formalize it into a vulnerability management policy. This will set the standards and expectations for vulnerability management in the organization, while the process will be around the specific actions that need to be taken around vulnerability management.

    This is separate and distinct from the Vulnerability Management SOP Template, which is a process and procedure document.
    1. Review Info-Tech’s Vulnerability Management Policy and customize it to your organization’s specifications.
    2. Use your Vulnerability Management SOP as a resource when specifying some of the details within the policy.
    Sample of Info-Tech's Vulnerability Management Policy Template

    Download the Vulnerability Management Policy Template

    Step 4.3

    Select and implement a scanning tool

    Activities
    • 4.3.1 Create an RFP for vulnerability scanning tools

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    If you need to select a new vulnerability scanning tool, or replace your existing one, this activity will help set up a request for proposal (RFP).

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • CISO

    Outcomes of this step

    The provisions needed for you to create and deploy an RFP for a vulnerability management tool.

    Measure and formalize
    Step 4.1 Step 4.2 Step 4.3 Step 4.4

    Vulnerability management and penetration testing

    Similar in nature, yet provide different security functions.

    Vulnerability Scanning Tools

    Scanning tools focus on the network and operating systems. These tools look for items such as missing patches or open ports. They won’t detect specific application vulnerabilities.

    Exploitation Tools

    These tools will look to exploit a detected vulnerability to validate it.

    Penetration Tests

    A penetration test simulates the actions of an external or internal cyber attacker that aims to breach the information security of the organization. (Formal definition of penetration test)

    ‹————— What’s the difference again? —————›
    Vulnerability scanning tools are just one type of tool. When you add an exploitation tool to the mix, you move down the spectrum. Penetration tests will use scanning tools, exploitation tools, and people.

    What is the value of each?

    • For vulnerability scans, the person performing the scan provides the value – value comes from the organization itself.
    • For exploitation tools on their own, the value comes from the tool itself being used in a safe environment.
    • For penetration tests, the tester is providing the value. They are the value add.

    What’s the implication for me?

    Info-Tech Recommends:
    • A combination of vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. This will improve your security posture through systematic risk reduction and improve your security program through the testing of prevention, detection, and response capabilities with unique recommendations being generated.
    • Start with as much vulnerability scanning as possible to identify gaps to fix and then move onto a penetration test to do a more robust and validated assessment.
    • For penetration tests, start with a transparent box test first, then move to an opaque box. Ideally, this is done with different third parties.

    Vulnerability scanning software

    All organizations can benefit from having one.

    Scanning tools will benefit areas beyond just vulnerability management

    • Network security: It improves the accuracy and granularity of your network security technologies such as WAFs, NGFWs, IDPS, and SIEM.
    • Asset management: Vulnerability scanning can identify new or unknown assets and provide current status information on assets.
    • System management: Information from a vulnerability scan supports baselining activities and determination of high-value and high-risk assets.

    Vulnerability Detection Use Case

    Most organizations use scanners to identify and assess system vulnerabilities and prioritize efforts.

    Compliance Use Case

    Others will use scanners just for compliance, auditing, or larger GRC reasons.

    Asset Discovery Use Case

    Many organizations will use scanners to perform active host and application identification.

    Scanning Tool Market Trends

    Vulnerability scanning tools have expanded value from conventional checking for vulnerabilities to supporting configuration checking, asset discovery, inventory management, patch management, SSL certificate validation, and malware detection.

    Expect to see network and system vulnerability scanners develop larger vulnerability management functions and develop exploitation tool functionality. This will become a table stakes option enabling organizations to provide higher levels of validation of detected vulnerabilities. Some tools already possess these capabilities:

    • Core Impact is an exploitation tool with vulnerability scanning aspects.
    • Metasploit is an exploitation tool with some new vulnerability scanning aspects.
    • Nessus is mainly a vulnerability scanning tool but has some exploitation aspects.

    Device proliferation (BYOD, IoT, etc.) is increasing the need for stronger vulnerability management and scanners. This is driving the need for numerous device types and platform support and the development of baseline and configuration norms to support system management.

    Increased regulatory or compliance controls are also stipulating the need for vulnerability scanning, especially by a trusted third party.

    Organizations are outsourcing security functions or moving to cloud-based deployment options for any security technology they can. Expect to see massive growth of vulnerability scanning as a service.

    Vulnerability scanning market

    There are several technology types or functional differentiators that divide the market up.

    Vulnerability Exploitation Tools

    • These will actually test defences and better emulate real life than just scanning. These tools include packet manipulation tools (such as hping) and password cracking tools (such as John the Ripper or Cain and Abel).
    • These tools will provide much more granular information on your network, operations systems, and applications.
    • The main limitation of these tools is how to use them. If you do not have development or test environments that mimic your real production environments to run the exploit tools, these tools may not be appropriate. It may work if you can find some downtime on production systems, but only in very specific and careful instances.
    • Lower maturity security programs usually just do network and application vulnerability scanning. Higher maturity programs will also use penetration testing, application testing, and vulnerability exploitation tools.
    • Network vulnerability scanning tools should always be used. Once you identify any servers or ports running web applications, then you run a web application vulnerability scanner.
    • Exploitation tools and application testing tools are used in more specific use cases that are often related to more-demanding security programs.

    Scanning Tool Market Trends

    • These are considered baseline tools and are near commoditization.
    • Vulnerability scanning tools are not granular enough to detect application-level vulnerabilities (thus the need for application scanners and testing tools) and they don’t validate the exploitability of the vulnerability (thus the need for exploit tools).

    Web Application Scanning Tools

    These tools perform dynamic application security testing (DAST) and static application security testing (SAST).

    Application Scanning and Testing Tools

    • These perform a detailed scan against an application to detect any problematic or malicious code and try to break the application using known vulnerabilities.
    • These tools will identify if something is vulnerable to an exploit but won’t actually run the exploit.
    • These tools are evaluated based on their ability to detect application-specific issues and validate them.

    Vulnerability scanning tool features

    Evaluate vulnerability scanning tools on specific features or functions that are the best differentiators.

    Differentiator

    Description

    Deployment Options Do you want a traditional on-premises, cloud-based, or managed service?
    Vulnerability Database Coverage Scanners use a library of known vulnerabilities to test for. Evaluate based on the amount of exploits/vulnerabilities the tool can scan for.
    Scanning Method Evaluate if you want agent-based, authenticated active, unauthenticated active, passive, or some combination of those scanning methods.
    Integration What is the breadth of other security and non-security technologies the tool can integrate with?
    Remediation How detailed are the recommended remediation actions? The more granular, the better.
     

    Differentiator

    Description

    Prioritization Does the tool evaluate vulnerabilities based on commonly accepted methods or through a custom-designed prioritization methodology?
    Platform Support What is the breadth of environment, application, and device support in the tool? Consider your need for virtual support, cloud support, device support, and application-specific support. Also consider how often new scanning modules are supported (e.g. how quickly Windows 10 was supported).
    Pricing As with many security controls that have been around for a long time and are commonly used, pricing becomes a main consideration, especially when there are so many open-source options available.

    Common areas people mistake as tool differentiators:

    • Accuracy – Scanning tools are evaluated more on efficiency than effectiveness. Evaluate on the ability to detect, remediate, and manage vulnerabilities rather than real vulnerability detection and the number of false positives. To reduce false positives, you need to use exploitation tools.
    • Performance – Scanning tools have such a small footprint in an environment and the actual scanning itself is such a small impact that evaluation on performance doesn’t matter.

    For more information on vulnerability scanning tools and how they rate, review the Vulnerability Management category on SoftwareReviews.

    Vulnerability scanning deployment options

    Understand the different deployment options to identify which is best for your security program.

    Option

    Description

    Pros

    Cons

    Use Cases

    On-Premises Either an on-premises appliance or an on-premises virtualized machine that performs external and internal scanning.
    • Small resource need, so limited network impact.
    • Strong internal scanning.
    • Easier integration with other technologies.
    • Network footprint and resource usage.
    • Maintenance and support costs.
    • Most common deployment option.
    • Appropriate if you have cloud concerns or strong internal network scanning, or if you require strong integration with other systems.
    Cloud Either hosted on a public cloud infrastructure or hosted by a third party and offered “as a service.”
    • Small network footprint.
    • On-demand scanning as needed.
    • Optimal external scanning capabilities.
    • Can only do edge-related scanning unless authenticated or agent based.
    • No internal network scanning with passive or unauthenticated active scanning methods.
    • Very limited network resources.
    • Compliance obligations that dictate external vulnerability scanning.
    Managed A third party is contracted to manage and maintain your vulnerability scanner so you can dedicate resources elsewhere.
    • Expert management of environment scanning, optimizing tool usage.
    • Most scanning work time is report customization and tuning and remediation efforts; thus, managed doesn’t provide sizable resource alleviation.
    • Third party has and owns the vulnerability information.
    • Limited staff resources or expertise to maintain and manage scanner.

    Vulnerability scanning methods

    Understand the different scanning methods to identify which tool best supports your needs.

    Method

    Description

    Pros

    Cons

    Use Cases

    Agent-Based Scanning Locally installed software gives the information needed to evaluate the security posture of a device.
    • Provides information that can’t be discovered remotely such as installed applications that aren’t running at a given time.
    • Device processing, memory, and network bandwidth impact.
    • Asset without an agent is not scanned.
    • Need for continuous scanning.
    • Organization has strong asset management
    Authenticated Active Scanning Tool uses authenticated credentials to log in to a device or application to perform scanning.
    • Provides information that can’t be discovered remotely such as installed applications that aren’t running at a given time.
    • Best accuracy for vulnerability detection across a network.
    • Aggregation and centralization of authenticated credentials creates a major risk.
    • All use cases.
    Unauthenticated Active Scanning Scanning of devices without any authentication.
    • Emulates realistic scan by an attacker.
    • Provides limited scope of scanning.
    • Some compliance use cases.
    • Perform after either agent or authenticated scanning.
    Passive Scanning Scanning of network traffic.
    • Lowest resource impact.
    • Not enough information can be provided for true prioritization and remediation.
    • Augmenting scanning technique to agent or authenticated scanning.

    IP Management and IPv6

    IP management and the ability to manage IPv6 is a new area for scanning tool evaluation.

    Scanning on IPv4

    Scanning tools create databases of systems and devices with IP addresses.
    Info-Tech Recommends:

    • It is easier to do discovery by directing the scanner at a set IP address or range of IP addresses; thus, it’s useful to organize your database by IPs.
    • Do discovery by phases: Start with internet-facing systems. Your perimeter usually is well-defined by IP addresses and system owners and is most open to attack.
    • Stipulate a list of your known IP addresses through the DHCP registration and perform a scan on that.
    • Depending on your IP address space, another option is to scan your entire IP address space.

    Current Problem With IP Addresses

    IP addresses are becoming no longer manageable or even owned by organizations. They are often provided by ISPs or other third parties.

    Even if it is your range, chances are you don't do static IP ranges today.

    Info-Tech Recommends:

    • Agent-based scanning or MAC address-based scanning
    • Use your DHCP for scanning

    Scanning on IPv6

    First, you need to know if your organization is moving to IPv6. IPv6 is not strategically routed yet for most organizations.

    If you are moving to IPv6, Info-Tech recommends the following:

    • Because you cannot point a scanner at an IPv6 IP range, any scanning tool needs to have a strategy around how to handle IPv6 and properly scan based on IP ranges.
    • You need to know IPv4 to IPv6 translations.
    • Evaluate vulnerability scanning tools on whether any IPv6 features are on par with IPv4 features.

    If you are already on IPv6, Info-Tech recommends the following:

    • If you are on an IPv6 native network, it is nearly impossible to scan the network. You have to always scan your known addresses from your DHCP.

    4.3.1 Create an RFP for vulnerability scanning tools

    2 hours

    Input: List of key feature requirements for the new tool, List of intersect points with current software, Network topology and layout of servers and applications

    Output: Completed RFP document that can be distributed to vendor proponents

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Vulnerability Scanning Tool RFP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, IT operations managers, CISO, Procurement department representative

    Use a request for proposal (RFP) template to convey your desired scanning tool requirements to vendors and outline the proposal and procurement steps set by your organization.

    1. Determine what kind of requirements will be needed for your scanning tool RFP, based on people, process, and technology requirements.
    2. Consider items such as the desired capabilities and the scope of the scanning.
    3. Conduct interviews with relevant stakeholders to determine the exact requirements needed.
    4. Use Info-Tech’s Vulnerability Scanning Tool RFP Template. It lists many requirements but can be customized to your organization’s specific needs.

    Download the Vulnerability Scanning Tool RFP Template

    4.3.1 Create an RFP for vulnerability scanning tools (continued)

    Things to Consider:
    • Ensure there is adequate resource dedication to support and maintenance for vulnerability scanning.
    • Consider if you will benefit from an RFP. If there is a more appropriate option for your need and your organization, consider that instead.
    • If you don’t know the product you want, then perform an RFI.
    • In the RFP, you need to express your driving needs for the tool so the vendor can best understand your use case.
    • Identify who should participate in the RFP creation and evaluation. Make sure they have time available and it does not conflict with other items.
    • Determine if you want to send it to a select few or if you want to send it to a lot of vendors.
    • Determine a response date so you can know who is soliciting your business.
    • You need to have a process to handle questions from vendors.
    Info-Tech RFP Table of Contents:
    1. Statement of Work
    2. General Information
    3. Proposal Preparation Instructions
    4. Scope of Work, Specifications, and Requirements
    5. Vendor Qualifications and References
    6. Budget and Estimated Pricing
    7. Vendor Certification

    Download the Vulnerability Scanning Tool RFP Template

    Step 4.4

    Penetration testing

    Activities
    • 4.1.1 Create an RFP for penetration tests

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    We will review penetration testing, its distinction from vulnerability management, and why you may want to engage a penetration testing service.

    We provide a request for proposal (RFP) template that we can review if this is an area of interest.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Security Manager
    • SecOps team members
    • CISO
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step

    An understanding of penetration testing, and guidance on how to get started if there is interest to do so.

    Measure and formalize
    Step 4.1 Step 4.2 Step 4.3 Step 4.4

    Penetration testing

    Penetration tests are critical parts of any strong security program.

    Penetration testing will emulate the methods an attacker would use in the real world to circumvent your security controls and gain access to systems and data.

    Penetration testing is much more than just running a scanner or other automated tools and then generating a report. Penetration testing performs critical exploit validation to create certainty around your vulnerability.

    The primary objective of a penetration test is to identify and validate security weaknesses in an organization’s security systems.

    Reasons to Test:

    • Assess current security control effectiveness
    • Develop an action plan of items
    • Build a business case for a better security program
    • Increased security budget through vulnerability validation
    • Third-party, unbiased validation
    • Adhere to compliance or regulatory requirements
    • Raise security awareness
    • Demonstrate how an attacker can escalate privileges
    • Effective way to test incident response

    Regulatory Considerations:

    • There is a lot of regulatory wording saying that organizations can’t get a system that is managed, integrated, and supported by one vendor and then have it tested by the same vendor.
    • There is the need for separate third-party testing.
    • Penetration testing is required for PCI, cloud providers, and federal entities.

    How and where is the value being generated?

    Penetration testing is a service provided by trained and tested professionals with years of experience. The person behind the test is the most important part of the test. The person is able to emulate a real-life attacker better than any computer. It is just a vulnerability scan if you use tools or executables alone.

    “A penetration test is an audit with validation.” (Joel Shapiro, Vice President Sales, Digital Boundary Group)

    Start by considering the spectrum of penetration tests

    Network Penetration Tests

    Conventional testing of network defences.

    Testing vectors include:

    • Perimeter infrastructure
    • Wireless, WEP/WPA cracking
    • Cloud penetration testing
    • Telephony systems or VoIP
    Types of tests:
    • Denial-of-service testing
    • Out-of-band attacks
    • War dialing
    • Wireless network testing/war driving
    • Spoofing
    • Trojan attacks
    • Brute force attacks
    • Watering hole attacks
    • Honeypots
    • Cloud-penetration testing
    Application Penetration Tests

    Core business functions are now being provided through web applications, either to external customers or to internal end users.

    Types: Web apps, non-web apps, mobile apps

    Application penetration and security testing encompasses:

    • Code review – analyzing the application code for sensitive information of vulnerabilities in the code.
    • Authorization testing – testing systems responsible for user session management to see if unauthorized access can be permitted.
    • Authentication process for user testing.
    • Functionality testing – test the application functionality itself.
    • Website pen testing – active analysis of weaknesses or vulnerabilities.
    • Encryption testing – testing things like randomness or key strength.
    • User-session integrity testing.
    Human-Centric Testing
    • Penetration testing is developing a people aspect as opposed to just being technology focused.
    • End users and their susceptibility to social engineering attacks (spear phishing, phone calls, physical site testing, etc.) is now a common area to test.
    • Social engineering penetration testing is not only about identifying your human vulnerabilities, but also about proactively training your end users. As well as discovering and fixing potential vulnerabilities, social engineering penetration testing will help to raise security awareness within an organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your pen test should use multiple methods. Demonstrating weakness in one area is good but easy to identify. When you blend techniques, you get better success at breaching and it becomes more life-like. Think about prevention, detection, and response testing to provide full insight into your security defenses.

    Penetration testing types

    Evaluate four variables to determine which type of penetration test is most appropriate for your organization.

    Evaluate these dimensions to determine relevant penetration testing.

    Network, Application, or Human

    Evaluate your need to perform different types of penetration testing.

    Some level of network and application testing is most likely appropriate.

    The more common decision point is to consider to what degree your organization requires human-centric penetration testing.

    External or Internal

    External: Attacking an organization’s perimeter and internet-facing systems. For these, you generally provide some level of information to the tester. The test will begin with publicly available information gathering followed by some kind of network scanning or probing against externally visible servers or devices (DNS server, email server, web server, firewall, etc.)

    Internal: Carried out within the organization’s network. This emulates an attack originating from an internal point (disgruntled employee, authorized user, etc.). The idea is to see what could happen if the perimeter is breached.

    Transparent, Semi-Transparent, or Opaque Box

    Opaque Box: The penetration tester is not provided any information. This emulates a real-life attack. Test team uses publicly available information (corporate website, DNS, USENET, etc.) to start the test. These tests are more time consuming and expensive. They often result in exploitation of the easiest vulnerability.
    Use cases: emulating a real-life attack; testing detection and response capabilities; limited network segmentation.

    Transparent Box: Tester is provided full disclosure of information. The tester will have access to everything they need: building floor plans, data flow designs, network topology, etc. This represents what a credentialed and knowledgeable insider would do.
    Use cases: full assessment of security controls; testing of attacker traversal capabilities.

    Aggressiveness of the Test

    Not Aggressive: Very slow and careful penetration testing. Usually spread out in terms of packets being sent and number of calls to individuals. It attempts to not set off any alarm bells.

    Aggressive: A full DoS attack or something similar. These would be DoS attacks that take down systems or full SQL injection attacks all at once versus small injections over time. Testing options cover anything including physical tests, network tests, social engineering, and data extraction and exfiltration. This is more costly and time consuming.

    Assessing Aggressiveness: How aggressive the test should be is based on the threats you are concerned with. Assess who you are concerned with: random individuals on the internet, state-sponsored attacks, criminals, hacktivists, etc. Who you are concerned with will determine the appropriate aggressiveness of the test.

    Penetration testing scope

    Establish the scope of your penetration test before engaging vendors.

    Determining the scope of what is being tested is the most important part of a penetration test. Organizations need to be as specific as possible so the vendor can actually respond or ask questions.

    Organizations need to define boundaries, objectives, and key success factors.

    For scope:
    • If you go too narrow, the realism of the test suffers.
    • If you go too broad, it is more costly and there’s a possible increase in false positives.
    • Balance scope vs. budget.
    Boundaries to scope before a test:
    • IP addresses
    • URLs
    • Applications
    • Who is in scope for social engineering
    • Physical access from roof to dumpsters defined
    • Scope prioritized for high-value assets
    Objectives and key success factors to scope:
    • When is the test complete? Is it at the point of validated exploitation?
    • Are you looking for as many holes as possible, or are you looking for how many ways each hole can be exploited?

    What would be out of scope?

    • Are there systems, IP addresses, or other things you want out of scope? These are things you don’t explicitly want any penetration tester to touch.
    • Are there third-party connections to your environment that you don’t want to be tested? These are instances such as cloud providers, supply chain connections, and various services.
    • Are there things that would be awkward to test? For example, determine if you include high-level people in a social engineering test. Do you conduct social engineering for the CEO? If you get their credentials, it could be an awkward moment.

    Ways to break up a penetration test:

    • Location – This is the most common way to break up a penetration test.
    • Division – Self-contained business units are often done as separate tests so you can see how each unit does.
    • IT systems – For example, you put certain security controls in a firewall and want to test its effectiveness.
    • Applications – For example, you are launching a new website or a new portal and you want to test it.

    Penetration testing appropriateness

    Determine your penetration testing appropriateness.

    Usual instances to conduct a penetration test:
    • Setting up a new physical office. Penetration testing will not only test security capabilities but also resource availability and map out network flows.
    • New infrastructure hardware implemented. All new infrastructure needs to be tested.
    • Changes or upgrades to existing infrastructure. Need for testing varies depending on the size of the change.
    • New application deployment. Need to test before being pushed to production environments.
    • Changes or upgrades to existing applications. When fundamental functional changes occur, perform testing:
      • Before upgrades or patching
      • After upgrades or patching
    • Periodic testing. It is a best practice to periodically test your security control effectiveness. Consider at least an annual test.

    Specific timing considerations: Testing should be completed during non-production times of day. Testing should be completed after a backup has been performed.

    Assess your threats to determine your appropriate test type:

    Penetration testing is about what threats you are concerned about. Understand your risk profile, risk tolerance level, and specific threats to see how relevant penetration tests are.

    • Are external attackers concerning to you? Are you distressed about how an attacker can use brute force to enter your network? If so, focus on ingress points, such as FWs, routers, and DMZ.
    • Is social engineering a concern for you (i.e. phone-based or email-based)? Then you are concerned about a credentialed hacker.
    • Is it an insider threat, a disgruntled employee, etc.? This also includes an internal system that is under command and control (C&C).

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE: Do a test only after you take a first pass.
    If you have not done some level of vulnerability assessment on your own (performing a scan, checking third-party sources, etc.) don’t waste your money on a penetration test. Only perform a penetration test after you have done a first pass and identified and remediated all the low-hanging fruit.

    4.4.1 Create an RFP for penetration tests

    2 hours

    Input: List of criteria and scope for the penetration test, Systems and application information if white box

    Output: Completed RFP document that can be distributed to vendor proponents

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Penetration Test RFP Template

    Participants: IT Security Manager, IT operations managers, CISO, Procurement department representative

    Use an RFP template to convey your desired penetration test requirements to vendors and outline the proposal and procurement steps set by your organization.

    1. Determine what kind of requirements will be needed for your penetration test RFP based on people, process, and technology requirements.
      • Consider items such as your technology environment and the scope of the penetration tests.
    2. Conduct an interview with relevant stakeholders to determine the exact requirements needed.
    3. Use Info-Tech’s Penetration Test RFP Template, which lists many requirements but can be customized to your organization’s specific needs.

    Download the Penetration Test RFP Template

    4.4.1 Create an RFP for penetration tests (continued)

    Steps of a penetration test:
    1. Determine scope
    2. Gather targeted intelligence
    3. Review exploit attempts, such as access and escalation
    4. Test the collection of sensitive data
    5. Run reporting
    Info-Tech RFP Table of Contents:
    1. Statement of Work
    2. General Information
    3. Proposal Preparation Instructions
    4. Scope of Work, Specifications, and Requirements
    5. Vendor Qualifications and References
    6. Budget and Estimated Pricing
    7. Vendor Certification

    Download the Penetration Test RFP Template

    Penetration testing considerations – service providers

    Consider what type of penetration testing service provider is best for your organization

    Professional Service Providers

    Professional Services Firms. These firms will often provide a myriad of professional services across auditing, financial, and consulting services. If they offer security-related consulting services, they will most likely offer some level of penetration testing.

    Security Service Firms. These are dedicated security consulting or advisory firms that will offer a wide spectrum of security-related services. Penetration testing may be one aspect of larger security assessments and strategy development services.

    Dedicated Penetration Testing Firms. These are service providers that will often offer the full gamut of penetration testing services.

    Integrators

    Managed Security Service Providers. These providers will offer penetration testing. For example, Dell SecureWorks offers numerous services including penetration testing. For organizations like this, you need to be skeptical of ulterior motives. For example, expect recommendations around outsourcing from Dell SecureWorks.

    Regional or Small Integrators. These are service providers that provide security services of some kind. For example, they would help in the implementation of a firewall and offer penetration testing services as well.

    Info-Tech Recommends:

    • Always be conscientious of who is conducting the testing and what else they offer. Even if you get another party to test rather than your technology provider, they will try to obtain you as a client. Remember that for larger technology vendors, security testing is a small revenue stream for them and it’s a way to find technology clients. They may offer penetration testing for free to obtain other business.
    • Most of the penetration testers were systems administrators (for network testing) or application developers (for application testing) at some point before becoming penetration testers. Remember this when evaluating providers and evaluating remediation recommendations.
    • Evaluate what kind of open-source tools, commercial tools, and proprietary tools are being used. In general, you don’t want to rely on an open-source scanner. For open source, they will have more outdated vulnerability databases, system identification can also be limited compared to commercial, and reporting is often lacking.
    • Above all else, ensure your testers are legally capable, experienced, and abide by non-disclosure agreements.

    Penetration testing best practices – communications

    Communication With Service Provider

    • During testing there should be designated points of contact between the service provider and the client.
    • There needs to be secure channels for communication of information between the tester and the client both during the test and for any results.
    • Results should always be explained to the client by the tester, regardless of the content or audience.
    • There should be a formal debrief with the results report.
    Immediate reporting of issues
    • Before any testing commences, immediate reporting conditions need to be defined. These are instances when you would want immediate notification of something occurring.
    • Stipulate certain systems or data types that if broken into or compromised, you would want to be notified right away.
    • Example:
      • If you are conducting social engineering, require notification for all account credentials that are compromised. Once credentials are compromised, it destroys all accountability for those credentials and the actions associated with those credentials by any user.
      • Require immediate reporting of specific high-critical systems that are compromised or if access is even found.
      • Require immediate reporting when regulated data is discovered or compromised in any way.

    Communication With Internal Staff

    Do you tell your internal staff that this is happening?

    This is sometimes called a “double blind test” when you don’t let your IT team know of the test occurring.

    Pros to notifying:
    • This tests the organization’s security monitoring, incident detection, and response capabilities.
    • Letting the team know they are going to see some activity will make sure they don’t get too worried about it.
    • There may be systems you can’t jeopardize but still need to test so notification beforehand is essential (e.g. you wouldn’t allow ERP testing with notification).
    Cons:
    • It does not give you a real-life example of how you respond if something happens.
    • Potential element of disrespect to IT people.

    Penetration testing best practices – results and remediation

    What to expect from penetration test results report:

    A final results report will state all findings including what was done by the testers, what vulnerabilities or exploitations were detected, how they were compromised, the related risk, and related remediation recommendations.

    Expect four major sections:
    • Introduction. An overview of the penetration test methodology including rating methodology of vulnerabilities.
    • Executive Summary. A management-level description of the test, often including a summary of any recommendations.
    • Technical Review. An overview of each item that was looked at and touched. This area breaks down what was done, how it was done, what was found, and any related remediation recommendations. Expect graphs and visuals in this section.
    • Detailed Findings. An in-depth breakdown of all testing methods used and results. Each vulnerability will be explained regarding how it was detected, what the risk is, and what the remediation recommendation is.
    Two areas that will vary by service provider:

    Prioritization

    • Most providers will boast their unique prioritization methodology.
    • A high, medium, and low rating scale based on some combination of variables (e.g. ease of exploitation, breadth of hole, information accessed resulting in further exploitation).
    • The prioritization won’t take into account asset value or criticality.
    • Keep in mind the penetration test is not an input into ultimate vulnerability prioritization, but it can help determine your urgency.

    Remediation

    • Remediation recommendations will vary across providers.
    • Generally, fairly generic recommendations are provided (e.g. remove your old telnet and input up-to-date SSH).
    • Most of the time, it is along the lines of “we found a hole; close the hole.”

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    At the conclusion of this blueprint, you will have created a full vulnerability management program that will allow you to take a risk-based approach to vulnerability remediation.

    Assessing a vulnerability’s risk will enable you to properly determine the true urgency of a vulnerability within the context of your organization; this ensures you are not just blindly following what the tool is reporting.

    The risk-based approach will allow you to prioritize your discovered vulnerabilities and take immediate action on critical and high vulnerabilities while allowing your standard remediation cycle to address the medium to low vulnerabilities.

    With your program defined and developed, you now need to configure your vulnerability scanning tool or acquire one if you don’t already have a tool in place.

    Lastly, while vulnerability management will help address your systems and applications, how do you know if you are secure from external malicious actors? Penetration testing will offer visibility, allowing you to plug those holes and attain an environment with a smaller risk surface.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Additional Support

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

    Photo of Jimmy Tom.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

    Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

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

    Sample of the Implement Vulnerability Management storyboard.
    Review of the Implement Vulnerability Management storyboard
    Sample of the Vulnerability Mitigation SOP template.
    Build your vulnerability management SOP

    Contributors

    Contributors from 2016 version of this project:

    • Morey Haber, Vice President of Technology, BeyondTrust
    • Richard Barretto, Manager, Information Privacy and Security, Cimpress
    • Joel Shapiro, Vice President Sales, Digital Boundary Group

    Contributors from current version of this project:

    • 2 anonymous contributors from the manufacturing sector
    • 1 anonymous contributor from a US government agency
    • 2 anonymous contributors from the financial sector
    • 1 anonymous contributor from the medical technology industry
    • 2 anonymous contributors from higher education
    • 1 anonymous contributor from a Canadian government agency
    • 7 anonymous others; information gathered from advisory calls

    Bibliography

    Arya. “COVID-19 Impact: Vulnerability Management Solution Market | Strategic Industry Evolutionary Analysis Focus on Leading Key Players and Revenue Growth Analysis by Forecast To 2028 – FireMon, Digital Shadows, AlienVault.” Bulletin Line, 6 Aug. 2020. Accessed 6 Aug. 2020.

    Campagna, Rich. “The Lean, Mean Vulnerability Management Machine.” Security Boulevard, 31 Mar. 2020. Accessed 15 Aug. 2020.

    Constantin, Lucian. “What are vulnerability scanners and how do they work?” CSO Online, 10 Apr. 2020. Accessed 1 Sept. 2020.

    “CVE security vulnerabilities published in 2019.” CVE Details. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020.

    Garden, Paul, et al. “2019 Year End Report – Vulnerability QuickView.” Risk Based Security, 2020. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020.

    Keary, Eoin. “2019 Vulnerability Statistics Report.” Edgescan, Feb. 2019. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020.

    Lefkowitz, Josh. ““Risk-Based Vulnerability Management is a Must for Security & Compliance.” SecurityWeek, 1 July 2019. Accessed 1 Nov. 2020.

    Mell, Peter, Tiffany Bergeron, and David Henning. “Creating a Patch and Vulnerability Management Program.” Creating a Patch and Vulnerability Management Program. NIST, Nov. 2005. Web.

    “National Vulnerability Database.” NIST. Accessed 18 Oct. 2020.

    “OpenVAS – Open Vulnerability Assessment Scanner.” OpenVAS. Accessed 14 Sept. 2020.

    “OVAL.” OVAL. Accessed 21 Oct. 2020.

    Paganini, Pierluigi. “Exploiting and Verifying Shellshock: CVE-2014-6271.” INFOSEC, 27 Sept. 2014. Web.

    Pritha. “Top 10 Metrics for your Vulnerability Management Program.” CISO Platform, 28 Nov. 2019. Accessed 25 Oct. 2020.

    “Risk-Based Vulnerability Management: Understanding Vulnerability Risk With Threat Context And Business Impact.” Tenable. Accessed 21 Oct. 2020.

    Stone, Mark. “Shellshock In-Depth: Why This Old Vulnerability Won’t Go Away.” SecurityIntelligence, 6 Aug. 2020. Web.

    “The Role of Threat Intelligence in Vulnerability Management.” NOPSEC, 18 Sept. 2014. Accessed 18 Aug. 2020.

    “Top 15 Paid and Free Vulnerability Scanner Tools in 2020.” DNSstuff, 6 Jan. 2020. Accessed 15 Sept. 2020.

    Truta, Filip. “60% of Breaches in 2019 Involved Unpatched Vulnerabilities.” Security Boulevard, 31 Oct. 2019. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.

    “Vulnerability Management Program.” Core Security. Accessed 15 Sept. 2020.

    “What is Risk-Based Vulnerability Management?” Balbix. Accessed 15 Sept. 2020.

    White, Monica. “The Cost Savings of Effective Vulnerability Management (Part 1).” Kenna Security, 23 April 2020. Accessed 20 Sept. 2020.

    Wilczek, Marc. “Average Cost of a Data Breach in 2020: $3.86M.” Dark Reading, 24 Aug. 2020. Accessed 5 Nov 2020.

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    Build a Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
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    Getting a seat at the table is your first objective in building a strategic roadmap. Knowing what the business wants to do and understanding what it will need in the future is a challenge for most IT departments.

    This could be a challenge such as:

    • Understanding the business vision
    • Clear communications on business planning
    • Insight into what the future state should look like
    • Understanding what the IT team is spending its time on day to day

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Having a clear vision of what the future state is and knowing that creating an IT Infrastructure roadmap is never finished will give your IT team an understanding of priorities, goals, business vision, and risks associated with not planning.
    • Understand what you are currently paying for and why.

    Impact and Result

    • Understanding of the business priorities, and vision of the future
    • Know what your budget is spent on: running the business, growth, or innovation
    • Increased communication with the right stakeholders
    • Better planning based on analysis of time study, priorities, and business goals

    Build a Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Research & Tools

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

    1. Build a Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Storyboard – Improve and align goals and strategy.

    In this section you will develop a vision and mission statement and set goals that align with the business vision and goals. The outcome will deliver your guiding principles and a list of goals that will determine your initiatives and their priorities.

    • Build Your Infrastructure Roadmap Storyboard
    • Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool

    2. Financial Spend Analysis Template – Envision future and analyze constraints.

    Consider your future state by looking at technology that will help the business in the future. Complete an analysis of your past spending to determine your future spend. Complete a SWOT analysis to determine suitability.

    • Financial Spend Analysis Template

    3. Strategic Roadmap Initiative Template – Align and build the roadmap.

    Develop a risk framework that may slow or hinder your strategic initiatives from progressing and evaluate your technical debt. What is the current state of your infrastructure? Generate and prioritize your initiatives, and set dates for completion.

    • Strategic Roadmap Initiative Template

    4. Infrastructure and Strategy Executive Brief Template – Communicate and improve the process.

    After creating your roadmap, communicate it to your audience. Identify who needs to be informed and create an executive brief with the template download. Finally, create KPIs to measure what success looks like.

    • Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Executive Presentation Template
    • Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Build a Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap

    Align infrastructure investment to business-driven goals.

    Analysts' Perspectives

    Infrastructure roadmaps are an absolute necessity for all organizations. An organization's size often dictates the degree of complexity of the roadmap, but they all strive to paint the future picture of the organization's IT infrastructure.

    Infrastructure roadmaps typically start with the current state of infrastructure and work on how to improve. That thinking must change! Start with the future vision, an unimpeded vision, as if there were no constraints. Now you can see where you want to be.

    Look at your past to determine how you have been spending your infrastructure budget. If your past shows a trend of increased operational expenditures, that trend will likely continue. The same is true for capital spending and staffing numbers.

    Now that you know where you want to go, and how you ended up where you are, look at the constraints you must deal with and make a plan. It's not as difficult as it may seem, and even the longest journey begins with one step.

    Speaking of that first step, it should be to understand the business goals and align your roadmap with those same goals. Now you have a solid plan to develop a strategic infrastructure roadmap; enjoy the journey!

    There are many reasons why you need to build a strategic IT infrastructure roadmap, but your primary objectives are to set the long-term direction, build a framework for decision making, create a foundation for operational planning, and be able to explain to the business what you are planning. It is a basis for accountability and sets out goals and priorities for the future.

    Other than knowing where you are going there are four key benefits to building the roadmap.

    1. It allows you to be strategic and transformative rather than tactical and reactive.
    2. It gives you the ability to prioritize your tasks and projects in order to get them going.
    3. It gives you the ability to align your projects to business outcomes.
    4. Additionally, you can leverage your roadmap to justify your budget for resources and infrastructure.

    When complete, you will be able to communicate to your fellow IT teams what you are doing and get an understanding of possible business- or IT-related roadblocks, but overall executing on your roadmap will demonstrate to the business your competencies and ability to succeed.

    PJ Ryan

    PJ Ryan
    Research Director
    Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    John Donovan

    John Donovan
    Principal Research Director
    Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Build a Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap

    Align infrastructure investment to business-driven goals.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    When it comes to building a strategic roadmap, getting a seat at the table is your first objective. Knowing what the business wants to do and understanding its future needs is a challenge for most IT organizations.

    Challenges such as:

    • Understanding the business vision
    • Clear communications on business planning
    • Insight into what the future state should look like

    Common Obstacles

    Fighting fires, keeping the lights on, patching, and overseeing legacy debt maintenance – these activities prevent your IT team from thinking strategically and looking beyond day-to-day operations. Issues include:

    • Managing time well
    • Building the right teams
    • Setting priorities

    Procrastinating when it comes to thinking about your future state will get you nowhere in a hurry.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Look into your past IT spend and resources that are being utilized.

    • Analyze all aspects of the operation, and resources required.
    • Be realistic with your timelines.
    • Work from the future state backward.

    Build your roadmap by setting priorities, understanding risk and gaps both in finance and resources. Overall, your roadmap is never done, so don't worry if you get it wrong on the first pass.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Have a clear vision of what the future state is, and know that when creating an IT infrastructure roadmap, it is never done. This will give your IT team an understanding of priorities, goals, business vision, and risks associated with not planning. Understand what you are currently paying for and why.

    Insight Summary

    "Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now."
    Source: Alan Lakein, Libquotes

    Your strategic objectives are key to building a roadmap

    Many organizations' day-to-day IT operations are tactical and reactive. This needs to change; the IT team needs to become strategic and proactive in its planning and execution. Forward thinking bridges the gap from your current state, to what the organization is, to what it wants to achieve. Your strategic objectives need to align to the business vision and goals and keep it running.

    Your future state will determine your roadmap priorities

    Identify what the business needs to meet its goals; this should be reflected in your roadmap priorities. Then identify the tasks and projects that can get you there. Business alignment is key, as these projects require prioritization. Strategic initiatives that align to business outcomes will be your foundation for planning on those priorities. If you do not align your initiatives, you will end up spinning your wheels. A good strategic roadmap will have all the elements of forward thinking and planning to execute with the right resources, right priorities, and right funding to make it happen.

    Understand what you have been paying for the last few years

    Measure the cost of "keeping the lights on" as a baseline for your budget that is earmarked and already spent. Determine if your current spend is holding back innovation due to:

    1. The high cost of maintenance
    2. Resources in operations doing low-value work due to the effort required to do tasks related to break/fix on aging hardware and software

    A successful strategic roadmap will be determined when you have a good handle on your current spending patterns and planning for future needs that include resources, budget, and know-how. Without a plan and roadmap, that plan will not get business buy-in or funding.

    Top challenges reported by Info-Tech members

    Lack of strategic direction

    • Infrastructure leadership must discover the business goals.

    Time seepage

    • Project time is constantly being tracked incorrectly.

    Technical debt

    • Aging equipment is not proactively cycled out with newer enabling technologies.

    Case Study

    The strategic IT roadmap allows Dura to stay at the forefront of automotive manufacturing.

    INDUSTRY: Manufacturing
    SOURCE: Performance Improvement Partners

    Challenge

    Following the acquisition of Dura, MiddleGround aimed to position Dura as a leader in the automotive industry, leveraging the company's established success spanning over a century.

    However, prior limited investments in technology necessitated significant improvements for Dura to optimize its processes and take advantage of digital advancements.

    Solution

    MiddleGround joined forces with PIP to assess technology risks, expenses, and prospects, and develop a practical IT plan with solutions that fit MiddleGround's value-creation timeline.

    By selecting the top 15 most important IT projects, the companies put together a feasible technology roadmap aimed at advancing Dura in the manufacturing sector.

    Results

    Armed with due diligence reports and a well-defined IT plan, MiddleGround and Dura have a strategic approach to maximizing value creation.

    By focusing on key areas such as analysis, applications, infrastructure and the IT organization, Dura is effectively transforming its operations and shaping the future of the automotive manufacturing industry.

    How well do you know your business strategy?

    A mere 25% of managers
    can list three of the company's
    top five priorities.

    Based on a study from MIT Sloan, shared understanding of strategic directives barely exists beyond the top tiers of leadership.

    An image of a bar graph showing the percentage of leaders able to correctly list a majority of their strategic priorities.

    Take your time back

    Unplanned incident response is a leading cause of the infrastructure time crunch, but so too are nonstandard service requests and service requests that should be projects.

    29%

    Less than one-third of all IT projects finish on time.

    200%

    85% of IT projects average cost overruns of 200% and time overruns of 70%.

    70%

    70% of IT workers feel as though they have too much work and not enough time to do it.

    Source: MIT Sloan

    Inventory Assessment

    Lifecycle

    Refresh strategies are still based on truisms (every three years for servers, every seven years for LAN, etc.) more than risk-based approaches.

    Opportunity Cost

    Assets that were suitable to enable business goals need to be re-evaluated as those goals change.

    See Info-Tech's Manage Your Technical Debt blueprint

    an image of info-tech's Manage your technical debt.

    Key IT strategy initiatives can be categorized in three ways

    IT key initiative plan

    Initiatives collectively support the business goals and corporate initiatives, and improve the delivery of IT services.

    1. Business support
      • Support major business initiatives
      • Each corporate initiative is supported by a major IT project and each project has unique IT challenges that require IT support.
    2. IT excellence
      • Reduce risk and improve IT operational excellence
      • These projects will increase IT process maturity and will systematically improve IT.
    3. Innovation
      • Drive technology innovation
      • These projects will improve future innovation capabilities and decrease risk by increasing technology maturity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A CIO has three roles: enable business productivity, run an effective IT shop, and drive technology innovation. Your key initiative plan must reflect these three mandates and how IT strives to fulfill them.

    IT must accomplish many things

    Manage
    the lifecycle of aging equipment against current capacity and capability demands.

    Curate
    a portfolio of enabling technologies to meet future capacity and capability demands.

    Initiate
    a realistic schedule of initiatives that supports a diverse range of business goals.

    Adapt
    to executive feedback and changing business goals.

    an image of Info-Tech's Build your strategic roadmap

    Primary and secondary infrastructure drivers

    • Primary driver – The infrastructure component that is directly responsible for enabling change in the business metric.
    • Secondary driver – The infrastructure component(s) that primary drivers rely on.

    (Source: BMC)

    Sample primary and secondary drivers

    Business metric Source(s) Primary infrastructure drivers Secondary infrastructure drivers

    Sales revenue

    Online store

    Website/Server (for digital businesses)

    • Network
    • Data center facilities

    # of new customers

    Call center

    Physical plant cabling in the call center

    • PBX/VOIP server
    • Network
    • Data center facilities

    Info-Tech Insight

    You may not be able to directly influence the primary drivers of the business, but your infrastructure can have a major impact as a secondary driver.

    Info-Tech's approach

    1. Align strategy and goals
    • Establish the scope of your IT strategy by defining IT's mission and vision statements and guiding principles.
  • Envision future and analyze constraints
    • Envision and define your future infrastructure and analyze what is holding you back.
  • Align and build the roadmap
    • Establish a risk framework, identify initiatives, and build your strategic infrastructure roadmap.
  • Communicate and improve the process
    • Communicate the results of your hard work to the right people and establish the groundwork for continual improvement of the process.
  • Blueprint deliverables

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

    Mission and Vision Statement
    Goal Alignment (Slide 28)

    Construct your vision and mission aligned to the business.

    Mission and Vision Statement

    Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap tool

    Build initiatives and prioritize them. Build the roadmap.

    Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap tool

    Infrastructure Domain Study

    What is stealing your time from getting projects done?

    Infrastructure Domain Study

    Initiative Templates Process Maps & Strategy

    Build templates for initiates, build process map, and develop strategies.

    Initiative Templates Process Maps & Strategy

    Key Deliverable

    it infrastructure roadmap template

    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

    Info-Tech's methodology for an infrastructure strategy and roadmap

    1. Align Strategy and Goals

    2. Envision Future and Analyze Constraints

    3. Align and Build the Roadmap

    4. Communicate and Improve the Process

    Phase steps

    1.1 Develop the infrastructure strategy

    1.2 Define the goals

    2.1 Define the future state

    2.2 Analyze constraints

    3.1 Align the roadmap

    3.2 Build the roadmap

    4.1 Identify the audience

    4.2 Improve the process

    Phase Outcomes

    • Vision statement
    • Mission statement
    • Guiding principles
    • List of goals
    • Financial spend analysis
    • Domain time study
    • Prioritized list of roadblocks
    • Future-state vision document
    • IT and business risk frameworks
    • Technical debt assessment
    • New technology analysis
    • Initiative templates
    • Initiative candidates
    • Roadmap visualization
    • Process schedule
    • Communications strategy
    • process map
    • Infrastructure roadmap report

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 0 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

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

    Call #2: Define mission and vision statements and guiding principles to discuss strategy scope.
    Call #3: Brainstorm goals and definition.

    Call #4: Conduct a spend analysis and a time resource study.
    Call #5: Identify roadblocks.

    Call #6: Develop a risk framework and address technical debt.
    Call #7: Identify new initiatives and SWOT analysis.
    Call #8: Visualize and identify initiatives.
    Call #9: Complete shadow IT and initiative finalization.

    Call #10: Identify your audience and communicate.
    Call #11: Improve the process.

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

    A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Session 0 (Pre-workshop)

    Session 1

    Session 2

    Session 3

    Session 4

    Session 5 (Post-workshop)

    Elicit business context Align Strategy and Goals Envision Future and Analyze Constraints Align and Build the Roadmap Communicate and Improve the Process Wrap-up (offsite)

    0.1 Complete recommended diagnostic programs.
    0.2 Interview key business stakeholders, as needed, to identify business context: business goals, initiatives, and the organization's mission and vision.
    0.3 (Optional) CIO to compile and prioritize IT success stories.

    1.1 Infrastructure strategy.
    1.1.1 Review/validate the business context.
    1.1.2 Construct your mission and vision statements.
    1.1.3 Elicit your guiding principles and finalize IT strategy scope.

    1.2 Business goal alignment
    1.2.1 Intake identification and analysis.
    1.2.2 Survey results analysis.
    1.2.3 Brainstorm goals.
    1.2.4 Perform goal association and analysis.

    2.1 Define the future state.
    2.1.1 Conduct an emerging technology discussion.
    2.1.2 Document desired future state.
    2.1.3 Develop a new technology identification process.
    2.1.4 Compete SWOT analysis.

    2.2 Analyze your constraints
    2.2.1 Perform a historical spend analysis.
    2.2.2 Conduct a time study.
    2.2.3 Identify roadblocks.
    .

    3.1 Align the roadmap
    3.1.1 Develop a risk framework.
    3.1.2 Evaluate technical debt.

    3.2 Build the roadmap.
    3.2.1 Build effective initiative templates.
    3.2.2 Visualize.
    3.2.3 Generate new initiatives.
    3.2.4 Repatriate shadow IT initiatives.
    3.2.5 Finalize initiative candidates.

    4.2 Identify the audience
    4.1.1 Identify required authors and target audiences.
    4.1.2 Plan the process.
    4.1.2 Identify supporters and blockers.

    4.2 Improve the process
    4.2.1 Evaluate the value of each process output.
    4.2.2 Brainstorm improvements.
    4.2.3 Set realistic measures.

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

    1. SWOT analysis of current state
    2. Goals cascade
    3. Persona analysis
    1. Vision statement, mission statement, and guiding principles
    2. List of goals
    1. Spend analysis document
    2. Domain time study
    3. Prioritized list of roadblocks
    4. Future state vision document
    1. IT and business risk frameworks
    2. Technical debt assessment
    3. New technology analysis
    4. Initiative templates
    5. Initiative candidates
    1. Roadmap visualization
    2. Process schedule
    3. Communications strategy
    4. Process map
    1. Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Report

    Phase 1

    Align Strategy and Goals

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Infrastructure strategy

    1.2 Goal alignment

    2.1 Define your future

    2.2 Conduct constraints analysis

    3.1 Drive business alignment

    3.2. Build the roadmap

    4.1 Identify the audience

    4.2 Process improvement

    and measurements

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • How to build IT mission and vision statements
    • How to elicit IT guiding principles
    • How to finalize and communicate your IT strategy scope

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Team

    Step 1.1

    Develop the Infrastructure Strategy

    Activities

    1.1.1 Review/validate the business context

    1.1.2 Construct your mission and vision statements

    1.1.3 Elicit your guiding principles and finalize IT strategy scope

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Business Mission Statement
    • Business Vision Statement
    • Business Goals

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Roadmap team

    Outcomes of this step

    • IT mission statement
    • IT vision statement
    • Guiding principles

    To complete this phase, you will need:

    Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template

    Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template

    Use the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template to document the results from the following activities:

    • Mission and Vision Statements
    • Business impact
    • Roadmap

    IT must aim to support the organization's mission and vision

    A mission statement

    • Focuses on today and what an organization does to achieve the mission.
    • Drives the company.
    • Answers: What do we do? Who do we serve? How do we service them?

    "A mission statement focuses on the purpose of the brand; the vision statement looks to the fulfillment of that purpose."

    A vision statement

    • Focuses on tomorrow and what an organization ultimately wants to become.
    • Gives the company direction.
    • Answers: What problems are we solving? Who and what are we changing?

    "A vision statement provides a concrete way for stakeholders, especially employees, to understand the meaning and purpose of your business. However, unlike a mission statement – which describes the who, what, and why of your business – a vision statement describes the desired long-term results of your company's efforts."
    Source: Business News Daily, 2020

    Characteristics of mission and vision statements

    A strong mission statement has the following characteristics:

    • Articulates the IT function's purpose and reason for existence.
    • Describes what the IT function does to achieve its vision.
    • Defines the customers of the IT function.
    • Is:
      • Compelling
      • Easy to grasp
      • Sharply focused
      • Concise

    A strong vision statement has the following characteristics:

    • Describes a desired future achievement.
    • Focuses on ends, not means.
    • Communicates promise.
    • Is:
      • Concise; no unnecessary words
      • Compelling
      • Achievable
      • Measurable

    Derive the IT mission and vision statements from the business

    Begin the process by identifying and locating the business mission and vision statements.

    • Corporate websites
    • Business strategy documents
    • Business executives

    Ensure there is alignment between the business and IT statements.

    Note: Mission statements may remain the same unless the IT department's mandate is changing.

    an image showing Business mission, IT mission, Business Vision, and IT Vison.

    1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements

    1 hour

    Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

    Step 1:

    1. Gather the IT strategy creation team and revisit your business context inputs, specifically the corporate mission statement.
    2. Begin by asking the participants:
        1. What is our job as a team?
        2. What's our goal? How do we align IT to our corporate mission?
        3. What benefit are we bringing to the company and the world?
      1. Ask them to share general thoughts in a check-in.

    Step 2:

    1. Share some examples of IT mission statements.
    2. Example: IT provides innovative product solutions and leadership that drives growth and
      success.
    3. Provide each participant with some time to write their own version of an IT mission statement.

    Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

    Input

    • Business vision statement
    • Business mission statement

    Output

    • IT mission statement
    • IT vision statement

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard
    • Paper
    • Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Team

    1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

    1 hour

    Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

    Step 3:

    This step involves reviewing individual mission statements, combining them, and building one collective mission statement for the team.

    1. Consider the following approach to build a unified mission statement:

    Use the 20x20 rule for group decision-making. Give the group no more than 20 minutes to craft a collective team purpose with no more than 20 words.

    1. As a facilitator, provide guidelines on how to write for the intended audience. Business stakeholders need business language.
    2. Refer to the corporate mission statement periodically and ensure there is alignment.
    3. Document your final mission statement in your ITRG Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template.

    Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

    Input

    • Business vision statement
    • Business mission statement

    Output

    • IT mission statement
    • IT vision statement

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard
    • Paper
    • Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Team

    1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

    1 hour

    Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

    Step 4:

    1. Gather the IT strategy creation team and revisit your business context inputs, specifically the corporate vision statement.
    2. Share one or more examples of vision statements.
    3. Provide participants with sticky notes and writing materials and ask them to work individually for this step.
    4. Ask participants to brainstorm:
      1. What is the desired future state of the IT organization?
      2. How should we work to attain the desired state?
      3. How do we want IT to be perceived in the desired state?
    5. Provide participants with guidelines to build descriptive, compelling, and achievable statements regarding their desired future state.
    6. Regroup as a team and review participant answers.

    Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

    Input

    • Business vision statement
    • Business mission statement

    Output

    • IT mission statement
    • IT vision statement

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard
    • Paper
    • Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Team

    1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

    1 hour

    Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

    Step 5:

    1. Ask the team to post their notes on the wall.
    2. Have the team group the words that have a similar meaning or feeling behind them; this will create themes.
    3. When the group is done categorizing the statements into themes, ask if there's anything missing. Did they ensure alignment to the corporate vision statement? Are there any elements missing when considering alignment back to the corporate vision statement?

    Step 6:

    1. Consider each category as a component of your vision statement.
    2. Review each category with participants; define what the behavior looks like when it is being met and what it looks like when it isn't.
    3. As a facilitator, provide guidelines on word-smithing and finessing the language.
    4. Refer to the corporate vision statement periodically and ensure there is alignment.
    5. Document your final mission statement in your IT Strategy Presentation Template.

    Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

    Input

    • Business vision statement
    • Business mission statement

    Output

    • IT mission statement
    • IT vision statement

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard
    • Paper
    • Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Team

    1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

    Tips for online facilitation:

    • Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows participants to use a large, zoomable canvas.
    • Set up each topic at a different area of the board; spread them out just like you would do on the walls of a room.
    • Invite participants to zoom in and visit each section and add their ideas as sticky notes once you reach that section of the exercise.
    • If you're not using an online whiteboard, we'd recommend using a collaboration tool such as Google Docs or Teams Whiteboard to collect the information for each step under a separate heading. Invite everyone into the document but be very clear regarding editing rights.
    • Pre-create your screen deck and screen share this with your participants through your videoconferencing software. We'd also recommend sharing this so participants can go through the deck again during the reflection steps.
    • When facilitating group discussion, we'd recommend that participants use non-verbal means to indicate they'd like to speak. You can use tools like Teams' hand-raising tool, a reaction emoji, or have people put their hands up. The facilitator can then invite that person to talk.

    Source: Hyper Island

    Input

    • Business vision statement
    • Business mission statement

    Output

    • IT mission statement
    • IT vision statement

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard
    • Paper
    • Collaboration/brainstorming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Team

    IT mission statements demonstrate IT's purpose

    The IT mission statement specifies the function's purpose or reason for being. The mission should guide each day's activities and decisions. The mission statements use simple and concise terminology and speak loudly and clearly, generating enthusiasm for the organization.

    Strong IT mission statements have the following characteristics:

    • Articulate the IT function's purpose and reason for existence
    • Describe what the IT function does to achieve its vision
    • Define the customers of the IT function
    • Are:
      • Compelling
      • Easy to grasp
      • Sharply focused
      • Inspirational
      • Memorable
      • Concise

    Sample IT Mission Statements:

    • To provide infrastructure, support, and innovation in the delivery of secure, enterprise-grade information technology products and services that enable and empower the workforce at [Company Name].
    • To help fulfill organizational goals, the IT department is committed to empowering business stakeholders with technology and services that facilitate effective processes, collaboration, and communication.
    • The mission of the information technology (IT) department is to build a solid, comprehensive technology infrastructure; to maintain an efficient, effective operations environment; and to deliver high-quality, timely services that support the business goals and objectives of ABC Inc.
    • The IT department has operational, strategic, and fiscal responsibility for the innovation, implementation, and advancement of technology at ABC Inc. in three main areas: network administration and end-user support, instructional services, and information systems. The IT department provides leadership in long-range planning, implementation, and maintenance of information technology across the organization.
    • The IT group is customer-centered and driven by its commitment to management and staff. It oversees services in computing, telecommunications, networking, administrative computing, and technology training.

    Sample mission statements (cont'd)

    • To collaborate and empower our stakeholders through an engaged team and operational agility and deliver innovative technology and services.
    • To empower our stakeholders with innovative technology and services, through collaboration and agility.
    • To collaborate and empower our stakeholder, by delivering innovative technology and services, with an engaged team and operational agility.
    • To partner with departments and be technology leaders that will deliver innovative, secure, efficient, and cost-effective services for our citizens.
    • As a client-centric strategic partner, provide excellence in IM and IT services through flexible business solutions for achieving positive user experience and satisfaction.
    • Develop a high-performing global team that will plan and build a scalable, stable operating environment.
    • Through communication and collaboration, empower stakeholders with innovative technology and services.
    • Build a robust portfolio of technology services and solutions, enabling science-lead and business-driven success.
    • Guided by value-driven decision making, high-performing teams and trusted partners deliver and continually improve secure, reliable, scalable, and reusable services that exceed customer expectations.
    • Engage the business to grow capabilities and securely deliver efficient services to our users and clients.
    • Engage the business to securely deliver efficient services and grow capabilities for our users and clients.

    IT vision statements demonstrate what the IT organization aspires to be

    The IT vision statement communicates a desired future state of the IT organization. The statement is expressed in the present tense. It seeks to articulate the desired role of IT and how IT will be perceived.

    Strong IT vision statements have the following characteristics:

    • Describe a desired future
    • Focus on ends, not means
    • Communicate promise
    • Are:
      • Concise; no unnecessary words
      • Compelling
      • Achievable
      • Inspirational
      • Memorable

    Sample IT vision statements:

    • To be a trusted advisor and partner in enabling business innovation and growth through an engaged IT workforce.
    • The IT organization will strive to become a world-class value center that is a catalyst for innovation.
    • IT is a cohesive, proactive, and disciplined team that delivers innovative technology solutions while demonstrating a strong customer-oriented mindset.
    • Develop and maintain IT and an IT support environment that is secure, stable, and reliable within a dynamic environment.

    Sample vision statements (cont'd)

    • Alignment: To ensure that the IT organizational model and all related operational services and duties are properly aligned with all underlying business goals and objectives. Alignment reflects an IT operation "that makes sense," considering the business served, its interests and its operational imperatives.
    • Engagement: To ensure that all IT vision stakeholders are fully engaged in technology-related planning and the operational parameters of the IT service portfolio. IT stakeholders include the IT performing organization (IT Department), company executives and end-users.
    • Best Practices: To ensure that IT operates in a standardized fashion, relying on practical management standards and strategies properly sized to technology needs and organizational capabilities.
    • Commitment to Customer Service: To ensure that IT services are provided in a timely, high-quality manner, designed to fill the operational needs of the front-line end-users, working within the boundaries established by business interests and technology best practices.

    Quoted From ITtoolkit, 2020

    Case Study

    Acme Corp. was able to construct its IT mission and vison statements by aligning to its corporate mission and vision.

    INDUSTRY: Professional Services
    COMPANY: This case study is based on a real company but was anonymized for use in this research.

    Business

    IT

    Mission

    Vision

    Mission

    Vision

    We help IT leaders achieve measurable results by systematically improving core IT processes, governance, and critical technology projects.

    Acme Corp. will grow to become the largest research firm across the industry by providing unprecedented value to our clients.

    IT provides innovative product solutions and leadership that drives growth and success.

    We will relentlessly drive value to our customers through unprecedented innovation.

    IT guiding principles set the boundaries for your strategy

    Strategic guiding principles advise the IT organization on the boundaries of the strategy.

    Guiding principles are a priori decisions that limit the scope of strategic thinking to what is acceptable organizationally, from budgetary, people, and partnership standpoints. Guiding principles can cover other dimensions, as well.

    Organizational stakeholders are more likely to follow IT principles when a rationale is provided.

    After defining the set of IT principles, ensure that they are all expanded upon with a rationale. The rationale ensures principles are more likely to be followed because they communicate why the principles are important and how they are to be used. Develop the rationale for each IT principle your organization has chosen.

    IT guiding principles = IT strategy boundaries

    Consider these four components when brainstorming guiding principles

    Breadth

    of the IT strategy can span across the eight perspectives: people, process, technology, data, process, sourcing, location, and timing.

    Defining which of the eight perspectives is in scope for the IT strategy is crucial to ensuring the IT strategy will be comprehensive, relevant, and actionable.

    Depth

    of coverage refers to the level of detail the IT strategy will go into for each perspective. Info-Tech recommends that depth should go to the initiative level (i.e. individual projects).

    Organizational coverage

    will determine which part of the organization the IT strategy will cover.

    Planning horizon

    of the IT strategy will dictate when the target state should be reached and the length of the roadmap.

    Consider these criteria when brainstorming guiding principle statements

    Approach focused IT principles are focused on the approach, i.e. how the organization is built, transformed, and operated, as opposed to what needs to be built, which is defined by both functional and non-functional requirements.
    Business relevant Create IT principles that are specific to the organization. Tie IT principles to the organization's priorities and strategic aspirations.
    Long lasting Build IT principles that will withstand the test of time.
    Prescriptive Inform and direct decision-making with IT principles that are actionable. Avoid truisms, general statements, and observations.
    Verifiable If compliance can't be verified, the principle is less likely to be followed.
    Easily digestible IT principles must be clearly understood by everyone in IT and by business stakeholders. IT principles aren't a secret manuscript of the IT team. IT principles should be succinct; wordy principles are hard to understand and remember.
    Followed

    Successful IT principles represent a collection of beliefs shared among enterprise stakeholders. IT principles must be continuously reinforced to all stakeholders to achieve and maintain buy-in.

    In organizations where formal policy enforcement works well, IT principles should be enforced through appropriate governance processes.

    Review ten universal IT principles to determine if your organization wishes to adopt them

    IT principle name

    IT principle statement

    1. Enterprise value focus We aim to provide maximum long-term benefits to the enterprise as a whole while optimizing total costs of ownership and risks.
    2. Fit for purpose We maintain capability levels and create solutions that are fit for purpose without over engineering them.
    3. Simplicity We choose the simplest solutions and aim to reduce operational complexity of the enterprise.
    4. Reuse > buy > build We maximize reuse of existing assets. If we can't reuse, we procure externally. As a last resort, we build custom solutions.
    5. Managed data We handle data creation, modification, and use enterprise-wide in compliance with our data governance policy.
    6. Controlled technical diversity We control the variety of technology platforms we use.
    7. Managed security We manage security enterprise-wide in compliance with our security governance policy.
    8. Compliance to laws and regulations We operate in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
    9. Innovation We seek innovative ways to use technology for business advantage.
    10. Customer centricity We deliver best experiences to our customers with our services and products.

    1.1.3 Elicit guiding principles

    1 hour

    Objective: Generate ideas for guiding principle statements with silent sticky note writing.

    1. Gather the IT strategy creation team and revisit your mission and vision statements.
    2. Ask the group to brainstorm answers individually, silently writing their ideas on separate sticky notes. Provide the brainstorming criteria from the previous slide to all team members. Allow the team to put items on separate notes that can later be shuffled and sorted as distinct thoughts.
    3. After a set amount of time, ask the members of the group to stick their notes to the whiteboard and quickly present them. Categorize all ideas into four major buckets: breadth, depth, organizational coverage, and planning horizon. Ideally, you want one guiding principle to describe each of the four components.
    4. If there are missing guiding principles in any category or anyone's items inspire others to write more, they can stick those up on the wall too, after everyone has presented.
    5. Discuss and finalize your IT guiding principles.
    6. Document your guiding principles in the IT Strategy Presentation Template in Section 1.

    Source: Hyper Island

    Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

    Input

    • Four components for eliciting guiding principles
    • Mission and vision statements

    Output

    • IT guiding principles
    • IT strategy scope

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Paper
    • Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Team

    Guiding principle examples

    • Alignment: Our IT decisions will align with [our organization's] strategic plan.
    • Resources: We will allocate cyber-infrastructure resources based on providing the greatest value and benefit for [the community].
    • User Focus: User needs will be a key component in all IT decisions.
    • Collaboration: We will work within and across organizational structures to meet strategic goals and identify opportunities for innovation and improvement.
    • Transparency: We will be transparent in our decision making and resource use.
    • Innovation: We will value innovative and creative thinking.
    • Data Stewardship: We will provide a secure but accessible data environment.
    • IT Knowledge and Skills: We will value technology skills development for the IT community.
    • Drive reduced costs and improved services
    • Deploy packaged apps – do not develop – retain business process knowledge expertise – reduce apps portfolio
    • Standardize/Consolidate infrastructure with key partners
    • Use what we sell, and help sell
    • Drive high-availability goals: No blunders
    • Ensure hardened security and disaster recovery
    • Broaden skills (hard and soft) across the workforce
    • Improve business alignment and IT governance

    Quoted From: Office of Information Technology, 2014; Future of CIO, 2013

    Case Study

    Acme Corp. elicited guiding principles that set the scope of its IT strategy for FY21.

    INDUSTRY: Professional Services
    COMPANY: Acme Corp.

    The following guiding principles define the values that drive IT's strategy in FY23 and provide the criteria for our 12-month planning horizon.

    • We will focus on big-ticket items during the next 12 months.
    • We will keep the budget within 5%+/- YOY.
    • We will insource over outsource.
    • We will develop a cloud-first technology stack.

    Finalize your IT strategy scope

    Your mission and vision statements and your guiding principles should be the first things you communicate on your IT strategy document.

    Why is this important?

    • Communicating these elements shows how IT supports the corporate direction.
    • The vision and mission statements will clearly articulate IT's aspirations and purpose.
    • The guiding principles will clearly articulate how IT plans to support the business strategically.
    • These elements set expectations with stakeholders for the rest of your strategy.

    Input information into the IT Strategy Presentation Template.

    an image showing the IT Strategy Scope.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Established the scope of your IT strategy

    • Constructed the IT mission statement to communicate the IT organization's reason for being.
    • Constructed the IT vision statement to communicate the desired future state of the IT organization.
    • Elicited IT's guiding principles to communicate the overall scope and time horizon for the strategy.

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

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

    Step 1.2

    Business Goal Alignment

    Activities

    1.2.1 Intake identification and analysis

    1.2.2 Survey results analysis

    1.2.3 Goal brainstorming

    1.2.4 Goal association and analysis

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Last year's accomplished project list
    • Business unit input source list
    • Goal list
    • In-flight initiatives list

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business leadership
    • Project Management Office
    • Service Desk
    • Business Relationship Management
    • Solution or Enterprise Architecture
    • Roadmap team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Intake analysis
    • Goal list
    • Initiative-to-goal map

    Identify who is expecting what from the infrastructure

    "Typically, IT thinks in an IT first, business second, way: 'I have a list of problems and if I solve them, the business will benefit.' This is the wrong way of thinking. The business needs to be thought of first, then IT."

    – Fred Chagnon, Infrastructure Director,
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you're not soliciting input from or delivering on the needs of the various departments in your company, then who is? Be explicit and track how you communicate with each individual unit within your company.

    Mature project portfolio management and enterprise architecture practices are no substitute for understanding your business clientele.

    It may not be a democracy, but listening to everyone's voice is an essential step toward generating a useful roadmap.

    Building good infrastructure requires an understanding of how it will be used. Explicit consultation with stakeholders maximizes a roadmap's usefulness and holds the enterprise accountable in future roadmap iterations as goals change.

    Who are the customers for infrastructure?

    Internal customer examples:

    • Network Operations manager
    • IT Systems manager
    • Webmaster
    • Security manager

    External customer examples:

    • Director of Sales
    • Operations manager
    • Applications manager
    • Clients
    • Partners and consultants
    • Regulators/government

    1.2.1 Intake identification and analysis

    1 hour

    The humble checklist is the single most effective tool to ensure we don't forget someone or something:

    1. Have everyone write down their top five completed projects from last year – one project per sticky note.
    2. Organize everyone's sticky notes on a whiteboard according to input source – did these projects come from the PMO? Directly from a BRM? Service request? VP or LoB management?
    3. Make a MECE list of these sources on the left-hand side of a whiteboard.
    4. On the right-hand side list all the departments or functional business units within the company.
    5. Draw lines from right to left indicating which business units use which input source to request work.
    6. Optional: Rate the efficacy of each input channel – what is the success rate of projects per channel in terms of time, budget, and functionality?

    Discussion:

    1. How clearly do projects and initiatives arrive at infrastructure to be acted on? Do they follow the predictable formal process with all the needed information or is it more ad hoc?
    2. Can we validate that business units are using the correct input channel to request the appropriate work? Does infrastructure have to spend more time validating the requests of any one channel?
    3. Can we identify business units that are underserved? How about overserved? Infrastructure initiatives tend to be near universal in effect – are we forgetting anyone?
    4. Are all these methods passive (order taking), or is there a process for infrastructure to suggest an initiative or project?

    Input

    • Last year's accomplished project list

    Output

    • Work requested workflow and map

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Case Study

    Building IT governance and digital infrastructure for tech-enabled student experiences

    INDUSTRY: Education
    COMPANY: Collegis Education

    Challenge

    In 2019, Saint Francis University decided to expand its online program offering to reach students outside of its market.

    It had to first transform its operations to deliver a high-quality, technology-enabled student experience on and off campus. The remote location of the campus posed power outages, Wi-Fi issues, and challenges in attracting and retaining the right staff to help the university achieve its goals.

    It began working with an IT consulting firm to build a long-term strategic roadmap.

    Solution

    The consultant designed a strategic multi-year roadmap for digital transformation that would prioritize developing infrastructure to immediately improve the student experience and ultimately enable the university to scale its online programs. The consultant worked with school leadership to establish a virtual CIO to oversee the IT department's strategy and operations. The virtual CIO quickly became a key advisor to the president and board, identifying gaps between technology initiatives and enrollment and revenue targets. St. Francis staff also transitioned to the consultant's technology team, allowing the university to alleviate its talent acquisition and retention challenges.

    Results

    • $200,000 in funds reallocated to help with upgrades due to streamlined technology infrastructure
    • Updated card access system for campus staff and students
    • Active directory implementation for a secure and strong authentication technology
    • An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) backup is installed to ensure power continues in the event of a power outage
    • Upgrade to a reliable, campus-wide Wi-Fi network
    • Behind-the-scenes upgrades like state-of-the-art data centers to stabilize aging technology for greater reliability

    Track your annual activity by business unit – not by input source

    A simple graph showing the breakdown of projects by business unit is an excellent visualization of who is getting the most from infrastructure services.

    Show everyone in the organization that the best way to get anything done is by availing themselves of the roadmap process.

    An image of two bar graphs, # of initiatives requested
by customer; # of initiatives proposed to customer.

    Enable technology staff to engage in business storytelling by documenting known goals in a framework

    Without a goal framework

    Technology-focused IT staff are notoriously disconnected from the business process and are therefore often unable to explain the outcomes of their projects in terms that are meaningful to the business.

    With a goal framework

    When business, IT, and infrastructure goals are aligned, the business story writes itself as you follow the path of cascading goals upward.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    So many organizations we speak with don't have goals written down. This rarely means that the goals aren't known, rather that they're not clearly communicated.

    When goals aren't clear, personal agendas can take precedence. This is what often leads to the disconnect between what the business wants and what IT is delivering.

    1.2.2 Survey and results analysis

    1 hour

    Infrastructure succeeds by effectively scaling shared resources for the common good. Sometimes that is a matter of aggregating similarities, sometimes by recognizing where specialization is required.

    1. Have every business unit provide their top three to five current goals or objectives for their department. Emphasize that you are requesting their operational objectives, not just the ones they think IT may be able to help them with.
    2. Put each goal on a sticky note (optional: use a unique sticky note or marker color for each department) and place them on a whiteboard.
    3. Group the sticky notes according to common themes.
    4. Rank each grouping according to number of occurrences.

    Discussion:

    1. This is very democratic. Do certain departments' goals carry more weight more than others?
    2. What is the current business prioritization process? Do the results of our activity match with the current published output of this process?
    3. Consider each business goal in the context of infrastructure activity or technology feature or capability. As infrastructure is a lift function existing only to serve the business, it is important to understand our world in context.

    Examples: The VP of Operations is looking to reduce office rental costs over the next three years. The VP of Sales is focused on increasing the number of face-to-face customer interactions. Both can potentially be served by IT activities and technologies that increase mobility.

    Input

    • Business unit input source list

    Output

    • Prioritized list of business goals

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    1.2.3 Goal brainstorming – Affinity diagramming exercise

    1 hour

    Clarify how well you understand what the business wants.

    1. Ask each participant to consider: "What are the top three priorities of the company [this period]?" They should consider not what they think the priorities should be, but their understanding of what business leadership's priorities actually are.
    2. Have each participant write down their three priorities on sticky notes – one per note.
    3. Select a moderator from the group – not the infrastructure leader or the CIO. The moderator will begin by placing (and explaining) their sticky notes on the whiteboard.
    4. Have each participant place and explain their sticky notes on the whiteboard.
    5. The moderator will assist each participant in grouping sticky notes together based on theme.
    6. Groups that become overly large may be broken into smaller, more precise themes.
    7. Once everyone has placed their sticky notes, and the groups have been arranged and rearranged, you should have a visual representation of infrastructure's understanding of the business' priorities.
    8. Let the infrastructure leader and/or CIO place their sticky notes last.

    Discussion:

    Is there a lot of agreement within the group? What does it mean if there are 10 or 15 groups with equal numbers of sticky notes? What does it mean if there are a few top groups and dozens of small outliers?

    How does the group's understanding compare with that of the Director and/or CIO?

    What mechanisms are in place for the business to communicate their goals to infrastructure? Are they effective? Does the team take the time to reimagine those goals and internalize them?

    What does it mean if infrastructure's understanding differs from the business?

    Input

    • Business unit input source list

    Output

    • Prioritized list of business goals

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Additional Activity

    Now that infrastructure has a consensus on what it thinks the business' goals are, suggest a meeting with leadership to validate this understanding. Once the first picture is drawn, a 30-minute meeting can help clear up any misconceptions.

    Build your own framework or start with these three root value drivers

    With a framework of cascading goals in place, a roadmap is a Rosetta Stone. Being able to map activities back to governance objectives allows you to demonstrate value regardless of the audience you are addressing.

    An image of the framework for developing a roadmap using three root value drivers.

    (Info-Tech, Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy 2022)

    1.2.4 Goal association exercise and analysis

    1 hour

    Wherever possible use the language of your customers to avoid confusion, but at least ensure that everyone in infrastructure is using a common language.

    1. Take your business strategy or IT strategy or survey response (Activity 1.2.3) or Info-Tech's fundamental goals list (strategic agility, improved cash flow, innovate product, safety, standardize end-user experience) and write them across the top of a whiteboard.
    2. Have everyone write, on a sticky note, their current in-flight initiatives – one per sticky note.
    3. Have each participant then place each of their sticky notes on the whiteboard and draw a line from the initiative to the goal it supports.
    4. The rest of the group should challenge any relationships that seem unsupported or questionable.

    Discussion:

    1. How many goals are you supporting? Are there too many? Are you doing enough to support the right goals?
    2. Is there a shared understanding of the business goals among the infrastructure staff? Or, do questions about meaning keep coming up?
    3. Do you have initiatives that are difficult to express in terms of business goals? Do you have a lot of them or just a few?

    Input

    • Goal list
    • In-flight initiatives list

    Output

    • Initiatives-to-goals map

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Review performance from last fiscal year.

    • Analyzed and communicated the benefits and value realized from IT's strategic initiatives in the past fiscal year.
    • Analyzed and prioritized diagnostic data insights to communicate IT success stories.
    • Elicited important retrospective information such as KPIs, financials, etc. to build IT's credibility as a strategic business partner.

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

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

    Phase 2

    Envision Future and Analyze Constraints

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Infrastructure strategy

    1.2 Goal alignment

    2.1 Define your future

    2.2 Conduct constraints analysis

    3.1 Drive business alignment

    3.2. Build the roadmap

    4.1 Identify the audience

    4.2 Process improvement

    and measurements

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Determine from a greenfield perspective what the future state looks like.
    • Do SWOT analysis on technology you may plan to use in the future.
    • Complete a time study.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Roadmap team

    Step 2.1

    Define the future state

    Activities

    2.1.1 Define your future infrastructure vision

    2.1.2 Document desired future state

    2.1.3 Develop a new technology identification process

    2.1.4 Conduct a SWOT analysis

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Emerging technology interest

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Roadmap team
    • External SMEs

    Outcomes of this step

    • Technology discovery process
    • Technology assessment process
    • Future state vision document

    Future state discussion

    "Very few of us are lucky enough to be one of the first few employees in a new organization. Those of you who get to plan the infrastructure with a blank slate and can focus all of your efforts on doing things right the first time."

    BMC, 2018

    "A company's future state is ultimately defined as the greater vision for the business. It's where you want to be, your long-term goal in terms of the ever-changing state of technology and how that applies to your present-day business."
    "Without a definitive future state, a company will often find themselves lacking direction, making it harder to make pivotal decisions, causing misalignment amongst executives, and ultimately hindering the progression and growth of a company's mission."
    Source: Third Stage Consulting

    "When working with digital technologies, it is imperative to consider how such technologies can enhance the solution. The future state should communicate the vision of how digital technologies will enhance the solutions, deliver value, and enable further development toward even greater value creation."
    Source: F. Milani

    Info-Tech Insight

    Define your infrastructure roadmap as if you had a blank slate – no constraints, no technical debt, and no financial limitations. Imagine your future infrastructure and let that vision drive your roadmap.

    Expertise is not innate; it requires effort and research

    Evaluating new enterprise technology is a process of defining it, analyzing it, and sourcing it.

    • Understand what a technology is in order to have a common frame of reference for discussion. Just as important, understand what it is not.
    • Conduct an internal and external analysis of the technology including an adoption case study.
    • Provide an overview of the vendor landscape, identifying the leading players in the market and how they differentiate their offerings.

    This is not intended to be a thesis grade research project, nor an onerous duty. Most infrastructure practitioners came to the field because of an innate excitement about technology! Harness that excitement and give them four to eight hours to indulge themselves.

    An output of approximately four slides per technology candidate should be sufficient to decided if moving to PoC or pilot is warranted.

    Including this material in the roadmap helps you control the technology conversation with your audience.

    Info-Tech Best Practices

    Don't start from scratch. Recall the original sources from your technology watchlist. Leverage vendors and analyst firms (such as Info-Tech) to give the broad context, letting you focus instead on the specifics relevant to your business.

    Channel emerging technologies to ensure the rising tide floats all boats rather than capsizing your business

    Adopting the wrong new technology can be even more dangerous than failing to adopt any new technology.

    Implementing every new promising technology would cost prodigious amounts of money and time. Know the costs before choosing what to invest in.

    The risk of a new technology failing is acceptable. The risk of that failure disrupting adjacent core functions is unacceptable. Vet potential technologies to ensure they can be safely integrated.

    Best practices for new technologies are nonexistent, standards are in flux, and use cases are fuzzy. Be aware of the unforeseen that will negatively affect your chances of a successful implementation.

    "Like early pioneers crossing the American plains, first movers have to create their own wagon trails, but later movers can follow in the ruts."
    Harper Business, 2014

    Info-Tech Insight

    The right technology for someone else can easily be the wrong technology for your business.

    Even with a mature Enterprise Architecture practice, wrong technology bets can happen. Minimize the chance of this occurrence by making selection an infrastructure-wide activity. Leverage the practical knowledge of the day-to-day operators.

    First Mover

    47% failure rate

    Fast Follower

    8% failure rate

    2.1.1 Create your future infrastructure vision

    1 hour

    Objective: Help teams define their future infrastructure state (assuming zero constraints or limitations).

    1. Ask each participant to ponder the question: "How would the infrastructure look if there were no limitations?" They should consider all aspects of their infrastructure but keep in mind the infrastructure vision and mission statements from phase one, as well as the business goals.
    2. Have each participant write down their ideas on sticky notes – one per note.
    3. Select a moderator and a scribe from the group – not the infrastructure leader or the CIO. The moderator will begin by placing (and explaining) their sticky notes on the whiteboard. The scribe will summarize the results in short statements at the end.
    4. Have each participant place and explain their sticky notes on the whiteboard.
    5. The moderator will assist each participant in grouping sticky notes together based on theme.
    6. Once everyone has placed their sticky notes and groups have been arranged and rearranged, you should have a visual representation of infrastructure's understanding of the business' priorities.
    7. Let the infrastructure leader and/or CIO place their sticky notes last.

    Discussion:

    1. Assume a blank slate as a starting point. No technical debt or financial constraints; nothing holding you back.
    2. Can SaaS, PaaS, or other cloud-based offerings play a role in this future utopia?
    3. Do vendors play a larger or smaller role in your future infrastructure vision?

    Download the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

    Input

    • Thoughts and ideas about how the future infrastructure should look.

    Output

    • Future state vision

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    2.1.1 Document your future state vision (cont'd)

    Objective: Help teams define their future infrastructure state (assuming zero constraints or limitations).

    1 hour

    Steps:

    1. The scribe will take the groups of suggestions and summarize them in a statement or two, briefly describing the infrastructure in that group.
    2. The statements should be recorded on Tab 2 of the Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Tool.

    Discussion:

    • Should the points be listed in any specific order?
    • Include all suggestions in the summary. Remember this is a blank slate with no constraints, and no idea is higher or lower in weight at this stage.
    Infrastructure Future State Vision
    Item Focus Area Future Vision
    1 Email Residing on Microsoft 365
    2 Servers Hosted in cloud - nothing on prem.
    3 Endpoints virtual desktops on Microsoft Azure
    4 Endpoint hardware Chromebooks
    5 Network internet only
    6 Backups cloud based but stored in multiple cloud services
    7

    Download Info-Tech's Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Tool and document your future state vision in the Infrastructure Future State tab.

    Input

    • Thoughts and ideas about how the future infrastructure should look.

    Output

    • Future state vision

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    2.1.2 Identification and association exercise

    1 hour

    Formalize what is likely an ad hoc process.

    1. Brainstorm with the group a list of external sources they are currently using to stay abreast of the market.
    2. Organize this list on the left-hand side of a whiteboard, in vendor and vendor-neutral groups.
      1. For each item in the list ask a series of questions:
      2. Is this a push or pull source?
      3. Is this source suited to individual or group consumption?
      4. What is the frequency of this source?
    3. What is the cost of this source to the company?
    4. On the right-hand side of the whiteboard brainstorm a list of internal mechanisms for sharing new technology information. Ask about the audience, distribution mode, and frequency for each of those mechanisms.
    5. Map which of the external sources make it over to internal distribution.

    Discussion:

    1. Are we getting the most value out of our high-cost conferences? Does that information make it from the attendees to the rest of the team?
    2. Do we share information only within our domains? Or across the whole infrastructure practice?
    3. Do we have sufficient diversity of sources? Are we in danger of believing one vendor's particular market interpretation?
    4. How do we select new technologies to explore further? Make it fun – upvotes, for example.

    Input

    • Team knowledge
    • Conference notes
    • Expense reports

    Output

    • Internal socialization process
    • Tech briefings & repository

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Info-Tech Best Practices

    It is impractical for everyone to present their tech briefing at the monthly meeting. But you want to avoid a one-to-many exercise. Keep the presenter a secret until called on. Those who do not present live can still contribute their material to the technology watchlist database.

    Analyze new technologies for your future state

    Four to eight hours of research per technology can uncover a wealth of relevant information and prepare the infrastructure team for a robust discussion. Key research elements include:

    • Précis: A single page or slide that describes the technology, outlines some of the vendors, and explores the value proposition.
    • SWOT Analysis:
      • Strengths and weaknesses: What does the technology inherently do well (e.g. lots of features) and what does it do poorly (e.g. steep learning curve)?
      • Opportunities and threats: What capabilities can the technology enable (e.g. build PCs faster, remote sensing)? Why would we not want to exploit this technology (e.g. market volatility, M&As)

    a series of four screenshots from the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template

    Download the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template slides 21, 22, 23 for sample output.

    Position infrastructure as the go-to source for information about new technology

    One way or another, tech always seems to finds its way into infrastructure's lap. Better to stay in front and act as stewards rather than cleanup crew.

    Beware airline magazine syndrome!

    Symptoms

    Pathology
    • Leadership speaking in tech buzzwords
    • Urgent meetings to discuss vaguely defined topics
    • Fervent exclamations of "I don't care how – just get it done!"
    • Management showing up on at your doorstep needing help with their new toy

    Outbreaks tend to occur in close proximity to

    • Industry trade shows
    • Excessive executive travel
    • Vendor BRM luncheons or retreats with leadership
    • Executive golf outings with old college roommates

    Effective treatment options

    1. Targeted regular communication with a technology portfolio analysis customized to the specific goals of the business.
    2. Ongoing PoC and piloting efforts with detailed results reporting.

    While no permanent cure exists, regular treatment makes this chronic syndrome manageable.

    Keep your roadmap horizon in mind

    Technology doesn't have to be bleeding edge. New-to-you can have plenty of value.

    You want to present a curated landscape of technologies, demonstrating that you are actively maintaining expertise in your chosen field.

    Most enterprise IT shops buy rather than develop their technology, which means they want to focus effort on what is market available. The outcome is that infrastructure sponsors and delivers new technologies whose capabilities and features will help the business achieve its goals on this roadmap.

    If you want to think more like a business disruptor or innovator, we suggest working through the blueprint Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology.
    Explore technology five to ten years into the future!

    a quadrant analysis comparing innovation and transformation, as well as two images from Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The ROI of any individual effort is difficult to justify – in aggregate, however, the enterprise always wins!
    Money spent on Google Glass in 2013 seemed like vanity. Certainly, this wasn't enterprise-ready technology. But those early experiences positioned some visionary firms to quickly take advantage of augmented reality in 2018. Creative research tends to pay off in unexpected and unpredictable ways.
    .

    2.1.3 Working session, presentation, and feedback

    1 hour

    Complete a SWOT analysis with future state technology.

    The best research hasn't been done in isolation since the days of da Vinci.

    1. Divide the participants into small groups of at least four people.
    2. Further split those groups into two teams – the red team and the white team.
    3. Assign a technology candidate from the last exercise to each group. Ideally the group should have some initial familiarity with the technology and/or space.
    4. The red team from each group will focus on the weaknesses and threats of the technology. The white team will focus on the strengths and opportunities of the technology.
    5. Set a timer and spend the next 30-40 minutes completing the SWOT analysis.
    6. Have each group present their analysis to the larger team. Encourage conversation and debate. Capture and refine the understanding of the analysis.
    7. Reset with the next technology candidate. Have the participants switch teams within their groups.
    8. Continue until you've exhausted your technology candidates.

    Discussion:

    1. Does working in a group make for better research? Why?
    2. Do you need specific expertise in order to evaluate a technology? Is an outsider (non-expert) view sometimes valuable?
    3. Is it easier to think of the positive or the negative qualities of a technology? What about the internal or external implications?

    Input

    • Technology candidates

    Output

    • Technology analysis including SWOT

    Materials

    • Projector
    • Templates
    • Laptops & internet

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Step 2.2

    Constraints analysis

    Activities

    2.2.1 Historical spend analysis

    2.2.2 Conduct a time study

    2.2.3 Identify roadblocks

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Historical spend and staff numbers
    • Organizational design identification and thought experiment
    • Time study
    • Roadblock brainstorming session
    • Prioritization exercise

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Financial leader
    • HR Leader
    • Roadmap team

    Outcomes of this step

    • OpEx, CapEx, and staffing trends
    • Domain time study
    • Prioritized roadblock list

    2.2.1 Historical spend analysis

    "A Budget is telling your money where to go, instead of wondering where it went."
    -David Ramsay

    "Don't tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I'll tell you what they are"
    -James Frick, Due.com

    Annual IT budgeting aligns with business goals
    a circle showing 68%, broken down into 50% and 18%

    50% of businesses surveyed see that improvements are necessary for IT budgets to align to business goals, while 18% feel they require significant improvements to align to business goals
    Source: ITRG Diagnostics 2022

    Challenges in IT spend visibility

    68%

    Visibility of all spend data for on-prem, SaaS and cloud environments
    Source: Flexera

    The challenges that keep IT leaders up at night

    47%

    Lack of visibility in resource usage and cost
    Source: BMC, 2021

    2.2.1 Build a picture of your financial spending and staffing trends

    Follow the steps below to generate a visualization so you can start the conversation:

    1 hour

    1. Open the Info-Tech Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Spend Analysis Tool.
    2. The Instructions tab will provide guidance, or you can follow the instructions below.
    3. Insert values into the appropriate uncolored blocks in the first 4 rows of the Spend Record Entry tab to reflect the amount spent on IT OpEx, IT CapEx, or staff numbers for the present year (budgeted) as well as the previous five years.
    4. Data input populates cells in subsequent rows to quickly reveal spending ratios.

    an image of the timeline table from the Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Analysis Tool

    Download the Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Analysis Tool
    ( additional Deep Dive available if required)

    Input

    • Historical spend and staff numbers

    Output

    • OpEx, CapEx, and staffing trends for your organization

    Materials

    • Info-Tech's Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Spend Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Infrastructure leader
    • Financial leader
    • HR leader

    2.2.1 Build a picture of your financial spending and staffing trends (cont'd)

    Continue with the steps below to generate a visualization so you can start the conversation.

    1 hour

    1. Select tab 3 (Results) to reveal a graphical analysis of your data.
    2. Trends are shown in graphs for OpEx, CapEx, and staffing levels as well as comparative graphs to show broader trends between multiple spend and staffing areas.
    3. Some observations worth noting may include the following:
      • Is OpEx spending increasing over time or decreasing?
      • Is CapEx increasing or decreasing?
      • Are OpEx and CapEx moving in the same directions?
      • Are IT staff to total staff ratios increasing or decreasing?
      • Trends will continue in the same direction unless changes are made.

    Download the Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Analysis Tool
    ( additional Deep Dive available if required)

    Input

    • Historical spend and staff numbers

    Output

    • OpEx, CapEx, and staffing trends for your organization

    Materials

    • Info-Tech's Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Spend Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Infrastructure leader
    • Financial leader
    • HR leader

    Consider perceptions held by the enterprise when dividing infrastructure into domains

    2.2.2 Conduct a time study

    Internal divisions that seem important to infrastructure may have little or even negative value when it comes to users accessing their services.

    Domains are the logical divisions of work within an infrastructure practice. Historically, the organization was based around physical assets: servers, storage, networking, and end-user devices. Staff had skills they applied according to specific best practices using physical objects that provided functionality (computing power, persistence, connectivity, and interface).

    Modern enterprises may find it more effective to divide according to activity (analytics, programming, operations, and security) or function (customer relations, learning platform, content management, and core IT). As a rule, look to your organizational chart; managers responsible for buying, building, deploying, or supporting technologies should each be responsible for their own domain.

    Regardless of structure, poor organization leads to silos of marginally interoperable efforts working against each other, without focus on a common goal. Clearly defined domains ensure responsibility and allow for rapid, accurate, and confident decision making.

    • Server
    • Network
    • Storage
    • End User
    • DevOps
    • Analytics
    • Core IT
    • Security

    Info-Tech Insight

    The medium is the message. Do stakeholders talk about switches or storage or services? Organizing infrastructure to match its external perception can increase communication effectiveness and improve alignment.

    Case Study

    IT infrastructure that makes employees happier

    INDUSTRY: Services
    SOURCE: Network Doctor

    Challenge

    Atlas Electric's IT infrastructure was very old and urgently needed to be refreshed. Its existing server hardware was about nine years old and was becoming unstable. The server was running Windows 2008 R2 server operating systems that was no longer supported by Microsoft; security updates and patches were no longer available. They also experienced slowdowns on many older PCs.

    Recommendations for an upgrade were not approved due to budgetary constraints. Recommendations for upgrading to virtual servers were approved following a harmful phishing attack.

    Solution

    The following improvements to their infrastructure were implemented.

    • Installing a new physical host server running VMWare ESXi virtualization software and hosting four virtual servers.
    • Migration of data and applications to new virtual servers.
    • Upgrading networking equipment and deploying new relays, switches, battery backups, and network management.
    • New server racks to host new hardware.

    Results

    Virtualization, consolidating servers, and desktops have made assets more flexible and simpler to manage.

    Improved levels of efficiency, reliability, and productivity.

    Enhanced security level.

    An upgraded backup and disaster recovery system has improved risk management.

    Optimize where you spend your time by doing a time study

    Infrastructure activity is limited generally by only two variables: money and time. Money is in the hands of the CFO, which leaves us a single variable to optimize.

    Not all time is spent equally, nor is it equally valuable. Analysis lets us communicate with others and gives us a shared framework to decide where our priorities lie.

    There are lots of frameworks to help categorize our activities. Stephen Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) describes a four-quadrant system along the axes of importance and urgency. Gene Kim, through his character Erik in The Phoenix Project,speaks instead of business projects, internal IT projects, changes, and unplanned work.

    We propose a similar four-category system.

    Project Maintenance

    Administrative

    Reactive

    Planned activity spent pursuing a business objective

    Planned activity spent on the upkeep of existing IT systems

    Planned activity required as a condition of employment

    Unplanned activity requiring immediate response

    This is why we are valuable to our company

    We have it in our power to work to reduce these three in order to maximize our time available for projects

    Survey and analysis

    Perform a quick time study.

    Verifiable data sources are always preferred but large groups can hold each other's inherent biases in check to get a reasonable estimate.

    1 hour

    1. Organize the participants into the domain groups established earlier.
    2. On an index card have each participant independently write down the percentage of time they think their entire domain (not themselves personally) spends during the average month, quarter, or year on:
      1. Admin
      2. Reactive work
      3. Maintenance
    3. Draw a matrix on the whiteboard; collect the index cards and transcribe the results from participants into the matrix.
    4. Add up the three reported time estimates and subtract from 100 – the result is the percentage of time available for/spent on project work.

    Discussion

    1. Certain domains should have higher percentages of reactive work (think Service Desk and Network Operations Center) – can we shift work around to optimize resources?
    2. Why is reactive work the least desirable type? Could we reduce our reactive work by increasing our maintenance work?
    3. From a planning perspective, what are the implications of only having x% of time available for project work?
    4. Does it feel like backing into the project work from adding the other three together provides a reasonable assessment?

    Input

    • Domain groups

    Output

    • Time study

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Index cards

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Quickly and easily evaluate all your infrastructure

    Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tab 2, Capacity Analysis

    In order to quickly and easily build some visualizations for the eventual final report, Info-Tech has developed the Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool.

    • Up to five infrastructure domains are supported.
      • For practices that cannot be reasonably collapsed into five domains, multiple copies of the tool can be used and manually stitched together.
    • The tool can be used in either an absolute (total number) or relative mode (percentage of available).
    • By design we specifically don't ask for a project work figure but rather calculate it based on other values.
    • For everything but miscellaneous duties, hard data sources can (and where appropriate should) be leveraged.
      • Reactive work – service desk tool
      • Project work – project management tool
      • Maintenance work – logs or ITSM tool
    • Individual domains' values are calculated, as well as the overall breakdown for the infrastructure practice.
    • Even these rough estimates will be useful during the planning steps throughout the rest of the roadmap process.

    an image of the source capacity analysis page from tab 2 of the Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool

    Please note that this tool requires Microsoft's Power Pivot add-in to be installed if you are using Excel 2010 or 2013. The scatter plot labels on tabs 5 and 8 may not function correctly in Excel 2010.

    Build your roadmap from both the top and the bottom for best results

    Strong IT strategy favors top-down: activities enabling clearly dictated goals. The bottom-up approach aggregates ongoing activities into goals.

    Systematic approach

    External stakeholders prioritize a list of goals requiring IT initiatives to achieve.

    Roadblocks:

    • Multitudes of goals easily overwhelm scant IT resources.
    • Unglamorous yet vital maintenance activities get overlooked.
    • Goals are set without awareness of IT capacity or capabilities.

    Organic approach

    Practitioners aggregate initiatives into logical groups and seek to align them to one or more business goals.

    Roadblocks:

    • Pet initiatives can be perpetuated based on cult of personality rather than alignment to business goals.
    • Funding requests can fall flat when competing against other business units for executive support.

    A successful roadmap respects both approaches.

    an image of two arrows, intersecting with the words Infrastructure Roadmap with the top arrow labeled Systematic, and the bottom arrow being labeled Organic.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Perfection is anathema to practicality. Draw the first picture and not only expect but welcome conflicting feedback! Socialize it and drive the conversation forward to a consensus.

    2.2.3 Brainstorming – Affinity diagramming

    Identify the systemic roadblocks to executing infrastructure projects

    1 hour

    Affinity diagramming is a form of structured brainstorming that works well with larger groups and provokes discussion.

    1. Have each participant write down their top five impediments to executing their projects from last year – one roadblock per sticky note.
    2. Once everyone has written their top five, select a moderator from the group. The moderator will begin by placing (and explaining) their five sticky notes on the whiteboard.
    3. Have each participant then place and explain their sticky notes on the whiteboard.
    4. The moderator will assist participants in grouping sticky notes together based on theme.
    5. Groups that have become overly large may be broken into smaller, more precise themes.
    6. Once everyone has placed their sticky notes, you should be able to visually identify the greatest or most common roadblocks the group perceives.

    Discussion

    Categorize each roadblock identified as either internal or external to infrastructure's control.

    Attempt to understand the root cause of each roadblock. What would you need to ask for in order to remove the roadblock?

    Additional Research

    Also called the KJ Method (after its inventor, Jiro Kawakita, a 1960s Japanese anthropologist), this activity helps organize large amounts of data into groupings based on natural relationships while reducing many social biases.

    Input

    • Last years initiatives and their roadblocks

    Output

    • List of refined Roadblocks

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard & markers

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    2.2.4 Prioritization exercise – Card sorting

    Choose your priorities wisely.

    Which roadblocks do you need to work on? How do you establish a group sense of these priorities? This exercise helps establish priorities while reducing individual bias.

    1 hour

    1. Distribute index cards that have been prepopulated with the roadblocks identified in the previous activity – one full set of cards to each participant.
    2. Have each participant sort their set-in order of perceived priority, highest on top.
    3. Where n=number of cards in the stack, take the n-3 lowest priority cards and put a tick mark in the upper-right-hand corner. Pass these cards to the person on the left, who should incorporate them into their pile (if you start with eight cards you're ticking and passing five cards). Variation: On the first pass, allow everyone to take the most important and least important cards, write "0th" and "NIL" on them, respectively, and set them aside.
    4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for a total of n times. Treat duplicates as a single card in your hand.
    5. After the final pass, ask each participant to write the priority in the upper-left-hand corner of their top three cards.
    6. Collect all the cards, group by roadblock, count the number of ticks, and take note of the final priority.

    Discussion

    Total the number of passes (ticks) for each roadblock. A large number indicates a notionally low priority. No passes indicates a high priority.

    Are the internal or external roadblocks of highest priority? Were there similarities among participants' 0th and NILs compared to each other or to the final results?

    Input

    • Roadblock list

    Output

    • Prioritized roadblocks

    Materials

    • Index cards

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Review performance from last fiscal year

    • Analyzed and communicated the benefits and value realized from IT's strategic initiatives in the past fiscal year.
    • Analyzed and prioritized diagnostic data insights to communicate IT success stories.
    • Elicited important retrospective information such as KPIs, financials, etc. to build IT's credibility as a strategic business partner.

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

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

    Phase 3

    Align and Build the Roadmap

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Infrastructure strategy

    1.2 Goal alignment

    2.1 Define your future

    2.2 Conduct constraints analysis

    3.1 Drive business alignment

    3.2. Build the roadmap

    4.1 Identify the audience

    4.2 Process improvement

    and measurements

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Elicit business context from the CIO & IT team
    • Identify key initiatives that support the business
    • Identify key initiatives that enable IT excellence
    • Identify initiatives that drive technology innovation
    • Build initiative profiles
    • Construct your strategy roadmap

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Roadmap Team

    Step 3.1

    Drive business alignment

    Activities

    3.1.1 Develop a risk framework

    3.1.2 Evaluate technical debt

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Intake identification and analysis
    • Survey results analysis
    • Goal brainstorming
    • Goal association and analysis

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business leadership
    • Project Management Office
    • Service Desk
    • Business Relationship Management
    • Solution or Enterprise Architecture
    • Roadmap team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Intake analysis
    • Goal list
    • Initiative-to-goal map

    Speak for those with no voice – regularly review your existing portfolio of IT assets and services

    A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; while you'll receive no accolades for keeping the lights on, you'll certainly hear about it if you don't!

    Time has been a traditional method for assessing the fitness of infrastructure assets – servers are replaced every five years, core switches every seven, laptops and desktops every three. While quick, this framework of assessment is overly simplistic for most modern organizations.

    Building one that is instead based on the likelihood of asset failure plotted against the business impact of that failure is not overly burdensome and yields more practical results. Infrastructure focuses on its strength (assessing IT risk) and validates an understanding with the business regarding the criticality of the service(s) enabled by any given asset.

    Rather than fight on every asset individually, agree on a framework with the business that enables data-driven decision making.

    IT Risk Factors
    Age, Reliability, Serviceability, Conformity, Skill Set

    Business Risk Factors
    Suitability, Capacity, Safety, Criticality

    Info-Tech Insight

    Infrastructure in a cloud-enabled world: As infrastructure operations evolve it is important to keep current with the definition of an asset. Software platforms such as hypervisors and server OS are just as much an asset under the care and control of infrastructure as are cloud services, managed services from third-party providers, and traditional racks and switches.

    3.1.1 Develop a risk framework – Classification exercise

    While it's not necessary for each infrastructure domain to view IT risk identically, any differences should be intensely scrutinized.

    1 hour

    1. Divide the whiteboard along the axes of IT Risk and
      Business Risk (criticality) into quadrants:
      1. High IT Risk & High Biz Risk (upper right)
      2. Low IT Risk & Low Biz Risk (bottom left)
      3. Low IT Risk & High Biz Risk (bottom right)
      4. High IT Risk & Low Biz Risk (upper left)
    2. Have each participant write the names of two or three infrastructure assets or services they are responsible or accountable for – one name per sticky note.
    3. Have each participant come one-at-a-time and place their sticky notes in one quadrant.
    4. As each additional sticky note is placed, verify with the group that the relative positioning of the others is still accurate.

    Discussion:

    1. Most assets should end up in the lower-right quadrant, indicating that IT has lowered the risk of failure commensurate to the business consequences of a failure. What does this imply about assets in the other three quadrants?
    2. Infrastructure is foundational; do we properly document and communicate all dependencies for business-critical services?
    3. What actions can infrastructure take to adjust the risk profile of any given asset?

    Input

    • List of infrastructure assets

    Output

    • Notional risk analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    3.1.2 Brainstorming and prioritization exercise

    Identify the key elements that make up risk in order to refine your framework.

    A shared notional understanding is good, but in order to bring the business onside a documented defensible framework is better.

    1 hour

    1. Brainstorm (possibly using the affinity diagramming technique) the component elements of IT risk.
    2. Ensure you have a non-overlapping set of risk elements. Ensure that all the participants are comfortable with the definitions of each element. Write them on a whiteboard.
    3. Give each participant an equal number (three to five) of voting dots.
    4. As a group have the participants go the whiteboard and use their dots to cast their votes for what they consider to be the most important risk element(s). Participants are free to place any number of their dots on a single element.
    5. Based on the votes cast select a reasonable number of elements with which to proceed.
    6. For each element selected, brainstorm up to six tiers of the risk scale. You can use numbers or words, whichever is most compelling.
      • E.g. Reliability: no failures, >1 incident per year, >1 incident per quarter, >1 incident per month, frequent issues, unreliable.
    7. Repeat the above except with the components of business risk. Alternately, rely on existing business risk documentation, possibly from a disaster recovery or business continuity plan.

    Discussion
    How difficult was it to agree on the definitions of the IT risk elements? What about selecting the scale? What was the voting distribution like? Were there tiers of popular elements or did most of the dots end up on a limited number of elements? What are the implications of having more elements in the analysis?

    Input

    • Notional risk analysis

    Output

    • Risk elements
    • Scale dimensions

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Voting dots

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    3.1.3 Forced ranking exercise

    Alternate: Identify the key elements that make up risk in order to refine your framework

    A shared notional understanding is good, but in order to bring the business onside a documented defensible framework is better.

    1 hour

    1. Brainstorm (possibly using the affinity diagramming technique) the component elements of IT risk.
    2. Ensure you have a non-overlapping set of risk elements. Ensure that all the participants are comfortable with the definitions of each element. Write them on a whiteboard.
    3. Distribute index cards (one per participant) with the risk elements written down one side.
    4. Ask the participants to rank the elements in order of importance, with 1 being the most important.
    5. Collect the cards and write the ranking results on the whiteboard.
    6. Look for elements with high variability. Also look for the distribution of 1, 2, and 3 ranks.
    7. Based on the results select a reasonable number of elements with which to proceed.
    8. Follow the rest of the procedure from the previous activity.

    Discussion:

    What was the total number of elements required in order to contain the full set of every participant's first-, second-, and third-ranked risks? Does this seem a reasonable number?

    Why did some elements contain both the lowest and highest rankings? Was one (or more) participant thinking consistently different from the rest of the group? Are they seeing something the rest of the group is overlooking?

    This technique automatically puts the focus on a smaller number of elements – is this effective? Or is it overly simplistic and reductionist?

    Input

    • Notional risk analysis

    Output

    • Risk elements

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Index cards

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    3.1.4 Consensus weighting

    Use your previous notional assessment to inform your risk weightings:

    1 hour

    1. Distribute index cards that have been prepopulated with the risk elements from the previous activity.
    2. Have the participants independently assign a weighting to each element. The assigned weights must add up to 100.
    3. Collect the cards and transcribe the results into a matrix on the whiteboard.
    4. Look for elements with high variability in the responses.
    5. Discuss and come to a consensus figure for each element's weighting.
    6. Select a variety of assets and services from the notional assessment exercise. Ensure that you have representation from all four quadrants.
    7. Using your newly defined risk elements and associated scales, evaluate as a group the values you'd suggest for each asset. Aim for a plurality of opinion rather than full consensus.
    8. Use Info-Tech's Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool to document the elements, weightings, scales, and asset analysis.
    9. Compare the output generated by the tool (Tab 4) with the initial notional assessment.

    Discussion:

    How much framework is too much? Complexity and granularity do not guarantee accuracy. What is the right balance between effort and result?

    Does your granular assessment match your notional assessment? Why or why not? Do you need to go back and change weightings? Or reduce complexity?

    Is this a more reasonable and valuable way of periodically evaluating your infrastructure?

    Input

    • Notional risk analysis

    Output

    • Weighted risk framework

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Index cards
    • Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    3.1.5 Platform assessment set-up

    Hard work up front allows for year-over-year comparisons

    The value of a risk framework is that once the heavy lifting work of building it is done, the analysis and assessment can proceed very quickly. Once built, the framework can be tweaked as necessary, rather than recreated every year.

    • Open Info-Tech's Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tab 3.
    • Up to eight elements each of IT and business risk can be captured.
      • IT risk elements of end-of-life and dependencies are mandatory and do not count against the eight customizable elements.
    • Every element can have up to six scale descriptors. Populate them from left to right in increasing magnitude of risk.
      • Scale descriptors must be input as string values and not numeric.
    • Each element's scale can be customized from linear to a risk-adverse or risk-seeking curve. We recommend linear.

    an image of the Platform Assessment Setup Page from Info-Tech's Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool,

    IT platform assessment

    Quickly and easily evaluate all your infrastructure.

    Once configured, individual domain teams can spend surprisingly little time answering reasonably simple questions to assess their assets. The common framework lets results be compared between teams and produces a valuable visualization to communication with the business.

    • Open the Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tab 4.
    • The tool has been tested successfully with up to 2,000 asset items. Don't necessarily list every asset; rather, think of the logical groups of assets you'd cycle in or out of your environment.
    • Each asset must be associated with one and only one infrastructure domain and have a defined End of Service Life date.
    • With extreme numbers of assets an additional filter can be useful – the Grouping field allows you to set any number of additional tags to make sorting and filtering easier.
    • Drop-down menus for each risk element are prepopulated with the scale descriptors from Tab 3. Unused elements are greyed out.
    • Each asset can be deemed dependent on up to four additional assets or services. Use this to highlight obscure or undervalued relationships between assets. It is generally not useful to be reminded that everything relies on Cat 6 cabling.

    A series of screenshots from the IT Platform Assessment.

    Prioritized upgrades

    Validate and tweak your framework with the business

    Once the grunt work of inputting all the assets and the associated risk data has been completed, you can tweak the risk profile and sort the data to whatever the business may require.

    • Open Info-Tech's Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tab 5.
    • IT platforms in the upper-right quadrant have an abundance of IT risk and are critical to the business.
    • The visualization can be sorted by selecting the slicers on the left. Sort by:
      • Infrastructure domain
      • Customized grouping tag
      • Top overall risk platforms
    • With extreme numbers of assets an additional filter can be useful. The Grouping field allows you to set any number of additional tags to make sorting and filtering easier.
    • Risk weightings can be individually adjusted to reflect changing business priorities or shared infrastructure understanding of predictive power.
      • In order to make year-over-year comparisons valuable it is recommended that changing IT risk elements should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

    An image of a scatter plot graph titled Prioritized Upgrades.

    Step 3.2

    Build the roadmap

    Activities

    3.2.1 Build templates and visualize

    3.2.2 Generate new initiatives

    3.2.3 Repatriate shadow IT initiatives

    3.2.4 Finalize initiative candidates

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Develop an initiative template
    • Restate the existing initiatives with the template
    • Visualize the existing initiatives
    • Brainstorm new initiatives
    • Initiative ranking
    • Solicit, evaluate, and refine shadow IT initiatives
    • Resource estimation

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Roadmap team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Initiative communication template
    • Roadmap visualization diagram

    Tell them what they really need to know

    Templates transform many disparate sources of data into easy-to-produce, easy-to-consume, business-ready documents.

    Develop a high-level document that travels with the initiative from inception through executive inquiry and project management, and finally to execution. Understand an initiative's key elements that both IT and the business need defined and that are relatively static over its lifecycle.

    Initiatives are the waypoints along a roadmap leading to the eventual destination, each bringing you one step closer. Like steps, initiatives need to be discrete: able to be conceptualized and discussed as a single largely independent item. Each initiative must have two 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.

    "Learn a new skill"– not an effective initiative statement.

    "Be proficient in the new skill by the end of the year" – better.

    "Use the new skill to complete a project and present it at a conference by Dec 15" – best!

    Info-Tech Insight

    Bundle your initiatives for clarity and manageability.
    Ruthlessly evaluate if an initiative should stand alone or can be rolled up with another. Fewer initiatives increases focus and alignment, allowing for better communication.

    3.2.1 Develop impactful templates to sell your initiative upstream

    Step 1: Open Info-Tech's Strategic Roadmap Initiative Template. Determine and describe the goals that the initiative is enabling or supporting.
    Step 2: State the current pain points from the end-user or business perspective. Do not list IT-specific pain points here, such as management complexity.
    Step 3: List both the tangible (quantitative) and ancillary (qualitative) benefits of executing the project. These can be pain relievers derived from the pain points, or any IT-specific benefit not captured in Step 1.
    Step 4: List any enabled capability that will come as an output of the project. Avoid technical capabilities like "Application-aware network monitoring." Instead, shoot for business outcomes like "Ability to filter network traffic based on application type."

    An image of the Move to Office 365, with the numbers 1-4 superimposed over the image.  These correspond to steps 1-4 above.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Sell the project to the mailroom clerk! You need to be able to explain the outcome of the project in terms that non-IT workers can appreciate. This is done by walking as far up the goals cascade as you have defined, which gets to the underlying business outcome that the initiative supports.

    Develop impactful templates to sell your initiative upstream (cont'd)

    Strategic Roadmap Initiative Template, p. 2

    Step 5: State the risks to the business for not executing the project (and avoid restating the pain points).
    Step 6: List any known or anticipated roadblocks that may come before, during, or after executing the project. Consider all aspects of people, process, and technology.
    Step 7: List any measurable objectives that can be used to gauge the success of the projects. Avoid technical metrics like "number of IOPS." Instead think of business metrics such as "increased orders per hour."
    Step 8: The abstract is a short 50-word project description. Best to leave it as the final step after all the other aspects of the project (risks and rewards) have been fully fleshed out. The abstract acts as an executive summary – written last, read first.

    An image of the Move to Office 365, with the numbers 5-8 superimposed over the image.  These correspond to steps 5-8 above.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every piece of information that is not directly relevant to the interests of the audience is a distraction from the value proposition.

    Working session, presentation, and feedback

    Rewrite your in-flight initiatives to ensure you're capturing all the required information:

    1 hour

    1. Have each participant select an initiative they are responsible or accountable for.
    2. Introduce the template and discuss any immediate questions they might have.
    3. Take 15-20 minutes and have each participant attempt to fill out the template for their initiative.
    4. Have each participant present their initiative to the group.
    5. The group should imagine themselves business leaders and push back with questions or clarification when IT jargon is used.
    6. Look to IT leadership in the room for cues as to what hot button items they've encountered from the business executives.
    7. Debate the merits of each section in the template. Adjust and customize as appropriate.

    Discussion:
    Did everyone use the goal framework adopted earlier? Why not?
    Are there recurring topics or issues that business leaders always seem concerned about?
    Of all the information available, what consistently seems to be the talking points when discussing an initiative?

    Input

    • In-flight initiatives

    Output

    • Completed initiatives templates

    Materials

    • Templates
    • Laptops & internet

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    3.2.2 Visual representations are more compelling than text alone

    Being able to quickly sort and filter data allows you to customize the visualization and focus on what matters to your audience. Any data that is not immediately relevant to them risks becoming a distraction.

    1. Open the Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tabs 6 and 7.
    2. Up to ten goals can be supported. Input the goals into column F of the tool. Be explicit but brief.
    3. Initiatives and Obstacles can be independently defined, and the tool supports up to five subdivisions of each. Initiative by origin source makes for an interesting analysis but initially we recommend simplicity.
    4. Every Initiative and Obstacle must be given a unique name in column H. Context-sensitive drop-downs let you define the subtype and responsible infrastructure domain.
    5. Three pieces of data are captured for each initiative: Business Impact is the qualitative value to the business; Risk is the qualitative likelihood of failure – entirely or partially (e.g. significantly over budget or delayed); and Effort is a relative measure of magnitude ($ or time). Only the value for Effort must be specified.
    6. Every initiative can claim to support one or many goals by placing an "x" in the appropriate column(s).
    7. On Tab 7 you must select the initiative end date (go-live date). You can also document start date, owner, and manager if required. Remember, though, that the tool does not replace proper project management tools.

    A series of screenshots of tables, labeled A-F

    Decoding your visualization

    Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tab 8, "Roadmap"

    Visuals aren't always as clear as we assume them to be.

    An example of a roadmap visualization found in the Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool

    If you could suggest one thing, what would it be?

    The roadmap is likely the best and most direct way to showcase our ideas to business leadership – take advantage of it.

    We've spent an awful lot of time setting the stage, deciding on frameworks so we agree on what is important. We know how to have an effective conversation – now what do we want to say?

    an image of a roadmap, including inputs passing through infrastructure & Operations; to the Move to Office 365 images found earlier in this blueprint.

    Creative thinking, presentation, and feedback

    Since we're so smart – how could we do it better?

    1 hour

    1. Introduce the Roadmap Initiative Template and discuss any immediate questions the participants might have.
    2. Take 15-20 minutes and have each participant attempt to fill out the template for their initiative candidate.
    3. Have each author present their initiative to the group.
    4. The group should imagine themselves business leaders and push back with questions or clarification when IT jargon is used.
    5. Look to IT leadership in the room for cues as to what hot button items they've encountered from the business executives
    6. Debate the merits of each section in the template. Adjust and customize as appropriate.

    Discussion:
    Did everyone use the goal framework adopted earlier? Why not?
    Do we think we can find business buy-in or sponsorship? Why or why not?
    Are our initiatives at odds with or complementary to the ones proposed through the normal channels?

    Input

    • Everything we know

    Output

    • Initiative candidates

    Materials

    • Info-Tech's Infrastructure Roadmap Initiatives Template
    • Laptops & internet

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Forced Ranking Exercise

    Showcase only your best and brightest ideas:

    1 hour

    1. Write the initiative titles from the previous exercise across the top of a whiteboard.
    2. Distribute index cards (one per participant) with the initiative titles written down one side.
    3. Ask each participant to rank the initiatives in order of importance, with 1 being the most important.
    4. Collect the cards and write the ranking results on the whiteboard.
    5. Look at the results with an eye toward high variability. Also look for the distribution of 1, 2, and 3 ranks.
    6. Based on the results, select (through democratic vote or authoritarian fiat – Director or CIO) a reasonable number of initiatives.
    7. Refine the selected initiative templates for inclusion in the roadmap.

    Discussion:
    Do participants tend to think their idea is the best and rank it accordingly?
    If so, then is it better to look at the second, third, and fourth rankings for consensus instead?
    What is a reasonable number of initiatives to suggest? How do we limit ourselves?

    Input

    • Infrastructure initiative candidates

    Output

    • Infrastructure initiatives

    Materials

    • Index cards

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Who else might be using technology to solve business problems?

    Shadow IT operates outside of the governance and control structure of Enterprise IT and so is, by definition, a problem. an opportunity!

    Except for that one thing they do wrong, that one small technicality, they may well do everything else right.

    Consider:

    1. Shadow IT evolves to solve a problem or enable an activity for a specific group of users.
    2. This infers that because stakeholders spend their own resources resolving a problem or enabling an action, it is a priority.
    3. The technology choices they've made have been based solely on functionality for value, unrestrained by any legacy of previous decisions.
    4. Staffing demands and procedural issues must be modest or nonexistent.
    5. The users must be engaged, receptive to change, and tolerant of stutter steps toward a goal.

    In short, shadow IT can provide fully vetted infrastructure initiatives that with a little effort can be turned into easy wins on the roadmap.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Shadow IT can include business-ready initiatives, needing only minor tweaking to align with infrastructure's best practices.

    3.2.3 Survey and hack-a-thon

    Negotiate amnesty with shadow IT by evaluating their "hacks" for inclusion on the roadmap.

    1 hour

    1. Put out an open call for submissions across the enterprise. Ask "How do you think technology could help you solve one of your pain points?" Be specific.
    2. Gather the responses into a presentable format and assemble the roadmap team.
    3. Use voting dots (three per person) to filter out a shortlist.
    4. Invite the original author to come in and work with a roadmap team member to complete the template.
    5. Reassemble the roadmap team and use the forced ranking exercise to select initiatives to move forward.

    Discussion:
    Did you learn anything from working directly with in-the-trenches staff? Can those learnings be used elsewhere in infrastructure? Or in larger IT?

    Input

    • End-user ideas

    Output

    • Roadmap initiatives

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Voting dots
    • Index cards
    • Templates

    Participants

    • Enthusiastic end users
    • Roadmap team
    • Infrastructure leader

    3.2.4 Consensus estimation

    Exploit the wisdom of groups to develop reasonable estimates.

    1 hour

    Also called scrum poker (in Agile software circles), this method reduces anchoring bias by requiring all participants to formulate and submit their estimates independently and simultaneously.

    Equipment: A typical scrum deck shows the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, or similar progression, with the added values of ∞ (project too big and needs to be subdivided), and a coffee cup (need a break). Use of the (mostly) Fibonacci sequence helps capture the notional uncertainty in estimating larger values.

    1. The infrastructure leader, who will not play, moderates the activity. A "currency" of estimation is selected. This could be person, days, or weeks, or a dollar value in the thousands or tens of thousands – whatever the group feels they can speak to authoritatively.
    2. The author of each initiative gives a short overview, and the participants are given the chance to ask questions and clarify assumptions and risks.
    3. Participants lay a card representing their estimate face down on the table. Estimates are revealed simultaneously.
    4. Participants with the highest and lowest estimates are given a soapbox to offer justification. The author is expected to provide clarifications. The moderator drives the conversation.
    5. The process is repeated until consensus is reached (decided by the moderator).
    6. To structure discussion, the moderator can impose time limits between rounds.

    Discussion:

    How often was the story unclear? How often did participants have to ask for additional information to make their estimate? How many rounds were required to reach consensus?
    Does number of person, days, or weeks, make more sense than dollars? Should we estimate both independently?
    Source: Scrum Poker

    Input

    • Initiative candidates from previous activity

    Output

    • Resourcing estimates

    Materials

    • Scrum poker deck

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Hard work up front allows for year-over-year comparisons

    Open the Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tab 6, "Initiatives & Goals" and Tab 7, "Timeline"

    Add your ideas to the visualization.

    • An initiative subtype can be useful here to differentiate infrastructure-sponsored initiatives from traditional ones.
    • Goal alignment is as important as always – ideally you want your sponsored initiatives to fill gaps or support the highest-priority business goals.
    • The longer-term roadmap is an excellent parking lot for ideas, especially ones the business didn't even know they wanted. Make sure to pull those ideas forward, though, as you repeat the process periodically.

    An image containing three screenshots of timeline tables from the Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool

    Pulling it all together – the published report

    We started with eight simple questions. Logically, the answers suggest sections for a published report. Developing those answers in didactic method is effective and popular among technologists as answers build upon each other. Business leaders and journalists, however, know never to bury the lead.

    Report Section Title Roadmap Activity or Step
    Sunshine diagram Visualization
    Priorities Understand business goals
    Who we help Evaluate intake process
    How we can help Create initiatives
    What we're working on Review initiatives
    How you can help us Assess roadblocks
    What is new Assess new technology
    How we spend our day Conduct a time study
    What we have Assess IT platform
    We can do better! Identify process optimizations

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Review performance from last fiscal year

    • Analyzed and communicated the benefits and value realized from IT's strategic initiatives in the past fiscal year.
    • Analyzed and prioritized diagnostic data insights to communicate IT success stories.
    • Elicited important retrospective information such as KPIs, financials, etc. to build IT's credibility as a strategic business partner.

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

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

    Phase 4

    Communicate and Improve the Process

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Infrastructure strategy

    1.2 Goal alignment

    2.1 Define your future

    2.2 Conduct constraints analysis

    3.1 Drive business alignment

    3.2. Build the roadmap

    4.1 Identify the audience

    4.2 Process improvement

    and measurements

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify authors and target audiences
    • Understand the planning process
    • Identify if the process outputs have value
    • Set up realistic KPIs

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • Roadmap team

    Step 4.1

    Identify the audience

    Activities

    4.1.1 Identify required authors and target audiences

    4.1.2 Planning the process

    4.1.3 Identifying supporters and blockers

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Identify required authors and target audiences
    • Plan the process
    • Identify supporters and blockers

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • Roadmap team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Process schedule
    • Communication strategy

    Again! Again!

    And you thought we were done. The roadmap is a process. Set a schedule and pattern to the individual steps.

    Publishing an infrastructure roadmap once a year as a lead into budget discussion is common practice. But this is just the last in a long series of steps and activities. Balance the effort of each activity against its results to decide on a frequency. Ensure that the frequency is sufficient to allow you to act on the results if required. Work backwards from publication to develop the schedule.

    an image of a circle of questions around the Infrastructure roadmap.

    A lot of work has gone into creating this final document. Does a single audience make sense? Who else may be interested in your promises to the business? Look back at the people you've asked for input. They probably want to know what this has all been about. Publish your roadmap broadly to ensure greater participation in subsequent years.

    4.1.1 Identify required authors and target audiences

    1 hour

    Identification and association

    Who needs to hear (and more importantly believe) your message? Who do you need to hear from? Build a communications plan to get the most from your roadmap effort.

    1. Write your eight roadmap section titles in the middle of a whiteboard.
    2. Make a list of everyone who answered your questions during the creation of this roadmap. Write these names on a single color of sticky notes and place them on the left side.
    3. Make a list of everyone who would be (or should be) interested in what you have to say. Write these names on a different single color of sticky notes and place them on the right side.
    4. Draw lines between the stickies and the relevant section of the roadmap. Solid lines indicate a must have communication while dashed lines indicate a nice-to-have communication.
    5. Come to a consensus.

    Discussion:

    How many people appear in both lists? What are the implications of that?

    Input

    • Roadmap sections

    Output

    • Roadmap audience and contributors list

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    4.1.2 Planning the process and scheduling

    The right conversation at the right time

    Due Date (t) Freq Mode Participants Infrastructure Owner
    Update & Publish

    Start of Budget Planning

    Once

    Report

    IT Steering Committee

    Infrastructure Leader or CIO

    Evaluate Intakes

    (t) - 2 months

    (t) - 8 months

    Biannually

    Review

    PMO

    Service Desk

    Domain Heads

    Assess Roadblocks

    (t) - 2 months

    (t) - 5 months

    (t) - 8 months

    (t) - 11 months

    Quarterly

    Brainstorming & Consensus

    Domain Heads

    Infrastructure Leader

    Time Study

    (t) - 1 month

    (t) - 4 months

    (t) - 7 months

    (t) - 10 months

    Quarterly

    Assessment

    Domain Staff

    Domain Heads

    Inventory Assessment

    (t) - 2 months

    Annually

    Assessment

    Domain Staff

    Domain Heads

    Business Goals

    (t) - 1 month

    Annually

    Survey

    Line of Business Managers

    Infrastructure Leader or CIO

    New Technology Assessment

    monthly

    (t) - 2 months

    Monthly/Annually

    Process

    Domain Staff

    Infrastructure Leader

    Initiative Review

    (t) - 1 month

    (t) - 4 months

    (t) - 7 months

    (t) - 10 months

    Quarterly

    Review

    PMO

    Domain Heads

    Infrastructure Leader

    Initiative Creation

    (t) - 1 month

    Annually

    Brainstorming & Consensus

    Roadmap Team

    Infrastructure Leader

    The roadmap report is just a point-in-time snapshot, but to be most valuable it needs to come at the end of a full process cycle. Know your due date, work backwards, and assign responsibility.

    Discussion:

    1. Do each of the steps make sense? Is the outcome clear and does it flow naturally to where it will be useful?
    2. Is the effort required for each step commensurate with its value? Are we doing to much for not enough return?
    3. Are we acting on the information we're gathering? Is it informing or changing decisions throughout the year or period?

    Input

    • Roadmap sections

    Output

    • Roadmap process milestones

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Template

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Tailor your messaging to secure stakeholders' involvement and support

    If your stakeholders aren't on board, you're in serious trouble.

    Certain stakeholders will not only be highly involved and accountable in the process but may also be responsible for approving the roadmap and budget, so it's essential that you get their buy-in upfront.

    an image of a quadrant analysis, comparing levels of influence and support.

    an image of a quadrant analysis, comparing levels of influence and support.

    4.1.3 Identifying supporters and blockers

    Classification and Strategy

    1 hour

    You may want to restrict participation to senior members of the roadmap team only.

    This activity requires a considerable degree of candor in order to be effective. It is effectively a political conversation and as such can be sensitive.

    Steps:

    1. Review your sticky notes from the earlier activity (list of input and output names).
    2. Place each name in the corresponding quadrant of a 2x2 matrix like the one on the right.
    3. Come to a consensus on the placement of each sticky note.

    Input

    • Roadmap audience and contributors list

    Output

    • Communications strategy & plan

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • Senior roadmap team

    Step 4.2

    Process improvement

    Activities

    4.2.1 Evaluating the value of each process output

    4.2.2 Brainstorming improvements

    4.2.3 Setting realistic measures

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Evaluating the efficacy of each process output
    • Brainstorming improvements
    • Setting realistic measures

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Roadmap team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Process map
    • Process improvement plan

    Continual improvement

    Not just for the DevOps hipsters!

    You started with a desire – greater satisfaction with infrastructure from the business. All of the inputs, processes, and outputs exist only, and are designed solely, to serve the attainment of that outcome.

    The process outlined is not dogma; no element is sacrosanct. Ruthlessly evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts so you can do better next time.

    You would do no less after a server migration, network upgrade, or EUC rollout.

    Consider these four factors to help make your infrastructure roadmap effort more successful.

    Leadership
    If infrastructure leaders aren't committed, then this will quickly become an exercise of box-checking rather than candid communication.

    Data
    Quantitative or qualitative – always try to go where the data leads. Reduce unconscious bias and be surprised by the insight uncovered.

    Metrics
    Measurement allows management but if you measure the wrong thing you can game the system, cheating yourself out of the ultimate prize.

    Focus
    Less is sometimes more.

    4.2.1 Evaluating the value of each process output

    Understanding why and how individual steps are effective (or not) is how we improve the outcome of any process.

    1 hour

    1. List each of the nine roadmap steps on the left-hand side of a whiteboard.
    2. Ask the participants "Why was this step included? Did it accomplish its objective?" Consider using a reduced scale affinity diagramming exercise for this step.
    3. Consider the priority characteristics of each step; try to be as universal as possible (every characteristic will ideally apply to each step).
    4. Include two columns at the far right: "Improvement" and "Expected Change."
    5. Populate the table. If this is your first time, brainstorm reasonable objectives for your left-hand columns. Otherwise, document the reality of last year and focus on brainstorming the right-hand columns.
    6. Optional: Conduct a thought experiment and brainstorm tension metrics to establish whether the process is driving the outcomes we desire.
    7. Optional: Consider Info-Tech's assertion about the four things a roadmap can do. Brainstorm KPIs that you can measure yearly. What else would you want the roadmap to be able to do?

    Discussion:

    Did the group agree on the intended outcome of each step? Did the group think the step was effective? Was the outcome clear and did it flow naturally to where it was useful?
    Is the effort required for each step commensurate with its value? Are we doing too much for not enough return?
    Are we acting on the information we're gathering? Is it informing or changing decisions throughout the year or period?

    Input

    • Roadmap process steps

    Output

    • Process map
    • Improvement targets & metrics

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & markers
    • Sticky notes
    • Process Map Template (see next slide)

    Participants

    • Roadmap team

    Process map template

    Replace the included example text with your inputs.

    Freq.MethodMeasuresSuccess criteria

    Areas for improvement

    Expected change

    Evaluate intakesBiannuallyPMO Intake & Service RequestsProjects or Initiatives% of departments engaged

    Actively reach out to underrepresented depts.

    +10% engagement

    Assess roadblocksQuarterlyIT All-Staff MeetingRoadblocks% of identified that have been resolved

    Define expected outcomes of removing roadblock

    Measurable improvements

    Time studyQuarterly IT All-Staff MeetingTimeConfidence value of data

    Real data sources (time sheets, tools, etc.)

    85% of sources defensible

    Legacy asset assessmentAnnuallyDomain effortAsset Inventory Completeness of Inventory
    • Compare against Asset Management database
    • Track business activity by enabling asset(s)
    • > 95% accuracy/
      completeness
    • Easier business risk framework conversations
    Understand business goalsAnnuallyRoadmap MeetingGoal listGoal specificity

    Survey or interview leadership directly

    66% directly attributable participation

    New technology assessmentMonthly/AnnuallyTeam/Roadmap MeetingTechnologies Reviewed IT staff participation/# SWOTs

    Increase participation from junior members

    50% presentations from junior members

    Initiative review

    Quarterly

    IT All-Staff Meeting

    • Status Review
    • Template usage
    • Action taken upon review
    • Template uptake
    • Identify predictive factors
    • Improve template
    • 25% of yellow lights to green
    • -50% requests for additional info

    Initiative creation

    Annually Roadmap MeetingInitiatives# of initiatives proposedBusiness uptake+25% sponsorship in 6 months (biz)

    Update and publish

    AnnuallyPDF reportRoadmap Final ReportLeadership engagement Improve audience reach+15% of LoB managers have read the report

    Establish baseline metrics

    Baseline metrics will improve through:

    1. Increased communication. More information being shared to more people who need it.
    2. Better planning. More accurate information being shared.
    3. Reduced lead times. Less due diligence or discovery work required as part of project implementations.
    4. Faster delivery times. Less less-valuable work, freeing up more time to project work.
    Metric description Current metric Future goal
    # of critical incidents resulting from equipment failure per month
    # of service provisioning delays due to resource (non-labor) shortages
    # of projects that involve standing up untested (no prior infrastructure PoC) technologies
    # of PoCs conducted each year
    # of initiatives proposed by infrastructure
    # of initiatives proposed that find business sponsorship in >1yr
    % of long-term projects reviewed as per goal framework
    # of initiatives proposed that are the only ones supporting a business goal
    # of technologies deployed being used by more than the original business sponsor
    # of PMO delays due to resource contention

    Insight Summary

    Insight 1

    Draw the first picture.

    Highly engaged and effective team members are proactive rather than reactive. Instead of waiting for clear inputs from the higher ups, take what you do know, make some educated guesses about the rest, and present that to leadership. Where thinking diverges will be crystal clear and the necessary adjustments will be obvious.

    Insight 2

    Infrastructure must position itself as the broker for new technologies.

    No man is an island; no technology is a silo. Infrastructure's must ensure that everyone in the company benefits from what can be shared, ensure those benefits are delivered securely and reliably, and prevent the uninitiated from making costly technological mistakes. It is easier to lead from the front, so infrastructure must stay on top of available technology.

    Insight 3

    The roadmap is a process that is business driven and not a document.

    In an ever-changing world the process of change itself changes. We know the value of any specific roadmap output diminishes quickly over time, but don't forget to challenge the process itself from time to time. Striving for perfection is a fool's game; embrace constant updates and incremental improvement.

    Insight 4

    Focus on the framework, not the output.

    There usually is no one right answer. Instead make sure both the business and infrastructure are considering common relevant elements and are working from a shared set of priorities. Data then, rather than hierarchical positioning or a d20 Charisma roll, becomes the most compelling factor in making a decision. But since your audience is in hierarchical ascendency over you, make the effort to become familiar with their language.

    4.2.3 Track metrics throughout the project to keep stakeholders informed

    An effective strategic infrastructure roadmap should help to:

    1. Initiate a schedule of infrastructure projects to achieve business goals.
    2. Adapt to feedback from executives on changing business priorities.
    3. Curate a portfolio of enabling technologies that align to the business whether growing or stabilizing.
    4. Manage the lifecycle of aging equipment in order to meet capacity demands.
    Metric description

    Metric goal

    Checkpoint 1

    Checkpoint 2

    Checkpoint 3

    # of critical incidents resulting from equipment failure per month >1
    # of service provisioning delays due to resource (non-labor) shortages >5
    # of projects that involve standing up untested (no prior infrastructure PoC) technologies >10%
    # of PoCs conducted each year 4
    # of initiatives proposed by infrastructure 4
    # of initiatives proposed that find business sponsorship in >1 year 1
    # of initiatives proposed that are the only ones supporting a business goal 1
    % of long-term projects reviewed as per goal framework 100%

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Review performance from last fiscal year

    • Analyzed and communicated the benefits and value realized from IT's strategic initiatives in the past fiscal year.
    • Analyzed and prioritized diagnostic data insights to communicate IT success stories.
    • Elicited important retrospective information such as KPIs, financials, etc. to build IT's credibility as a strategic business partner.

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

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

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy
    Success depends on IT initiatives clearly aligned to business goals, IT excellence, and driving technology innovation.

    Document your Cloud Strategy
    A cloud strategy might seem like a big project, but it's just a series of smaller conversations. The methodology presented here is designed to facilitate those conversations using a curated list of topics, prompts, participant lists, and sample outcomes. We have divided the strategy into four key areas.

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy
    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides accurate, accessible, actionable data on IT assets. But there's no value in data for data's sake. Enable collaboration between IT asset managers, business leaders, and IT leaders to develop an ITAM strategy that maximizes the value they can deliver as service provider.

    Infrastructure & Operations Research Center
    Practical insights, tools, and methodologies to systematically improve IT Infrastructure & Operations.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Knowledge gained

    • Deeper understanding of business goals and priorities
    • Key data the business requires for any given initiative
    • Quantification of risk
    • Leading criteria for successful technology adoption

    Processes optimized

    • Infrastructure roadmap
    • Initiative creation, estimation, evaluation, and prioritization
    • Inventory assessment for legacy infrastructure debt
    • Technology adoption

    Deliverables completed

    • Domain time study
    • Initiative intake analysis
    • Prioritized roadblock list
    • Goal listing
    • IT and business risk frameworks
    • Infrastructure inventory assessment
    • New technology analyzes
    • Initiative templates
    • Initiative candidates
    • Roadmap visualization
    • Process schedule
    • Communications strategy
    • Process map
    • Roadmap report

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

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

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    Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}357|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact: 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $125,999 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 50 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Project Management Office
    • Parent Category Link: /project-management-office
    • You use Microsoft tools to manage your work, projects, and/or project portfolio.
    • Its latest offering, Project for the web, is new and you’re not sure what to make of it. Microsoft says it will soon replace Microsoft Project and Project Online, but the new software doesn’t seem to do what the old software did.
    • The organization has adopted M365 for collaboration and work management. Meetings happen on Teams, projects are scoped a bit with Planner, and the operations group uses Azure Boards to keep track of what they need to get done.
    • Despite your reservations about the new project management software, Microsoft software has become even more ubiquitous.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The various MS Project offerings (but most notably the latest, Project for the web) hold the promise of integrating with the rest of M365 into a unified work management solution. However, out of the box, Project for the web and the various platforms within M365 are all disparate utilities that need to be pieced together in a purpose-built manner to make use of them for holistic work management purposes. If you’re looking for a cohesive product out of the box, look elsewhere. If you’re looking to assemble a wide array of work, project, and portfolio management functions across different functions and departments, you may have found what you seek.
    • Rather than choosing tools based on your gaps, assess your current maturity level so that you optimize your investment in the Microsoft landscape.

    Impact and Result

    Follow Info-Tech’s path in this blueprint to:

    • Perform a tool audit to trim your work management tool landscape.
    • Navigate the MS Project and M365 licensing landscape.
    • Make sense of what to do with Project for the web and take the right approach to rolling it out (i.e. DIY or MS Gold Partner driven) based upon your needs.
    • Create an action plan to inform next steps.

    After following the program in this blueprint, you will be prepared to advise the organization on how to best leverage the rapidly shifting work management options within M365 and the place of MS Project within it.

    Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should make sense of the MS Project and M365 landscapes, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Determine your tool needs

    Assess your work management tool landscape, current state maturity, and licensing needs to inform a purpose-built work management action plan.

    • M365 Task Management Tool Guide
    • M365 Project Management Tool Guide
    • M365 Project Portfolio Management Tool Guide
    • Tool Audit Workbook
    • Force Field Analysis Tool
    • Microsoft Project & M365 Licensing Tool
    • Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Workbook (With Tool Analysis)
    • Project Management Maturity Assessment Workbook (With Tool Analysis)

    2. Weigh your MS Project implementation options

    Get familiar with Project for the web’s extensibility as well as the MS Gold Partner ecosystem as you contemplate the best implementation approach(s) for your organization.

    • None
    • None

    3. Finalize your implementation approach

    Prepare a boardroom-ready presentation that will help you communicate your MS Project and M365 action plan to PMO and organizational stakeholders.

    • Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    Infographic

    Workshop: Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization

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

    1 Assess Driving Forces and Risks

    The Purpose

    Assess the goals and needs as well as the risks and constraints of a work management optimization.

    Take stock of your organization’s current work management tool landscape.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clear goals and alignment across workshop participants as well as an understanding of the risks and constraints that will need to be mitigated to succeed.

    Current-state insight into the organization’s work management tool landscape.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the business context.

    1.2 Explore the M365 work management landscape.

    1.3 Identify driving forces for change.

    1.4 Analyze potential risks.

    1.5 Perform current-state analysis on work management tools.

    Outputs

    Business context

    Current-state understanding of the task, project, and portfolio management options in M365 and how they align with the organization’s ways of working

    Goals and needs analysis

    Risks and constraints analysis

    Work management tool overview

    2 Determine Tool Needs and Process Maturity

    The Purpose

    Determine your organization’s work management tool needs as well as its current level of project management and project portfolio management process maturity.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of your tooling needs and your current levels of process maturity.

    Activities

    2.1 Review tool audit dashboard and conduct the final audit.

    2.2 Identify current Microsoft licensing.

    2.3 Assess current-state maturity for project management.

    2.4 Define target state for project management.

    2.5 Assess current-state maturity for project portfolio management.

    2.6 Define target state for project portfolio management.

    Outputs

    Tool audit

    An understanding of licensing options and what’s needed to optimize MS Project options

    Project management current-state analysis

    Project management gap analysis

    Project portfolio management current-state analysis

    Project portfolio management gap analysis

    3 Weigh Your Implementation Options

    The Purpose

    Take stock of your implementation options for Microsoft old project tech and new project tech.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An optimized implementation approach based upon your organization’s current state and needs.

    Activities

    3.1 Prepare a needs assessment for Microsoft 365 and Project Plan licenses.

    3.2 Review the business case for Microsoft licensing.

    3.3 Get familiar with Project for the web.

    3.4 Assess the MS Gold Partner Community.

    3.5 Conduct a feasibility test for PFTW.

    Outputs

    M365 and Project Plan needs assessment

    Business case for additional M365 and MS Project licensing

    An understand of Project for the web and how to extend it

    MS Gold Partner outreach plan

    A go/no-go decision for extending Project for the web on your own

    4 Finalize Implementation Approach

    The Purpose

    Determine the best implementation approach for your organization and prepare an action plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A purpose-built implementation approach to help communicate recommendations and needs to key stakeholders.

    Activities

    4.1 Decide on the implementation approach.

    4.2 Identify the audience for your proposal.

    4.3 Determine timeline and assign accountabilities.

    4.4 Develop executive summary presentation.

    Outputs

    An implementation plan

    Stakeholder analysis

    A communication plan

    Initial executive presentation

    5 Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    The Purpose

    Finalize your M365 and MS Project work management recommendations and get ready to communicate them to key stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Time saved in developing and communicating an action plan.

    Stakeholder buy-in.

    Activities

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Outputs

    Finalized executive presentation

    A gameplan to communicate your recommendations to key stakeholders as well as a roadmap for future optimization

    Further reading

    Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization

    View your task management, project management, and project portfolio management options through the lens of M365.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Microsoft Project is an enigma

    Microsoft Project has dominated its market since being introduced in the 1980s, yet the level of adoption and usage per license is incredibly low.

    The software is ubiquitous, mostly considered to represent its category for “Project Management.” Yet, the software is conflated with its “Portfolio Management” offerings as organizations make platform decisions with Microsoft Project as the incorrectly identified incumbent.

    And incredibly, Microsoft has dominated the next era of productivity software with the “365” offerings. Yet, it froze the “Project” family of offerings and introduced the not-yet-functional “Project for the web.”

    Having a difficult time understanding what to do with, and about, Microsoft Project? You’re hardly alone. It’s not simply a question of tolerating, embracing, or rejecting the product: many who choose a competitor find they’re still paying for Microsoft Project-related licensing for years to come.

    If you’re in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, use this research to understand your rapidly shifting landscape of options.

    (Barry Cousins, Project Portfolio Management Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group)

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    You use Microsoft (MS) tools to manage your work, projects, and/or project portfolio.

    Their latest offering, Project for the web, is new and you’re not sure what to make of it. Microsoft says it will soon replace Microsoft Project and Project Online, but the new software doesn’t seem to do what the old software did.

    The organization has adopted M365 for collaboration and work management. Meetings happen on Teams, projects are scoped a bit with Planner, and the operations group uses Azure Boards to keep track of what they need to get done.

    Despite your reservations about the new project management software, Microsoft software has become even more ubiquitous.

    Common Obstacles

    M365 provides the basic components for managing tasks, projects, and project portfolios, but there is no instruction manual for making those parts work together.

    M365 isn’t the only set of tools at play. Business units and teams across the organization have procured other non-Microsoft tools for work management without involving IT.

    Microsoft’s latest project offering, Project for the web, is still evolving and you’re never sure if it is stable or ready for prime time. The missing function seems to involve the more sophisticated project planning disciplines, which are still important to larger, longer, and costlier projects.

    Common Obstacles

    Follow Info-Tech’s path in this blueprint to:

    • Perform a tool audit to trim your work management tool landscape.
    • Navigate the MS Project and M365 licensing landscape.
    • Make sense of what to do with Project for the web and take the right approach to rolling it out (i.e. DIY or MS Gold Partner driven) for your needs.
    • Create an action plan to inform next steps.

    After following the program in this blueprint, you will be prepared to advise the organization on how to best leverage the rapidly shifting work management options within M365 and the place of MS Project within it.

    M365 and, within it, O365 are taking over

    Accelerated partly by the pandemic and the move to remote work, Microsoft’s market share in the work productivity space has grown exponentially in the last two years.

    70% of Fortune 500 companies purchased 365 from Sept. 2019 to Sept. 2020. (Thexyz blog, 2020)

    In its FY21 Q2 report, Microsoft reported 47.5 million M365 consumer subscribers – an 11.2% increase from its FY20 Q4 reporting. (Office 365 for IT Pros, 2021)

    As of September 2020, there were 258,000,000 licensed O365 users. (Thexyz blog, 2020)

    In this blueprint, we’ll look at what the what the phenomenal growth of M365 means for PMOs and project portfolio practitioners who identify as Microsoft shops

    The market share of M365 warrants a fresh look at Microsoft’s suite of project offerings

    For many PMO and project portfolio practitioners, the footprint of M365 in their organizations’ work management cultures is forcing a renewed look at Microsoft’s suite of project offerings.

    The complicating factor is this renewed look comes at a transitional time in Microsoft’s suite of project and portfolio offerings.

    • The market dominance of MS Project Server and Project Online are wanning, with Microsoft promising the end-of-life for Online sometime in the coming years.
    • Project Online’s replacement, Project for the web, is a viable task management and lightweight project management tool, but its viability as a replacement for the rigor of Project Online is at present largely a question mark.
    • Related to the uncertainty and promise around Project for the web, the Dataverse and the Power Platform offer a glimpse into a democratized future of work management tools but anything specific about that future has yet to solidify.

    Microsoft Project has 66% market share in the project management tool space. (Celoxis, 2018)

    A copy of MS project is sold or licensed every 20 seconds. (Integent, 2013)

    MS Project is evolving to meet new work management realities

    It also evolved to not meet the old project management realities.

    • The lines between traditional project management and operational task management solutions are blurring as organizations struggle to keep up with demands.
    • To make the software easier to use, modern work management doesn’t involve the complexities from days past. You won’t find anywhere to introduce complex predecessor-successor relationships, unbalanced assignments with front-loading or back-loading, early-start/late-finish, critical path, etc.
    • “Work management” is among the latest buzzwords in IT consulting. With Project for the web (PFTW), Azure Boards, and Planner, Microsoft is attempting to compete with lighter and better-adopted tools like Trello, Basecamp, Asana, Wrike, and Monday.com.
    • Buyers of project and work management software have struggled to understand how PFTW will still be usable if it gets the missing project management function from MS Project.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Beware of the Software Granularity Paradox.

    Common opinion 1: “Plans and estimates that are granular enough to be believable are too detailed to manage and maintain.”

    Common opinion 2: “Plans simple enough to publish aren’t detailed enough to produce believable estimates.”

    In other words, software simple enough to get widely adopted doesn’t produce believable plans. Software that can produce believable plans is too complex to use at scale.

    A viable task and project management option must walk the line between these dichotomies.

    M365 gives you the pieces, but it’s on PMO users to piece them together in a viable way

    With the new MS Project and M365, it’s on PMOs to avoid the granularity paradox and produce a functioning solution that fits with the organization’s ways of working.

    Common perception still sees Microsoft Project as a rich software tool. Thus, when we consider the next generation of Microsoft Project, it’s easy to expect a newer and friendlier version of what we knew before.

    In truth, the new solution is a collection of partially integrated but largely disparate tools that each satisfy a portion of the market’s needs. While it looks like a rich collection of function when viewed through high-level requirements, users will find:

    • Overlaps, where multiple tools satisfy the same functional requirement (e.g. “assign a task”)
    • Gaps, where a tool doesn’t quite do enough and you’re forced to incorporate another tool (e.g. reverting back to Microsoft Project for advanced resource planning)
    • Islands, where tools don’t fluently talk to each other (e.g. Planner data integrated in real-time with portfolio data, which requires clunky, unstable, decentralized end-user integrations with Microsoft Power Automate)
    A colourful arrangement of Microsoft programs arranged around a pile of puzzle pieces.

    Info-Tech's approach

    Use our framework to best leverage the right MS Project offerings and M365 components for your organization’s work management needs.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. A simple to follow framework to help you make sense of a chaotic landscape.
    2. Practical and tactical tools that will help you save time.
    3. Leverage industry best practices and practitioner-based insights.
    An Info-Tech framework titled 'Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization, subtitle 'View your task, project, and portfolio management options through the lens of Microsoft 365'. There are four main sections titled 'Background', 'Approaches', 'Deployments', and 'Portfolio Outcomes'. In '1) Background' are 'Analyze Content', 'Assess Constraints', and 'Determine Goals and Needs'. In '2) Approaches' are 'DIY: Are you ready to do it yourself?' 'Info-Tech: Can our analysts help?', and 'MS Gold Partner: Are you better off with a third party?'. In '3) Deployments' are five sections: 'Personal Task Management', Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Person. 'Team Task Management', Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Team. 'Project Portfolio Management', Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Project. 'Project Management', Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Functionally Incomplete. 'Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management', Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Underadopted. In '4) Portfolio Outcomes' are 'Informed Steering Committee', 'Increased Project Throughput', 'Improved Portfolio Responsiveness', 'Optimized Resource Utilization', and 'Reduced Monetary Waste'.

    Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization

    View your task, project, and portfolio management options through the lens of Microsoft 365.

    1. Background

    • Analyze Content
    • Assess Constraints
    • Determine Goals and Needs

    2. Approaches

    • DIY – Are you ready to do it yourself?
    • Info-Tech – Can our analysts help?
    • MS Gold Partner – Are you better off with a third party?

    3. Deployments

      Task Management

    • Personal Task Management
      • Who does it? Knowledge workers
      • What is it? To-do lists
      • Common Approaches
        • Paper list and sticky notes
        • Light task tools
      • Applications
        • Planner
        • To Do
      • Level of Rigor 1/5
      • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Person
    • Team Task Management
      • Who does it? Groups of knowledge workers
      • What is it? Collaborative to-do lists
      • Common Approaches
        • Kanban boards
        • Spreadsheets
        • Light task tools
      • Applications
        • Planner
        • Azure Boards
        • Teams
      • Level of Rigor 2/5
      • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Team
    • Project Management

    • Project Portfolio Management
      • Who does it? PMO Directors, Portfolio Managers
      • What is it?
        • Centralized list of projects
        • Request and intake handling
        • Aggregating reporting
      • Common Approaches
        • Spreadsheets
        • PPM software
        • Roadmaps
      • Applications
        • Project for the Web
        • Power Platform
      • Level of Rigor 3/5
      • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Project
    • Project Management
      • Who does it? Project Managers
      • What is it? Deterministic scheduling of related tasks
      • Common Approaches
        • Spreadsheets
        • Lists
        • PM software
        • PPM software
      • Applications
        • Project Desktop Client
      • Level of Rigor 4/5
      • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Functionally Incomplete
    • Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management

    • Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management
      • Who does it? PMO and ePMO Directors, Portfolio Managers, Project Managers
      • What is it?
        • Centralized request and intake handling
        • Resource capacity management
        • Deterministic scheduling of related tasks
      • Common Approaches
        • PPM software
      • Applications
        • Project Online
        • Project Desktop Client
        • Project Server
      • Level of Rigor 5/5
      • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Underadopted

    4. Portfolio Outcomes

    • Informed Steering Committee
    • Increased Project Throughput
    • Improved Portfolio Responsiveness
    • Optimized Resource Utilization
    • Reduced Monetary Waste

    Info-Tech's methodology for Determine the Future of MS Project for Your Organization

    1. Determine Your Tool Needs

    2. Weigh Your MS Project Implementation Options

    3. Finalize Your Implementation Approach

    Phase Steps

    1. Survey the M365 Work Management Tools
    2. Perform a Process Maturity Assessment to Help Inform Your M365 Starting Point
    3. Consider the Right MS Project Licenses for Your Stakeholders
    1. Get Familiar With Extending Project for the Web Using Power Apps
    2. Assess the MS Gold Partner Community
    1. Prepare an Action Plan

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Work Management Tool Audit
    2. MS Project and Power Platform Licensing Needs
    3. Project Management and Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment
    1. Project for the Web Readiness Assessment
    2. MS Gold Partner Outreach Plan
    1. MS Project and M365 Action Plan Presentation

    Insight Summary

    Overarching blueprint insight: Microsoft Parts Sold Separately. Assembly required.

    The various MS Project offerings (but most notably the latest, Project for the web) hold the promise of integrating with the rest of M365 into a unified work management solution. However, out of the box, Project for the web and the various platforms within M365 are all disparate utilities that need to be pieced together in a purpose-built manner to make use of them for holistic work management purposes.

    If you’re looking for a cohesive product out of the box, look elsewhere. If you’re looking to assemble a wide array of work, project, and portfolio management functions across different functions and departments, you may have found what you seek

    Phase 1 insight: Align your tool choice to your process maturity level.

    Rather than choosing tools based on your gaps, make sure to assess your current maturity level so that you optimize your investment in the Microsoft landscape.

    Phase 2 insight: Weigh your options before jumping into Microsoft’s new tech.

    Microsoft’s new Project plans (P1, P3, and P5) suggest there is a meaningful connection out of the box between its old tech (Project desktop, Project Server, and Project Online) and its new tech (Project for the web).

    However, the offerings are not always interoperable.

    Phase 3 insight: Keep the iterations small as you move ahead with trials and implementations.

    Organizations are changing as fast as the software we use to run them.

    If you’re implementing parts of this platform, keep the changes small as you monitor the vendors for new software versions and integrations.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable: Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    The Action Plan will help culminate and present:

    • Context and Constraints
    • DIY Implementation Approach
    Or
    • MS Partner Implementation Approach
    • Future-State Vision and Goals
    Samples of Info-Tech's key deliverable 'Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template'.

    Tool Audit Workbook

    Sample of Info-Tech deliverable 'Tool Audit Workbook'.

    Assess your organization's current work management tool landscape and determine what tools drive value for individual users and teams and which ones can be rationalized.

    Force Field Analysis

    Sample of Info-Tech deliverable 'Force Field Analysis'.

    Document the driving and resisting forces for making a change to your work management tools.

    Maturity Assessments

    Sample of Info-Tech deliverable 'Maturity Assessments'.

    Use these assessments to identify gaps in project management and project portfolio management processes. The results will help guide process improvement efforts and measure success and progress.

    Microsoft Project & M365 Licensing Tool

    Sample of Info-Tech deliverable 'Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool'.

    Determine the best licensing options and approaches for your implementation of Microsoft Project.

    Curate your work management tools to harness valuable portfolio outcomes

    • Increase Project Throughput

      Do more projects by ensuring the right projects and the right amount of projects are approved and executed.
    • Support an Informed Steering Committee

      Easily compare progress of projects across the portfolio and enable the leadership team to make decisions.
    • Improve portfolio responsiveness

      Make the portfolio responsive to executive steering when new projects and changing priorities need rapid action.
    • Optimize Resource Utilization

      Assign the right resources to approved projects and minimize the chronic over-allocation of resources that leads to burnout.
    • Reduce Monetary Waste

      Terminate low-value projects early and avoid sinking additional funds into unsuccessful ventures.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

    A typical GI is between 6 to 8 calls over the course of 3 to 4 months.

      Introduction

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

    • Call #2: Explore the M365 work management landscape.
    • Call #3: Discuss Microsoft Project Plans and their capabilities.
    • Call #4: Assess current-state maturity.
    • Phase 2

    • Call #5: Get familiar with extending Project for the web using Power Apps.
    • Call #6: Assess the MS Gold Partner Community.
    • Phase 3

    • Call #7: Determine approach and deployment.
    • Call #8: Discuss action plan.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1
    Assess Driving Forces and Risks

    Day 2
    Determine Tool Needs and Process Maturity

    Day 3
    Weigh Your Implementation Options

    Day 4
    Finalize Implementation Approach

    Day 5
    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    • 1.1 Review the business context.
    • 1.2 Explore the M365 work management landscape.
    • 1.3 Identify driving forces for change.
    • 1.4 Analyze potential risks.
    • 1.5 Perform current-state analysis on work management tools.
    • 2.1 Review tool audit dashboard and conduct the final audit.
    • 2.2 Identify current Microsoft licensing.
    • 2.3 Assess current-state maturity for project management.
    • 2.4 Define target state for project management.
    • 2.5 Assess current-state maturity for project portfolio management.
    • 2.6 Define target state for project portfolio management.
    • 3.1 Prepare a needs assessment for Microsoft 365 and Project Plan licenses.
    • 3.2 Review the business case for Microsoft licensing.
    • 3.3 Get familiar with Project for the web.
    • 3.4 Assess the MS Gold Partner Community.
    • 3.5 Conduct a feasibility test for PFTW.
    • 4.1 Decide on the implementation approach.
    • 4.2 Identify the audience for your proposal.
    • 4.3 Determine timeline and assign accountabilities.
    • 4.4 Develop executive summary presentation.
    • 5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.
    • 5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Deliverables

    1. Force Field Analysis
    2. Tool Audit Workbook
    1. Tool Audit Workbook
    2. Project Management Maturity Assessment
    3. Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment
    1. Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool
    1. Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan
    1. Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan

    Determine the Future of Microsoft Project for Your Organization

    Phase 1: Determine Your Tool Needs

    Phase 1: Determine Your Tool Needs

    Phase 2: Weigh Your Implementation Options Phase 3: Finalize Your Implementation Approach
    • Step 1.1: Survey the M365 work management landscape
    • Step 1.2: Explore the Microsoft Project Plans and their capabilities
    • Step 1.3: Assess the maturity of your current PM & PPM capabilities
    • Step 2.1: Get familiar with extending Project for the web using Power Apps
    • Step 2.2: Assess the MS Gold Partner Community
    • Step 3.1: Prepare an action plan

    Phase Outcomes

    • Tool Audit
    • Microsoft Project Licensing Analysis
    • Project Management Maturity Assessment
    • Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessments

    Step 1.1

    Survey the M365 Work Management Landscape

    Activities

    • 1.1.1 Distinguish between task, project, and portfolio capabilities
    • 1.1.2 Review Microsoft’s offering for task, project, and portfolio management needs
    • 1.1.4 Assess your organizational context and constraints
    • 1.1.3 Explore typical deployment options

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assessing your organization’s context for project and project portfolio management
    • Documenting the organization’s constraints
    • Establishing the organization’s goals and needs

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director
    • Resource Managers
    • Project Managers
    • Knowledge Workers

    Outcomes of Step

    • Knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem as it relates to task, project, and portfolio management
    • Current organizational context and constraints

    Don’t underestimate the value of interoperability

    The whole Microsoft suite is worth more than the sum of its parts … if you know how to put it together.

    38% of the worldwide office suite market belongs to Microsoft. (Source: Statistica, 2021)

    1 in 3 small to mid-sized organizations moving to Microsoft Project say they are doing so because it integrates well with Office 365. (Source: CBT Nuggets, 2018)

    There’s a gravity to the Microsoft ecosystem.

    And while there is no argument that there are standalone task management tools, project management tools, or portfolio management tools that are likely more robust, feature-rich, and easier to adopt, it’s rare that you find an ecosystem that can do it all, to an acceptable level.

    That is the value proposition of Microsoft: the ubiquity, familiarity, and versatility. It’s the Swiss army knife of software products.

    The work management landscape is evolving

    With M365, Microsoft is angling to become the industry leader, and your organization’s hub, for work management.

    Workers lose up to 40% of their time multi-tasking and switching between applications. (Bluescape, 2018)

    25 Context switches – On average, workers switch between 10 apps, 25 times a day. (Asana, 2021)

    “Work management” is among the latest buzzwords in IT consulting.

    What is work management? It was born of a blurring of the traditional lines between operational or day-to-day tasks and project management tasks, as organizations struggle to keep up with both operational and project demands.

    To make the software easier to use, modern work management doesn’t involve the complexities from days past. You won’t find anywhere to introduce complex predecessor-successor relationships, unbalanced assignments with front-loading or back-loading, early-start/late-finish, critical path, etc.

    Indeed, with Project for the web, Azure Boards, Planner, and other M365 utilities, Microsoft is attempting to compete with lighter and better-adopted tools (e.g. Trello, Wike, Monday.com).

    The Microsoft world of work management can be understood across three broad categories

    1. Task Management

      Task management is essentially the same as keeping track of a to-do list. While you can have a project-related task, you can also have a non-project-related task. The sum of project and non-project tasks make up the work that you need to complete.
    2. Project Management

      Project management (PM) is a methodical approach to planning and guiding project processes from start to finish. Implementing PM processes helps establish repeatable steps and controls that enable project success. Documentation of PM processes leads to consistent results and dependable delivery on expectations.
    3. Portfolio Management

      Project portfolio management (PPM) is a strategic approach to approving, prioritizing, resourcing, and reporting on project. In addition, effective PPM should nurture the completion of projects in the portfolio in the most efficient way and track the extent to which the organization is realizing the intended benefits from completed projects.

    The slides ahead explain each of these modes of working in the Microsoft ecosystem in turn. Further, Info-Tech’s Task, Project, and Project Portfolio Management Tool Guides explain these areas in more detail.

    Use Info-Tech’s Tool Guides assess your MS Project and M365 work management options

    Lean on Info-Tech’s Tool Guides as you navigate Microsoft’s tasks management, project management, and project portfolio management options.

    • The slides ahead take you through a bird’s-eye view of what your MS Project and M365 work management options look like across Info-Tech’s three broad categories
    • In addition to these slides, Info-Tech has three in-depth tool guides that take you through your operational task management, project management, and project portfolio management options in MS Project and M365.
    • These tool guides can be leveraged as you determine whether Microsoft has the required toolset for your organization’s task, project, and project portfolio management needs.

    Download Info-Tech’s Task Management, Project Management, and Project Portfolio Management Tool Guides

    Task Management Overview

    What is task management?

    • It is essentially the same as keeping track of a to-do list. While you can have a project-related task, you can also have a non-project-related task. The sum of project and non-project tasks make up the work that you need to complete.

    What are the benefits of task management using applications within the MS suite?

    • Many organizations already own the tools and don't have to go out and buy something separately.
    • There is easy integration with other MS applications.

    What is personal task management?

    • Tools that allow you to structure work that is visible only to you. This can include work from tasks you are going to be completing for yourself and tasks you are completing as part of a larger work effort.

    What is team task management?

    • Tools that allow users to structure work that is visible to a group. When something is moved or changed, it affects what the group is seeing because it is a shared platform.

    Get familiar with the Microsoft product offerings for task management

    A diagram of Microsoft products and what they can help accomplish. It starts on the right with 'Teams' and 'Outlook'. Both can flow through to 'Personal Task Management' with products 'Teams Tasks' and 'To-Do', but Teams also flows into 'Team Task Management' with products 'Planner' and 'Project for the web'. See the next two slides for more details on these modes of working.

    Download the M365 Task Management Tool Guide

    Personal Task Management

    The To-Do list

    • Who does it?
      • Knowledge workers
    • What is it?
      • How each knowledge worker organizes their individual work tasks in M365
    • When is it done?
      • As needed throughout the day
    • Where is it done?
      • Paper
      • Digital location
    • How is it done?
      • DIY and self-developed
      • Usually not repeatable and evolves depending on work location and tools available
      • Not governed

    Microsoft differentiator:

    Utilities like Planner and To-Do make it easier to turn what are often ad hoc approaches into a more repeatable process.

    Team Task Management

    The SharedTo-Do list

    • Who does it?
      • Groups of knowledge workers
    • What is it?
      • Temporary and permanent collections of knowledge workers
    • When is it done?
      • As needed or on a pre-determined cadence
    • Where is it done?
      • Paper
      • Digital location
    • How is it done?
      • User norms are established organically and adapted based upon the needs of the team.
      • To whatever extent processes are repeatable in the first place, they remain repeatable only if the team is a collective.
      • Usually governed within the team and not subject to wider visibility.

    Microsoft differentiator:

    Teams has opened personal task management tactics up to more collaborative approaches.

    Project Management Overview

    2003

    Project Server: This product serves many large enterprise clients, but Microsoft has stated that it is at end of life. It is appealing to industries and organizations where privacy is paramount. This is an on-premises system that combines servers like SharePoint, SQL, and BI to report on information from Project Desktop Client. To realize the value of this product, there must be adoption across the organization and engagement at the project-task level for all projects within the portfolio.

    2013

    Project Online: This product serves many medium enterprise clients. It is appealing for IT departments who want to get a rich set of features that can be used to intake projects, assign resources, and report on project portfolio health. It is a cloud solution built on the SharePoint platform, which provides many users a sense of familiarity. However, due to the bottom-up reporting nature of this product, again, adoption across the organization and engagement at the project task level for all projects within the portfolio is critical.

    2020

    Project for the web: This product is the newest on the market and is quickly being evolved. Many O365 enthusiasts have been early adopters of Project for the web despite its limited features when compared to Project Online. It is also a cloud solution that encourages citizen developers by being built on the MS Power Platform. This positions the product well to integrate with Power BI, Power Automate, and Power Apps. It is, so far, the only MS product that lends itself to abstracted portfolio management, which means it doesn’t rely on project task level engagement to produce portfolio reports. The portfolio can also run with a mixed methodology by funneling Project, Azure Boards, and Planner boards into its roadmap function.

    Get familiar with the Microsoft product offerings for project management

    A diagram of Microsoft products and what they can help accomplish in Personal and Team Project Management. Products listed include 'Project Desktop Client', 'Project Online', 'SharePoint', 'Power Platform', 'Azure DevOps', 'Project for the web', Project Roadmap', 'Project Home', and 'Project Server'. See the next slide for more details on personal and team project management as modes of working.

    Download the M365 Project Management Tool Guide

    Project Management

    Orchestrating the delivery of project work

    • Who does it?
      • Project managers
    • What is it?
      • Individual project managers developing project plans and schedules in the MS Project Desktop Client
    • When is it done?
      • Throughout the lifecycle of the project
    • Where is it done?
      • Digital location
    • How is it done?
      • Used by individual project managers to develop and manage project plans.
      • Common approaches may or may not involve reconciliation of resource capacity through integration with Active Directory.
      • Sometimes usage norms are established by organizational project management governance standards, though individual use of the desktop client is largely ungoverned.

    Microsoft differentiator:

    For better or worse, Microsoft’s core solution is veritably synonymous with project management itself and has formally contributed to the definition of the project management space.

    Project Portfolio Management Overview

    Optimize what you’re already using and get familiar with the Power Platform.

    What does PPM look like within M365?

    • The Office suite in the Microsoft 365 suite boasts the world’s most widely used application for the purposes of abstracted and strategic PPM: Excel. For the purposes of PPM, Excel is largely implemented in a suboptimal fashion, and as a result, organizations fail to gain PPM adoption and maturation through its use.
    • Until very recently, Microsoft toolset did not explicitly address abstracted PPM needs.
    • However, with the latest version of M365 and Project for the web, Microsoft is boasting of renewed PPM capabilities from its toolset. These capabilities are largely facilitated through what Microsoft is calling its Power Platform (i.e. a suite of products that includes Power, Power Apps, and Power Automate).

    Explore the Microsoft product offering for abstracted project portfolio management

    A diagram of Microsoft products for 'Adaptive or Abstracted Portfolio Management'. Products listed include 'Excel', 'MS Lists', 'Forms', 'Teams', and the 'Power Platform' products 'Power BI', 'Power Apps', and 'Power Automate'. See the next slide for more details on adaptive or abstracted portfolio management as a mode of working.

    Download the M365 Project Portfolio Management Tool Guide

    Project Portfolio Management

    Doing the right projects, at the right time, with the right resources

    • Who does it?
      • PMO directors; portfolio managers
    • What is it?
      A strategic approach to approving, prioritizing, resourcing, and reporting on projects using applications in M365 and Project for the web. In distinction to enterprise PPM, a top-down or abstracted approach is applied, meaning PPM data is not tied to project task details.
    • Where is it done?
      • Digital tool, either homegrown or commercial
    • How is it done?
      • Currently in M365, PPM approaches are largely self-developed, though Microsoft Gold Partners are commonly involved.
      • User norms are still evolving, along with the software’s (Project for the web) function.

    Microsoft differentiator:

    Integration between Project for the web and Power Apps allows for custom approaches.

    Project Portfolio Management Overview

    Microsoft’s legacy project management toolset has contributed to the definition of traditional or enterprise PPM space.

    A robust and intensive bottom-up approach that requires task level roll-ups from projects to inform portfolio level data. For this model to work, reconciliation of individual resource capacity must be universal and perpetually current.

    If your organization has low or no maturity with PPM, this approach will be tough to make successful.

    In fact, most organizations under adopt the tools required to effectively operate with the traditional project portfolio management. Once adopted and operationalized, this combination of tools gives the executives the most precise view of the current state of projects within the portfolio.

    Explore the Microsoft product offering for enterprise project portfolio management

    A diagram of Microsoft products for 'Enterprise or Traditional Portfolio Management'. Products listed include 'Project Desktop Client', 'SharePoint', 'Project Online', 'Azure DevOps', 'Project Roadmaps', and 'Project Home'. See the next slide for more details on this as a mode of working.

    Download the M365 Project Portfolio Management Tool Guide

    Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management

    Bottom-up approach to managing the project portfolio

    • Who does it?
      • PMO and ePMO directors; portfolio managers
      • Project managers
    • What is it?
      • A strategic approach to approving, prioritizing, resourcing, and reporting on projects using applications in M365 and Project for the web. In distinction to enterprise PPM, a top-down or abstracted approach is applied, meaning PPM data is not tied to project task details.
    • Where is it done?
      • Digital tool that is usually commercial.
    • How is it done?
      • Microsoft Gold Partner involvement is highly likely in successful implementations.
      • Usage norms are long established and customized solutions are prevalent.
      • To be successful, use must be highly governed.
      • Reconciliation of individual resource capacity must be universal and perpetually current.

    Microsoft differentiator:

    Microsoft’s established network of Gold Partners helps to make this deployment a viable option.

    Assess your current tool ecosystem across work management categories

    Use Info-Tech’s Tool Audit Workbook to assess the value and satisfaction for the work management tools currently in use.

    • With the modes of working in mind that have been addressed in the previous slides and in Info-Tech’s Tool Guides, the activity slides ahead encourage you to engage your wider organization to determine all of the ways of working across individuals and teams.
    • Depending on the scope of your work management optimization, these engagements may be limited to IT or may extend to the business.
    • Use Info-Tech’s Tool Audit Workbook to help you gather and make sense of the tool data you collect. The result of this activity is to gain insight into the tools that drive value and fail to drive value across your work management categories with a view to streamline the organization’s tool ecosystem.

    Download Info-Tech’s Tool Audit Workbook

    Sample of Info-Tech's Tool Audit Workbook.

    1.2.1 Compile list of tools

    1-3 hours

    Input: Information on tools used to complete task, project, and portfolio tasks

    Output: Analyzed list of tools

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip Charts, Tool Audit Workbook

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, Project Managers, Business Stakeholders

    1. Identify the stakeholder groups that are in scope. For each group that you’ve identified, brainstorm the different tools and artifacts that are necessary to get the task, project, and project portfolio management functions done.
    2. Make sure to record the tool name and specify its category (standard document, artifact, homegrown solution, or commercial solution).
    3. Think about and discuss how often the tool is being used for each use case across the organization. Document whether its use is required. Then assess reporting functionality, data accuracy, and cost.
    4. Lastly, give a satisfaction rating for each use case.

    Excerpt from the Tool Audit Workbook

    Excerpt from Info-Tech's Tool Audit Workbook on compiling tools.

    1.2.1 Review dashboard

    1-3 hours

    Input: List of key PPM decision points, List of who is accountable for PPM decisions, List of who has PPM decision-making authority

    Output: Prioritized list of PPM decision-making support needs

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip Charts, Tool Audit Workbook

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, CIO

    Discuss the outputs of the Dashboards tab to inform your decision maker on whether to pass or fail the tool for each use case.

    Sample of a BI dashboard used to evaluate the usefulness of tools. Written notes include: 'Slice the data based on stakeholder group, tool, use case, and category', and 'Review the results of the questionnaire by comparing cost and satisfaction'.

    1.2.1 Execute final audit

    1 hour

    Input: List of key PPM decision points, List of who is accountable for PPM decisions, List of who has PPM decision-making authority

    Output: Prioritized list of PPM decision-making support needs

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip Charts, Tool Audit Workbook

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, CIO

    1. Using the information available, schedule time with the leadership team to present the results.
    2. Identify the accountable party to make the final decision on what current tools pass or fail the final audit.
    3. Mind the gap presented by the failed tools and look to possibilities within the M365 and Microsoft Project suite. For each tool that is deemed unsatisfactory for the future state, mark it as “Fail” in column O on tab 2 of the Tool Audit Workbook. This will ensure the item shows in the “Fail” column on tab 4 of the tool when you refresh the data.
    4. For each of the tools that “fail” your audit and that you’re going to make recommendations to rationalize in a future state, try to capture the annual total current-state spending on licenses, and the work modes the tool currently supports (i.e. task, project, and/or portfolio management).
    5. Additionally, start to think about future-state replacements for each tool within or outside of the M365/MS Project platforms. As we move forward to finalize your action plan in the last phase of this blueprint, we will capture and present this information to key stakeholders.

    Document your goals, needs, and constraints before proceeding

    Use Info-Tech’s Force Field Analysis Tool to help weigh goals and needs against risks and constraints associated with a work management change.

    • Now that you have discussed the organization’s ways of working and assessed its tool landscape – and made some initial decisions on some tool options that might need to change across that landscape – gather key stakeholders to define (a) why a change is needed at this time and (b) to document some of the risks and constraints associated with changing.
    • Info-Tech’s Force Field Analysis Tool can be used to capture these data points. It takes an organizational change management approach and asks you to consider the positive and negative forces associated with a work management tool change at this time.
    • The slides ahead walk you through a force field analysis activity and help you to navigate the relevant tabs in the Tool.

    Download Info-Tech's Force Field Analysis Tool

    Sample of Info-Tech's Force Field Analysis Tool.

    1.2.1 Identify goals and needs (1 of 2)

    Use tab 1 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook to assess goals and needs.

    30 minutes

    Input: Opportunities associated with determining the use case for Microsoft Project and M365 in your organization

    Output: Plotted opportunities based on probability and impact

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip Charts, Force Field Analysis Tool

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, Project Managers

    1. Brainstorm opportunities associated with exploring and/or implementing Microsoft Project and the Microsoft 365 suite of products for task, project, and project portfolio management.
    2. Document relevant opportunities in tab 1 of the Force Field Analysis Tool. For each driving force for the change (note: a driving force can include goals and needs) that is identified, provide a category that explains why the driving force is a concern (i.e. with this force is the organization looking to mature, integrate, scape, or accelerate?).
    3. In addition, assess the ease of achieving or realizing each goal or need and the impact of realizing them on the PMO and/or the organization.
    4. See the next slide for a screenshot that helps you navigate tab 1 of the Tool.

    Download the Force Field Analysis Tool

    1.2.1 Identify goals and needs (2 of 2)

    Screenshot of tab 1 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook.

    Screenshot of tab 1 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook. There are five columns referred to as columns B through F with the headings 'Opportunities', 'Category', 'Source', 'Ease of Achieving', and 'Impact on PMO/Organization'.

    In column B on tab 1, note the specific opportunities the group would like to call out.

    In column C, categorize the goal or need being articulated by the list of drop-down options: will it accelerate the time to benefit? Will it help to integrate systems and data sources? Will it mature processes and the organization overall? Will it help to scale across the organization? Choose the option that best aligns with the opportunity.

    In column D, categorize the source of the goal or need as internal or external.

    In column E, use the drop-down menus to indicate the ease of realizing each goal or need for the organization. Will it be relatively easy to manifest or will there be complexities to implementing it?

    In column F, use the drop-down menus to indicate the positive impact of realizing or achieving each need on the PMO and/or the organization.

    On tab 3 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook, your inputs on tab 1 are summarized in graphical form from columns B to G. On tab 3, these goals and needs results are contrasted with your inputs on tab 2 (see next slide).

    1.2.2 Identify risk and constraints (1 of 2)

    Use tab 2 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook to assess opposing forces to change.

    30 minutes

    Input: Risks associated with determining the use case for Microsoft Project and M365 in your organization

    Output: Plotted risks based on probability and impact

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip Charts, Force Field Analysis Tool

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, Project Managers

    1. With the same working group from 1.2.1, brainstorm risks, constraints, and other opposing forces pertaining to your potential future state.
    2. Document relevant opposing forces in tab 2 of the Force Field Analysis Tool. For each opposing force for the change (note: a driving force can include goals and needs) that is identified, provide a category that explains why the opposing force is a concern (i.e. will it impact or is it impacted by time, resources, maturity, budget, or culture?).
    3. In addition, assess the likelihood of the risk or constraint coming to light and the negative impact of it coming to light for your proposed change.
    4. See the next slide for a screenshot that helps you navigate tab 2 of the Force Field Analysis Tool.

    Download the Force Field Analysis Tool

    1.2.2 Identify risk and constraints (2 of 2)

    Screenshot of tab 2 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook.

    Screenshot of tab 2 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook. There are five columns referred to as columns B through F with the headings 'Risks and Constraints', 'Category', 'Source', 'Likelihood of Constraint/Risk/Resisting Force Being Felt', and 'Impact to Derailing Goals and Needs'.

    In column B on tab 2, note the specific risks and constraints the group would like to call out.

    In column C, categorize the risk or constraint being articulated by the list of drop-down options: will it impact or is it impacted by time, resources, budget, culture or maturity?

    In column D, categorize the source of the goal or need as internal or external.

    In column E, use the drop-down menus to indicate the likelihood of each risk or constraint materializing during your implementation. Will it definitely occur or is there just a small chance it could come to light?

    In column F, use the drop-down menus to indicate the negative impact of the risk or constraint to achieving your goals and needs.

    On tab 3 of the Force Field Analysis Workbook, your inputs on tab 2 are summarized in graphical form from columns I to N. On tab 3, your risk and constraint results are contrasted with your inputs on tab 1 to help you gauge the relative weight of driving vs. opposing forces.

    Step 1.2

    Explore the Microsoft Project Plans and their capabilities

    Activities

    • 1.1.1 Review the Microsoft 365 licensing features
    • 1.1.2 Explore the Microsoft Project Plan licenses
    • 1.1.3 Prepare a needs assessment for Microsoft 365 and Project Plan licenses

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Review the suite of task management, project management, and project portfolio management options available in Microsoft 365.
    • Prepare a preliminary checklist of required M365 apps for your stakeholders.

    This step usually involves the following participants:

    • PMO/Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • CIO and other executive stakeholders
    • Other project portfolio stakeholders (project and IT workers)

    Outcomes of Step

    • Preliminary requirements for an M365 project management and project portfolio management tool implementation

    Microsoft recently revamped its project plans to balance its old and new tech

    Access to the new tech, Project for the web, comes with all license types, while Project Online Professional and Premium licenses have been revamped as P3 and P5.

    Navigating Microsoft licensing is never easy, and Project for the web has further complicated licensing needs for project professionals.

    As we’ll cover in step 2.1 of this blueprint, Project for the web can be extended beyond its base lightweight work management functionality using the Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI). Depending on the scope of your implementation, this can require additional Power Platform licensing.

    • In this step, we will help you understand the basics of what’s already included in your enterprise M365 licensing as well as what’s new in Microsoft’s recent Project licensing plans (P1, P3, and P5).
    • As we cover toward the end of this step, you can use Info-Tech’s MS Project and M365 Licensing Tool to help you understand your plan and licensing needs. Further assistance on licensing can be found in the Task, Project, and Portfolio Management Tool Guides that accompany this blueprint and Info-Tech’s Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era.

    Download Info-Tech’s Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era

    Licensing features for knowledge workers

    Please note that licensing packages are frequently subject to change. This is up to date as of August 2021. For the most up-to-date information on licensing, visit the Microsoft website.

    Bundles are extremely common and can be more cost effective than à la carte options for the Microsoft products.

    The biggest differentiator between M365 and O365 is that the M365 product also includes Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility and Security.

    The color coding in the diagram indicates that the same platform/application suite is available.

    Platform or Application M365 E3 M365 E5 O365 E1 O365 E3 O365 E5
    Microsoft Forms X X X X X
    Microsoft Lists X X X X X
    OneDrive X X X X X
    Planner X X X X X
    Power Apps for Office 365 X X X X X
    Power Automate for Office X X X X X
    Power BI Pro X X
    Power Virtual Agents for Teams X X X X X
    SharePoint X X X X X
    Stream X X X X X
    Sway X X X X X
    Teams X X X X X
    To Do X X X X X

    Get familiar with Microsoft Project Plan 1

    Please note that licensing packages are frequently subject to change. This is up to date as of August 2021. For the most up to date information on licensing, visit the Microsoft website.

    Who is a good fit?

    • New project managers
    • Zero-allocation project managers
    • Individuals and organizations who want to move out of Excel into something less fragile (easily breaking formulas)

    What does it include?

    • Access to Project Home, a landing page to access all project plans you’ve created or have been assigned to.
    • Access to Grid View, Board View, and Timeline (Gantt) View to plan and manage your projects with Project for the web
    • Sharing Project for the web plans across Microsoft Teams channels
    • Co-authoring on project plans

    When does it make sense?

    • Lightweight project management
    • No process to use bottom-up approach for resourcing data
    • Critical-path analysis is not required
    • Organization does not have an appetite for project management rigor

    Get familiar with Microsoft Project Plan 3

    Please note that licensing packages are frequently subject to change. This is up to date as of August 2021. For the most up to date information on licensing, visit the Microsoft website.

    Who is a good fit?

    • Experienced and dedicated project managers
    • Organizations with complex projects
    • Large project teams are required to complete project work
    • Organizations have experience using project management software

    What does it include?

    Everything in Project Plan 1 plus the following:

    • Reporting through Power BI Report template apps (note that there are no pre-built reports for Project for the web)
    • Access to build a Roadmap of projects from Project for the web and Azure DevOps with key milestones, statuses, and deadlines
    • Project Online to submit and track timesheets for project teams
    • MS Project Desktop Client to support resource management

    When does it make sense?

    • Project management is an established discipline at the organization
    • Critical-path analysis is commonly used
    • Organization has some appetite for project management rigor
    • Resources are expected to submit timesheets to allow for more precise resource management data

    Get familiar with Microsoft Project Plan 5

    Please note that licensing packages are frequently subject to change. This is up to date as of August 2021. For the most up to date information on licensing, visit the Microsoft website.

    Who is a good fit?

    • Experienced and dedicated project managers
    • Experienced and dedicated PMO directors
    • Dedicated portfolio managers
    • Organizations proficient at sustaining data in a standard tool

    What does it include?

    Everything in Project Plan 3 plus the following:

    • Portfolio selection and optimization
    • Demand management
    • Enterprise resource planning and management through deterministic task and resource scheduling
    • MS Project Desktop Client to support resource management

    When does it make sense?

    • Project management is a key success factor at the organization
    • Organization employs a bottom-up approach for resourcing data
    • Critical-path analysis is required
    • Formal project portfolio management processes are well established
    • The organization is willing to either put in the time, energy, and resources to learn to configure the system through DIY or is willing to leverage a Microsoft Partner to help them do so

    What’s included in each plan (1 of 2)

    Plan details are up to date as of September 2021. Plans and pricing can change often. Visit the Microsoft website to validate plan options and get pricing details.
    MS Project Capabilities Info-Tech's Editorial Description P1 P3 P5
    Project Home Essentially a landing page that allows you to access all the project plans you've created or that you're assigned to. It amalgamates plans created in Project for the web, the Project for the web app in Power Apps, and Project Online. X X X
    Grid view One of three options in which to create your project plans in Project for the web (board view and timeline view are the other options). You can switch back and forth between the options. X X X
    Board view One of three options in which to create your project plans in Project for the web (grid view and timeline view are the other options). You can switch back and forth between the options. X X X
    Timeline (Gantt) view One of three options in which to create your project plans in Project for the web (board view and grid view are the other options). You can switch back and forth between the options. X X X
    Collaboration and communication This references the ability to add Project for the web project plans to Teams channels. X X X
    Coauthoring Many people can have access to the same project plan and can update tasks. X X X
    Project planning and scheduling For this the marketing lingo says "includes familiar scheduling tools to assign project tasks to team members and use different views like Grid, Board, and Timeline (Gantt chart) to oversee the schedule." Unclear how this is different than the project plans in the three view options above. X X X

    X - Functionality Included in Plan

    O - Functionality Not Included in Plan

    What’s included in each plan (2 of 2)

    Plan details are up to date as of September 2021. Plans and pricing can change often. Visit the Microsoft website to validate plan options and get pricing details.
    MS Project Capabilities Info-Tech's Editorial Description P1 P3 P5
    Reporting This seems to reference Excel reports and the Power BI Report Template App, which can be used if you're using Project Online. There are no pre-built reports for Project for the web, but third-party Power Apps are available. O X X
    Roadmap Roadmap is a platform that allows you to take one or more projects from Project for the web and Azure DevOps and create an organizational roadmap. Once your projects are loaded into Roadmap you can perform additional customizations like color status reporting and adding key days and milestones. O X X
    Timesheet submission Project Online and Server 2013 and 2016 allow team members to submit timesheets if the functionality is required. O X X
    Resource management The rich MS Project client supports old school, deterministic project scheduling at the project level. O X X
    Desktop client The full desktop client comes with P3 and P5, where it acts as the rich editor for project plans. The software enjoys a multi-decade market dominance as a project management tool but was never paired with an enterprise collaboration server engine that enjoyed the same level of success. O X X
    Portfolio selection and optimization Portfolio selection and optimization has been offered as part of the enterprise project and portfolio suite for many years. Most people taking advantage of this capability have used a Microsoft Partner to formalize and operationalize the feature. O O X
    Demand Management Enterprise demand management is targeted at the most rigorous of project portfolio management practices. Most people taking advantage of this capability have used a Microsoft Partner to formalize and operationalize the feature. O O X
    Enterprise resource planning and management The legacy MS Project Online/Server platform supports enterprise-wide resource capacity management through an old-school, deterministic task and resource scheduling engine, assuming scaled-out deployment of Active Directory. Most people succeeding with this capability have used a Microsoft Partner to formalize and operationalize the feature. O O X

    X - Functionality Included in Plan

    O - Functionality Not Included in Plan

    Use Info-Tech’s MS Project and M365 Licensing Tool

    Leverage the analysis in Info-Tech’s MS Project & M365 Licensing Tool to help inform your initial assumptions about what you need and how much to budget for it.

    • The Licensing Tool can help you determine what Project Plan licensing different user groups might need as well as additional Power Platform licensing that may be required.
    • It consists of four main tabs: two set-up tabs where you can validate the plan and pricing information for M365 and MS Project; an analysis tab where you set up your user groups and follow a survey to assess their Project Plan needs; and another analysis tab where you can document your Power Platform licensing needs across your user groups.
    • There is also a business case tab that breaks down your total licensing needs. The outputs of this tab can be used in your MS Project & M365 Action Plan Template, which we will help you develop in phase three of this blueprint.

    Download Info-Tech's Microsoft Project & M365 Licensing Tool

    Sample of Info-Tech's Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool.

    1.2.1 Conduct a needs assessment

    1-2 hours

    Input: List of key user groups/profiles, Number of users and current licenses

    Output: List of Microsoft applications/capabilities included with each license, Analysis of user group needs for Microsoft Project Plan licenses

    Materials: Microsoft Project & 365 Licensing Tool

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, Project Managers

    1. As a group, analyze the applications included in your current or desired 365 license and calculate any additional Power Platform licensing needs.
    2. Screenshot of the 'Application/Capabilities' screen from the 'Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool'.
    3. Within the same group, use the drop-down menus to analyze your high-level MS Project requirements by selecting whether each capability is necessary or not.
    4. Your inputs to the needs assessment will determine the figures in the Business Case tab. Consider exporting this information to PDF or other format to distribute to stakeholders.
    5. Screenshot of the 'Business Case' tab from the 'Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool'.

    Download Info-Tech's Microsoft Project & M365 Licensing Tool

    Step 1.3

    Assess the maturity of your current PM & PPM capabilities

    Activities

    • Assess current state project and project portfolio management processes and tools
    • Determine target state project and project portfolio management processes and tools

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assess current state project and project portfolio management processes and tools
    • Determine target state project and project portfolio management processes and tools

    This step usually involves the following participants:

    • PMO/Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • CIO and other executive stakeholders
    • Other project portfolio stakeholders (project and IT workers)

    Outcomes of Step

    • Current and target state maturity for project management and project portfolio management processes

    Project portfolio management and project management are more than tools

    Implementing commercial tools without a matching level of process discipline is a futile exercise, leaving organizations frustrated at the wasted time and money.

    • The tool is only as good as the data that is input. There is often a misunderstanding that a tool will be “automatic.” While it is true that a tool can help make certain processes easier and more convenient by aggregating information, enhancing reporting, and coauthoring, it will not make up the data. If data becomes stale, the tool is no longer valid for accurate decision making.
    • Getting people onboard and establishing a clear process is often the hardest part. As IT folk, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the technology. All too often excitement around tools can drown out the important requisites around people and process. The reality is people and process are a necessary condition for a tool to be successful. Having a tool will not be sufficient to overcome obstacles like poor stakeholder buy-in, inadequate governance, and the absence of a standard operating procedure.

    • Slow is the way to go. When deciding what tools to purchase, start small and scale up rather than going all in and all too often ending up with many unused features and fees.

    "There's been a chicken-egg debate raging in the PPM world for decades: What comes first, the tool or the process? It seems reasonable to say, ‘We don't have a process now, so we'll just adopt the one in the tool.’ But you'll soon find out that the tool doesn't have a process, and you needed to do more planning and analysis before buying the tool." (Barry Cousins, Practice Lead, Project Portfolio Management)

    Assess your process maturity to determine the right tool approach

    Take the time to consider and reflect on the current and target state of the processes for project portfolio management and project management.

    Project Portfolio Management

    • Status and Progress Reporting
      1. Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

        PPM is the practice of selecting the right projects and ensuring the organization has the necessary resources to complete them. PPM should enable executive decision makers to make sense of the excess of demand and give IT the ability to prioritize those projects that are most valuable to the business.
      2. Resource Management

      3. Project Management

        1. Initiation
        2. Planning
        3. Execution
        4. Monitoring and Controlling
        5. Closing
        Tailor a project management framework to fit your organization. Formal methodologies aren’t always the best fit. Take what you can use from formal frameworks and define a right-sized approach to your project management processes.
      4. Project Closure

      5. Benefits Tracking

    Info-Tech’s maturity assessment tools can help you match your tools to your maturity level

    Use Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Tool and Project Management Maturity Assessment Tool.

    • The next few slides in this step take you through using our maturity assessment tools to help gauge your current-state and target-state maturity levels for project management (PM) and project portfolio management (PPM).
    • In addition to the process maturity assessments, these workbooks also help you document current-state support tools and desired target-state tools.
    • The outputs of these workbooks can be used in your MS Project & M365 Action Plan Template, which we will help you develop in phase three of this blueprint.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Tool and Project Management Maturity Assessment Tool

    Samples of Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Tool and Project Management Maturity Assessment Tool.

    Conduct a gap analysis survey for both project and project portfolio management.

    • Review the category and activity statements: For each gap analysis tab in the maturity assessments, use the comprehensive activity statements to identify gaps for the organization.
    • Assess the current state: To assess the current state, evaluate whether the statement should be labeled as:
      • Absent: There is no evidence of any activities supporting this process.
      • Initial: Activity is ad hoc and not well defined.
      • Defined: Activity is established and there is moderate adherence to its execution.
      • Repeatable: Activity is established, documented, repeatable, and integrated with other phases of the process.
      • Managed: Activity execution is tracked by gathering qualitative and quantitative feedback

    Once this is documented, take some time to describe the type of tool being used to do this (commercial, home-grown, standardized document) and provide additional details, where applicable.

    Define the target state: Repeat the assessment of activity statements for the target state. Then gauge the organizational impact and complexity of improving each capability on a scale of very low to very high.

    Excerpt from Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Tool, the 'PPM Current State Target State Maturity Assessment Survey'. It has five columns whose purpose is denoted in notes. Column 1 'Category within the respective discipline'; Column 2 'Statement to consider'; Column 3 'Select the appropriate answer for current and target state'; Column 4 'Define the tool type'; Column 5 'Provide addition detail about the tool'.

    Analyze survey results for project and project portfolio management maturity

    Take stock of the gap between current state and target state.

    • What process areas have the biggest gap between current and target state?
    • What areas are aligned across current and target state?

    Identify what areas are currently the least and most mature.

    • What process area causes the most pain in the organization?
    • What process area is the organization’s lowest priority?

    Note the overall current process maturity.

    • After having done this exercise, does the overall maturity come as a surprise?
    • If so, what are some of the areas that were previously overlooked?
    A table and bar graph documenting and analysis of maturity survey results. The table has four columns labelled 'Process Area', 'Current Process Completeness', 'Current Maturity Level', and 'Target State Maturity'. Rows headers in the 'Process Area' column are 'Intake, Approval, and Prioritization', 'Resource Management', 'Portfolio Reporting', 'Project Closure and Benefits Realization', 'Portfolio Administration', and finally 'Overall Maturity'. The 'Current Process Completeness' column's values are in percentages. The 'Current Maturity Level' and 'Target State Maturity' columns' values can be one of the following: 'Absent', 'Initial', 'Defined', 'Repeatable', or 'Managed'. The bar chart visualizes the levels of the 'Target State' and 'Current State' with 'Absent' from 0-20%, 'Initial' from 20-40%, 'Defined' from 40-60%, 'Repeatable' from 60-80%, and 'Managed' from 80-100%.
    • Identify process areas with low levels of maturity
    • Spot areas of inconsistency between current and target state.
    • Assess the overall gap to get a sense of the magnitude of the effort required to get to the target state.
    • 100% doesn’t need to be the goal. Set a goal that is sustainable and always consider the value to effort ratio.

    Screenshot your results and put them into the MS Project and M365 Action Plan Template.

    Review the tool overview and plan to address gaps (tabs 3 & 4)

    Tool Overview:

    Analyze the applications used to support your project management and project portfolio management processes.

    Look for:

    • Tools that help with processes across the entire PM or PPM lifecycle.
    • Tools that are only used for one specific process.

    Reflect on the overlap between process areas with pain points and the current tools being used to complete this process.

    Consider the sustainability of the target-state tool choice

    Screenshot of a 'Tool Overview' table. Chart titled 'Current-to-Target State Supporting Tools by PPM Activity' documenting the current and target states of different supporting tools by PPM Activity. Tools listed are 'N/A', 'Standardized Document', 'Homegrown Tool', and 'Commercial Tool'.

    You have the option to create an action plan for each of the areas of improvement coming out of your maturity assessment.

    This can include:

    • Tactical Optimization Action: What is the main action needed to improve capability?
    • Related Actions: Is there a cross-over with any actions for other capabilities?
    • Timeframe: Is this near-term, mid-term, or long-term?
    • Proposed Start Date
    • Proposed Go-Live Date
    • RACI: Who will be responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed?
    • Status: What is the status of this action item over time?

    Determine the Future of Microsoft Project for Your Organization

    Phase 2: Weigh Your Implementation Options

    Phase 1: Determine Your Tool Needs

    Phase 2: Weigh Your Implementation Options

    Phase 3: Finalize Your Implementation Approach
    • Step 1.1: Survey the M365 work management landscape
    • Step 1.2: Perform a process maturity assessment to help inform your M365 starting point
    • Step 1.3: Consider the right MS Project licenses for your stakeholders
    • Step 2.1: Get familiar with extending Project for the web using Power Apps
    • Step 2.2: Assess the MS Gold Partner Community
    • Step 3.1: Prepare an action plan

    Phase Outcomes

    • A decision on how best to proceed (or not proceed) with Project for the web
    • A Partner outreach plan

    Step 2.1

    Get familiar with extending Project for the web using Power Apps

    Activities

    • Get familiar with Project for the web: how it differs from Microsoft’s traditional project offerings and where it is going
    • Understand the basics of how to extend Project for the web in Power Apps
    • Perform a feasibility test

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Get familiar with Project for the web
    • Understand the basics of how to extend Project for the web in Power Apps
    • Perform a feasibility test to determine if taking a DIY approach to extending Project for the web is right for your organization currently

    This step usually involves the following participants:

    • Portfolio Manager (PMO Director)
    • Project Managers
    • Other relevant PMO stakeholders

    Outcomes of Step

    • A decision on how best to proceed (or not proceed) with Project for the web

    Project for the web is the latest of Microsoft’s project management offerings

    What is Project for the web?

    • First introduced in 2019 as Project Service, Project for the web (PFTW) is Microsoft’s entry into the world of cloud-based work management and lightweight project management options.
    • Built on the Power Platform and leveraging the Dataverse for data storage, PFTW integrates with the many applications that M365 users are already employing in their day-to-day work management and collaboration activities.
    • It is available as a part of your M365 subscription with the minimum activation of P1 license – it comes with P3 and P5 licenses as well.
    • From a functionality and user experience perspective, PFTW is closer to applications like Planner or Azure Boards than it is to traditional MS Project options.

    What does it do?

    • PFTW allows for task and dependency tracking and basic timeline creation and scheduling and offers board and grid view options. It also allows real-time coauthoring of tasks among team members scheduled to the same project.
    • PFTW also comes with a product/functionality Microsoft calls Roadmap, which allows users to aggregate multiple project timelines into a single view for reporting purposes.

    What doesn't it do?

    • With PFTW, Microsoft is offering noticeably less traditional project management functionality than its existing solutions. Absent are table stakes project management capabilities like critical path, baselining, resource load balancing, etc.

    Who is it for?

    • Currently, in its base lightweight project management option, PFTW is targeted toward occasional or part-time project managers (not the PMP-certified set) tasked with overseeing and/or collaborating on small to mid-sized initiatives and projects.

    Put Project for the web in perspective

    Out of the box, PFTW occupies a liminal space when it comes to work management options

    • More than a task management tool, but not quite a full project management tool
    • Not exactly a portfolio management tool, yet some PPM reporting functionality is inherent in the PFTW through Roadmap

    The table to the right shows some of the functionality in PFTW in relation to the task management functionality of Planner and the enterprise project and portfolio management functionality of Project Online.

    Table 2.1a Planner Project for the web Project Online
    Coauthoring on Tasks X X
    Task Planning X X X
    Resource Assignments X X X
    Board Views X X X
    MS Teams Integration X X X
    Roadmap X X
    Table and Gantt Views X X
    Task Dependency Tracking X X
    Timesheets X
    Financial Planning X
    Risks and Issues Tracking X
    Program Management X
    Advanced Portfolio Management X

    Project for the web will eventually replace Project Online

    • As early as 2018 Microsoft has been foreshadowing a transition away from the SharePoint-backed Project environments of Server and Online toward something based in Common Data Service (CDS) – now rebranded as the Dataverse.
    • Indeed, as recently as the spring of 2021, at its Reimagine Project Management online event, Microsoft reiterated its plans to sunset Project Online and transition existing Online users to the new environment of Project for the web – though it provided no firm dates when this might occur.
      • The reason for this move away from Online appears to be an acknowledgment that the rigidity of the tool is awkward in our current dynamic, collaborative, and overhead-adverse work management paradigm.
      • To paraphrase a point made by George Bullock, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, for Microsoft at the Reimagine Project Management event, teams want to manage work as they see fit, but the rigidity of legacy solutions doesn’t allow for this, leading to a proliferation of tools and data sprawl. (This comment was made during the “Overview of Microsoft Project” session during the Reimagine event.)

    PFTW is Microsoft’s proposed future-state antidote to this challenge. Its success will depend on how well users are able to integrate the solution into a wider M365 work management setting.

    "We are committed to supporting our customers on Project Online and helping them transition to Project for the Web. No end-of-support has been set for Project Online, but when the time comes, we will communicate our plans on the transition path and give you plenty of advance notice." (Heather Heide, Program Manager, Microsoft Planner and Project. This comment was made during the “Overview of Microsoft Project” session during the Reimagine event.)

    Project for the web can be extended beyond its base lightweight functionality

    Project for the web can be extended to add more traditional and robust project and project portfolio management functionality using the Power Platform.

    Microsoft plans to sunset Project Online in favor of PFTW will at first be a head-scratcher for those familiar with the extensive PPM functionality in Project Online and underwhelmed by the project and portfolio management in PFTW.

    However, having built the solution upon the Power Platform, Microsoft has made it possible to take the base functionality in PFTW and extend it to create a more custom, organizationally specific user experience.

    • With a little taste of what can be done with PFTW by leveraging the Power Platform – and, in particular, Power Apps – it becomes more obvious how we, as users, can begin to evolve the base tool toward a more traditional PPM solution and how, in time, Microsoft’s developers may develop the next iteration of PFTW into something more closely resembling Project Online.

    Before users get too excited about using these tools to build a custom PPM approach, we should consider the time, effort, and skills required. The slides ahead will take you through a series of considerations to help you gauge whether your PMO is ready to go it alone in extending the solution.

    Extending the tool enhances functionality

    Table 2.1a in this step displayed the functionality in PFTW in relation to the task management tool Planner and the robust PPM functionality in Online.

    The table to the right shows how the functionality in PFTW can differ from the base solution and Project Online when it is extended using the model-driven app option in Power Apps.

    Caveat: The list of functionality and processes in this table is sample data.

    This functionality is not inherent in the solution as soon as you integrate with Power Apps. Rather it must be built – and your success in developing these functions will depend upon the time and skills you have available.

    Table 2.1b Project for the web PFTW extended with PowerApps Project Online
    Critical Path X
    Timesheets X
    Financial Planning X X
    Risks and Issues Tracking X X
    Program Management X
    Status Updates X
    Project Requests X
    Business Cases X
    Project Charters X
    Resource Planning and Capacity Management X X
    Project Change Requests X

    Get familiar with the basics of Power Apps before you decide to go it alone

    While the concept of being able to customize and grow a commercial PPM tool is enticing, the reality of low-code development and application maintenance may be too much for resource-constrained PMOs.

    Long story short: Extending PFTW in Power Apps is time consuming and can be frustrating for the novice to intermediate user.

    It can take days, even weeks, just to find your feet in Power Apps, let alone to determine requirements to start building out a custom model-driven app. The latter activity can entail creating custom columns and tables, determining relationships between tables to get required outputs, in addition to basic design activities.

    Time-strapped and resource-constrained practitioners should pause before committing to this deployment approach. To help better understand the commitment, the slides ahead cover the basics of extending PFTW in Power Apps:

    1. Dataverse environments.
    2. Navigating Power App Designer and Sitemap Designer
    3. Customizing tables and forms in the Dataverse

    See Info-Tech’s M365 Project Portfolio Management Tool Guide for more information on Power Apps in general.

    Get familiar with Power Apps licensing

    Power Apps for 365 comes with E1 through E5 M365 licenses (and F3 and F5 licenses), though additional functionality can be purchased if required.

    While extending Project for the web with Power Apps does not at this time, in normal deployments, require additional licensing from what is included in a E3 or E5 license, it is not out of the realm of possibility that a more complex deployment could incur costs not included in the Power Apps for 365 that comes with your enterprise agreement.

    The table to the right shows current additional licensing options.

    Power Apps, Per User, Per App Plan

    Per User Plan

    Cost: US$10 per user per app per month, with a daily Dataverse database capacity of 40 MB and a daily Power Platform request capacity of 1,000. Cost: US$40 per user per month, with a daily Dataverse database capacity of 250 MB and a daily Power Platform request capacity of 5,000.
    What's included? This option is marketed as the option that allows organizations to “get started with the platform at a lower entry point … [or those] that run only a few apps.” Users can run an application for a specific business case scenario with “the full capabilities of Power Apps” (meaning, we believe, that unlicensed users can still submit data via an app created by a licensed user). What's included? A per-user plan allows licensed users to run unlimited canvas apps and model-driven apps – portal apps, the licensing guide says, can be “provisioned by customers on demand.” Dataverse database limits (the 250 MB and 5,000 request capacity mentioned above) are pooled at the per tenant, not the per user plan license, capacity.

    For more on Power Apps licensing, refer to Info-Tech’s Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era for more information.

    What needs to be configured?

    Extending Project for the web requires working with your IT peers to get the right environments configured based upon your needs.

    • PFTW data is stored in the Microsoft Dataverse (formerly Common Data Service or CDS).
    • The organization’s Dataverse can be made up of one to many environments based upon its needs. Environments are individual databases with unique proprieties in terms of who can access them and what applications can store data in them.
    • Project for the web supports three different types of environments: default, production, and sandbox.
    • You can have multiple instances of a custom PFTW app deployed across these environments and across different users – and the environment you choose depends upon the use case of each instance.

    Types of Environments

    • Default Environment

      • It is the easiest to deploy and get started with the PFTW Power App in the default environment. However, it is also the most restricted environment with the least room for configuration.
      • Microsoft recommends this environment for simple deployments or for projects that span the organization. This is because everyone in the organization is by default a member of this environment – and, with the least room for configuration, the app is relatively straightforward.
      • At minimum, you need one project license to deploy PFTW in the default environment.
    • Production Environment

      • This environment affords more flexibility for how a custom app can be configured and deployed. Unlike the default environment, deploying a production environment is a manual process (through the Power Platform Admin Center) and security roles need to be set to limit users who can access the environment.
      • Because users can be limited, production environments can be used to support more advanced deployments and can support diverse processes for different teams.
      • At present, you need at least five Project licenses to deploy to production environments.
    • Sandbox Environment

      • This environment is for users who are responsible for the creation of custom apps. It offers the same functionality as a production environment but allows users to make changes without jeopardizing a production environment.

    Resources to provide your IT colleagues with to help in your PFTW deployment:

    1. Project for the web admin help (Product Documentation, Microsoft)
    2. Advanced deployment for Project for the web (Video, Microsoft)
    3. Get Started with Project Power App (Product Support Documentation, Microsoft)
    4. Project for the Web Security Roles (Product Support Documentation, Microsoft)

    Get started creating or customizing a model-driven app

    With the proper environments procured, you can now start extending Project for the web.

    • Navigate to the environment you would like to extend PFTW within. For the purposes of the slides ahead, we’ll be using a sandbox environment for an example. Ensure you have the right access set up for production and sandbox environments of your own (see links on previous slide for more assistance).
    • To begin extending PFTW, the two core features you need to be familiar with before you start in Power Apps are (1) Tables/Entities and (2) the Power Apps Designer – and in particular the Site Map.

    From the Power Apps main page in 365, you can change your environment by selecting from the options in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

    Screenshot of the Power Apps “Apps” page in a sandbox environment. The Project App will appear as “Project” when the application is installed, though it is also easy to create an app from scratch.

    Model-driven apps are built around tables

    In Power Apps, tables (formerly called entities and still referred to as entities in the Power Apps Designer) function much like tables in Excel: they are containers of columns of data for tracking purposes. Tables define the data for your app, and you build your app around them.

    In general, there are three types of tables:

    • Standard: These are out-of-the box tables included with a Dataverse environment. Most standard tables can be customized.
    • Managed: These are tables that get imported into an environment as part of a managed solution. Managed tables cannot be customized.
    • Custom: These types of tables can either be imported from another solution or created directly in the Dataverse environment. To create custom tables, users need to have System Administrator or System Customizer security roles within the Dataverse.

    Tables can be accessed under Data banner on the left-hand panel of your Power Apps screen.

    The below is a list of standard tables that can be used to customize your Project App.

    A screenshot of the 'Data' banner in 'Power Apps' and a list of table names.

    Table Name

    Display Name

    msdyn_project Project
    msdyn_projectchange Change
    msdyn_projectprogram Program
    msdyn_projectrequest Request
    msdyn_projectrisk Risk
    msdyn_projectissue Issue
    msdyn_projectstatusreport Status

    App layouts are designed in the Power App Designer

    You configure tables with a view to using them in the design of your app in the Power Apps Designer.

    • If you’re customizing a Project for the web app manually installed into your production or sandbox environment, you can access Designer by highlighting the app from your list of apps on the Apps page and clicking “Edit” in the ribbon above.
      • If you’re creating a model-driven app from scratch, Designer will open past the “Create a New App” intro screen.
      • If you need to create separate apps in your environment for different PMOs or business units, it is as easy to create an app from scratch as it is to customize the manual install.
    • The App Designer is where you can design the layout of your model-driven app and employ the right data tables.
    Screenshot of the 'App Designer' screen in 'Power Apps'.

    The Site Map determines the navigation for your app, i.e. it is where you establish the links and pages users will navigate. We will review the basics of the sitemap on the next few slides.

    The tables that come loaded into your Project Power App environment (at this time, 37) via the manual install will appear in the Power Apps Designer in the Entity View pane at the bottom of the page. You do not have to use all of them in your design.

    Navigate the Sitemap Designer

    With the components of the previous two slides in mind, let’s walk through how to use them together in the development of a Project app.

    As addressed in the previous slide, the sitemap determines the navigation for your app, i.e. it is where you establish the links and the pages that users will navigate.

    To get to the Sitemap Designer, highlight the Project App from your list of apps on the Apps page and click “Edit” in the ribbon above. If you’re creating a model-driven app from scratch, Designer will open past the “Create a New App” intro screen.

    • To start designing your app layout, click the pencil icon beside the Site Map logo on the App Designer screen.
    • This will take you into the Sitemap Designer (see screenshot to the right). This is where you determine the layout of your app and the relevant data points (and related tables from within the Dataverse) that will factor into your Project App.
    • In the Sitemap Designer, you simply drag and drop the areas, groups, and subareas you want to see in your app’s user interface (see next slide for more details).
    Screenshot of the 'Sitemap Designer' in 'Power Apps'.

    Use Areas, Groups, and Subareas as building blocks for your App

    Screenshots of the main window and the right-hand panel in the 'Sitemap Designer', and of the subarea pop-up panel where you connect components to data tables. The first two separate elements into 'Area', 'Group', and 'Subarea'.

    Drag and drop the relevant components from the panel on the right-hand side of the screen into the main window to design the core pieces that will be present within your user interface.

    For each subarea in your design, use the pop-up panel on the right-hand side of the screen to connect your component the relevant table from within your Dataverse environment.

    How do Areas, Groups, and Subareas translate into an app?

    Screenshots of the main window in the 'Sitemap Designer' and of a left-hand panel from a published 'Project App'. There are notes defining the terms 'Area', 'Group', and 'Subarea' in the context of the screenshot.

    The names or titles for your Areas and Groups can be customized within the Sitemap Designer.

    The names or titles for your Subareas is dependent upon your table name within the Dataverse.

    Area: App users can toggle the arrows to switch between Areas.

    Group: These will change to reflect the chosen Area.

    Subarea: The tables and forms associated with each subarea.

    How to properly save and publish your changes made in the Sitemap Designer and Power Apps Designer:

    1. When you are done making changes to your components within the Sitemap Designer, and want your changes to go live, hit the “Publish” button in the top right corner; when it has successfully published, select “Save and Close.”
    2. You will be taken back to the Power App Designer homepage. Hit “Save,” then “Publish,” and then finally “Play,” to go to your app or “Save and Close.”

    How to find the right tables in the Dataverse

    While you determine which tables will play into your app in the Sitemap Designer, you use the Tables link to customize tables and forms.

    Screenshots of the tables search screen and the 'Tables' page under the 'Data' banner in 'Power Apps'.

    The Tables page under the Data banner in Power Apps houses all of the tables available in your Dataverse environment. Do not be overwhelmed or get too excited. Only a small portion of the tables in the Tables folder in Power Apps will be relevant when it comes to extending PFTW.

    Find the table you would like to customize and/or employ in your app and select it. The next slides will look at customizing the table (if you need to) and designing an app based upon the table.

    To access all the tables in your environment, you’ll need to ensure your filter is set correctly on the top right-hand corner of the screen, otherwise you will only see a small portion of the tables in your Dataverse environment.

    If you’re a novice, it will take you some time to get familiar with the table structure in the Dataverse.

    We recommend you start with the list of tables listed on slide. You can likely find something there that you can use or build from for most PPM purposes.

    How to customize a table (1 of 3)

    You won’t necessarily need to customize a table, but if you do here are some steps to help you get familiar with the basics.

    Screenshot of the 'Columns' tab, open in the 'msdyn_project table' in 'Power Apps'.

    In this screenshot, we are clicked into the msdyn_project (display name: Project) table. As you can see, there are a series of tabs below the name of the table, and we are clicked into the Columns tab. This is where you can see all of the data points included in the table.

    You are not able to customize all columns. If a column that you are not able to customize does not meet your needs, you will need to create a custom column from the “+Add column” option.

    “Required” or “Optional” status pertains to when the column or field is used within your app. For customizable or custom columns this status can be set when you click into each column.

    How to customize a table (2 of 3)

    Create a custom “Status” column.

    By way of illustrating how you might need to customize a table, we’ll highlight the “msdyn_project_statecode” (display name: Project Status) column that comes preloaded in the Project (msdyn_project) table.

    • The Project Status column only gives you a binary choice. While you are able to customize what that binary choice is (it comes preloaded with “Active” and “Inactive” as the options) you cannot add additional choices – so you cannot set it to red/yellow/green, the most universally adopted options for status in the project portfolio management world.
    • Because of this, let’s look at the effort involved in creating a choice and adding a custom column to your table based upon that choice.
    Screenshots of the '+New choice' button in the 'Choices' tab and the 'New choice' pane that opens when you click it.

    From within the Choices tab, click “+New choice” option to create a custom choice.

    A pane will appear to the right of your screen. From there you can give your choice a name, and under the “Items” header, add your list of options.

    Click save. Your custom choice is now saved to the Choices tab in the Dataverse environment and can be used in your table. Further customizations can be made to your choice if need be.

    How to customize a table (3 of 3)

    Back in the Tables tab, you can put your new choice to work by adding a column to a table and selecting your custom choice.

    Screenshots of the pop-up window that appear when you click '+Add Column', and details of what happens when you select the data type 'Choice'.

    Start by selecting “+ Add Column” at the top left-hand side of your table. A window will appear on the right-hand side of the page, and you will have options to name your column and choose the data type.

    As you can see in this screenshot to the left, data type options include text, number and date types, and many more. Because we are looking to use our custom choice for this example, we are going to choose “Choice.”

    When you select “Choice” as your data type, all of the choice options available or created in your Dataverse environment will appear. Find your custom choice – in this example the one name “RYG Status” – and click done. When the window closes, be sure to select “Save Table.”

    How to develop a Form based upon your table (1 of 3 – open the form editor)

    A form is the interface users will engage with when using your Project app.

    When the Project app is first installed in your environment, the main user form will be lacking, with only a few basic data options.

    This form can be customized and additional tabs can be added to your user interface.

    1. To do this, go to the table you want to customize.
    2. In the horizontal series of tabs at the top of the screen, below the table title select the “Forms” option.
    3. Click on the main information option or select Edit Form for the form with “Main” under its form type. A new window will open where you can customize your form.
    Screenshot of the 'Forms' tab, open in the 'msdyn_project' table in 'Power Apps'.

    Select the Forms tab.

    Start with the form that has “Main” as its Format Type.

    How to develop a Form based upon your table (2 of 3 – add a component)

    Screenshot of the 'Components' window in 'Power Apps' with a list of layouts as a window to the right of the main screen where you can name and format the chosen layout.

    You can add element like columns or sections to your form by selecting the Components window.

    In this example, we are adding a 1-Column section. When you select that option from the menu options on the left of the screen, a window will open to the right of the screen where you can name and format the section.

    Choose the component you would like to add from the layout options. Depending on the table element you are looking to use, you can also add input options like number inputs and star ratings and pull in related data elements like a project timeline.

    How to develop a Form based upon your table (3 of 3 – add table columns)

    Screenshot of the 'Table Columns' window in 'Power Apps' and instructions for adding table columns.

    If you click on the “Table Columns” option on the left-hand pane, all of the column options from within your table will appear in alphabetical order.

    When clicked within the form section you would like to add the new column to, select the column from the list of option in the left-hand pane. The new data point will appear within the section. You can order and format section elements as you would like.

    When you are done editing the form, click the “Save” icon in the top right-hand corner. If you are ready for your changes to go live within your Project App, select the “Publish” icon in the top right-hand corner. Your updated form will go live within all of the apps that use it.

    The good and the bad of extending Project for the web

    The content in this step has not instructed users how to extend PFTW; rather, it has covered three basic core pieces of Power Apps that those interesting in PFTW need to be aware of: Dataverse environments, the Power Apps and Sitemaps Designers, and Tables and associated Forms.

    Because we have only covered the very tip of the iceberg, those interested in going further and taking a DIY approach to extending PFTW will need to build upon these basics to unlock further functionality. Indeed, it takes work to develop the product into something that begins to resemble a viable enterprise project and portfolio management solution. Here are some of the good and the bad elements associated with that work:

    The Good:

    • You can right-size and purpose build: add as much or as little project management rigor as your process requires. Related, you can customize the solution in multiple ways to suit the needs of specific business units or portfolios.
    • Speed to market: it is possible to get up and running quickly with a minimum-viable product.

    The Bad:

    • Work required: to build anything beyond MVP requires independent research and trial and error.
    • Time required: to build anything beyond MVP requires time and skills that many PMOs don’t have.
    • Shadow support costs: ungoverned app creation could have negative support and maintenance impacts across IT.

    "The move to Power Platform and low code development will […increase] maintenance overhead. Will low code solution hit problems at scale? [H]ow easy will it be to support hundreds or thousands of small applications?

    I can hear the IT support desks already complaining at the thought of this. This part of the puzzle is yet to hit real world realities of support because non developers are busy creating lots of low code applications." (Ben Hosking, Software Developer and Blogger, "Why low code software development is eating the world")

    Quick start your extension with the Accelerator

    For those starting out, there is a pre-built app you can import into your environment to extend the Project for the web app without any custom development.

    • If the DIY approach in the previous slides was overwhelming, and you don’t have the budget for a MS Partner route in the near-term, this doesn’t mean that evolving your Project for the web app is unattainable.
    • Thanks to a partnership between OnePlan (one of the MS Gold Partners we detail in the next step) and Microsoft, Project for the web users have access to a free resource to help them evolve the base Project app. It’s called the “Project for the web Accelerator” (commonly referred to as “the Accelerator” for short).
    • Users interested in learning more about, and accessing, this free resource should refer to the links below:
      1. The Future of Microsoft Project Online (source: OnePlan).
      2. Introducing the Project Accelerator (source: Microsoft).
      3. Project for the web Accelerator (source: GitHub)
    Screen shot from one of the dashboards that comes with the Accelerator (image source: GitHub).

    2.1.1 Perform a feasibility test (1 of 2)

    15 mins

    As we’ve suggested, and as the material in this step indicates, extending PFTW in a DIY fashion is not small task. You need a knowledge of the Dataverse and Power Apps, and access to the requisite skills, time, and resources to develop the solution.

    To determine whether your PMO and organization are ready to go it alone in extending PFTW, perform the following activity:

    1. Convene a collection of portfolio, project, and PMO staff.
    2. Using the six-question survey on tab 5 of the Microsoft Project & M365 Licensing Tool (see screenshot to the right) as a jumping off point for a discussion, consider the readiness of your PMO or project organization to undertake a DIY approach to extending and implementing PFTW at this time.
    3. You can use the recommendations on tab 5 of the Microsoft Project & 365 Licensing Tool to inform your next steps, and input the gauge graphic in section 4 of the Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template.
    Screenshots from the 'Project for the Web Extensibility Feasibility Test'.

    Go to tab 5 of the Microsoft Project & M365 Licensing Tool

    See next slide for additional activity details

    2.1.1 Perform a feasibility test (2 of 2)

    Input: The contents of this step, The Project for the Web Extensibility Feasibility Test (tab 5 in the Microsoft Project & 365 Licensing Tool)

    Output: Initial recommendations on whether to proceed and how to proceed with a DIY approach to extending Project for the web

    Materials: The Project for the Web Extensibility Feasibility Test (tab 5 in the Microsoft Project & 365 Licensing Tool)

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), Project Managers, Other relevant PMO stakeholders

    Step 2.2

    Assess the Microsoft Gold Partner Community

    Activities

    • Review what to look for in a Microsoft Partner
    • Determine whether your needs would benefit from reaching out to a Microsoft Partner
    • Review three key Partners from the North American market
    • Create a Partner outreach plan

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Review what to look for in a Microsoft Partner.
    • Determine whether your needs would benefit from reaching out to a Microsoft Partner.
    • Review three key Partners from the North American market.

    This step usually involves the following participants:

    • Portfolio Manager (PMO Director)
    • Project Managers
    • Other relevant PMO stakeholders

    Outcomes of Step

    • A better understanding of MS Partners
    • A Partner outreach plan

    You don’t have to go it alone

    Microsoft has an established community of Partners who can help in your customizations and implementations of Project for the web and other MS Project offerings.

    If the content in the previous step seemed too technical or overly complex in a way that scared you away from a DIY approach to extending Microsoft’s latest project offering (and at some point in the near future, soon to be its only project offering), Project for the web, fear not.

    You do not have to wade into the waters of extending Project for the web alone, or for that matter, in implementing any other MS Project solution.

    Instead, Microsoft nurtures a community of Silver and Gold partners who offer hands-on technical assistance and tool implementation services. While the specific services provided vary from partner to partner, all can assist in the customization and implementation of any of Microsoft’s Project offerings.

    In this step we will cover what to look for in a Partner and how to assess whether you are a good candidate for the services of a Partner. We will also highlight three Partners from within the North American market.

    The basics of the Partner community

    What is a Microsoft Partner?

    Simply put, an MS Gold Partner is a software or professional services organization that provides sales and services related to Microsoft products.

    They’re resellers, implementors, integrators, software manufacturers, trainers, and virtually any other technology-related business service.

    • Microsoft has for decades opted out of being a professional services organization, outside of its very “leading edge” offerings from MCS (Microsoft Consulting Services) for only those technologies that are so new that they aren’t yet supported by MS Partners.
    • As you can see in the chart on the next slide, to become a silver or gold certified partner, firms must demonstrate expertise in specific areas of business and technology in 18 competency areas that are divided into four categories: applications and infrastructure, business applications, data and AI, and modern workplace and security.

    More information on what it takes to become a Microsoft Partner:

    1. Partner Center (Document Center, Microsoft)
    2. Differentiate your business by attaining Microsoft competencies (Document Center, Microsoft)
    3. Partner Network Homepage (Webpage, Microsoft)
    4. See which partner offer is right for you (Webpage, Microsoft)

    Types of partnerships and qualifications

    Microsoft Partner Network

    Microsoft Action Pack

    Silver Competency

    Gold Competency

    What is it?

    The Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) is a community that offers members tools, information, and training. Joining the MPN is an entry-level step for all partners. The Action Pack is an annual subscription offered to entry-level partners. It provides training and marketing materials and access to expensive products and licenses at a vastly reduced price. Approximately 5% of firms in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) are silver partners. These partners are subject to audits and annual competency exams to maintain silver status. Approximately 1% of firms in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) are gold partners. These partners are subject to audits and annual competency exams to maintain Gold status.

    Requirements

    Sign up for a membership Annual subscription fee While requirements can vary across competency area, broadly speaking, to become a silver partner firms must:
    • Pass regular exams and skills assessments, with at least two individuals on staff with Microsoft Certified Professional Status.
    • Hit annual customer, revenue, and licensing metrics.
    • Pay the annual subscription fee.
    While requirements can vary across competency area, broadly speaking, to become a gold partner firms must:
    • Pass regular exams and skills assessments, with at least two individuals on staff with Microsoft Certified Professional Status.
    • Hit annual customer, revenue, and licensing metrics.
    • Pay the annual subscription fee.

    Annual Fee

    No Cost $530 $1800 $5300

    When would a MS Partner be helpful?

    • Project management and portfolio management practitioners might look into procuring the services of a Microsoft Partner for a variety of reasons.
    • Because services vary from partner to partner (help to extend Project for the web, implement Project Server or Project Online, augment PMO staffing, etc.) we won’t comment on specific needs here.
    • Instead, the three most common conditions that trigger the need are listed to the right.

    Speed

    When you need to get results faster than your staff can grow the needed capabilities.

    Cost

    When the complexity of the purchase decision, implementation, communication, training, configuration, and/or customization cannot be cost-justified for internal staff, often because you’ll only do it once.

    Expertise & Skills

    When your needs cannot be met by the core Microsoft technology without significant extension or customization.

    Canadian Microsoft Partners Spotlight

    As part of our research process for this blueprint, Info-Tech asked Microsoft Canada for referrals and introductions to leading Microsoft Partners. We spent six months collaborating with them on fresh research into the underlying platform.

    These vendors are listed below and are highlighted in subsequent slides.

    Spotlighted Partners:

    Logo for One Plan. Logo for PMO Outsource Ltd. Logo for Western Principles.

    Please Note: While these vendors were referred to us by Microsoft Canada and have a footprint in the Canadian market, their footprints extend beyond this to the North American and global markets.

    A word about our approach

    Photo of Barry Cousins, Project Portfolio Management Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group.
    Barry Cousins
    Project Portfolio Management Practice Lead
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Our researchers have been working with Microsoft Project Online and Microsoft Project Server clients for years, and it’s fair to say that most of these clients (at some point) used a Microsoft Partner in their deployment. They’re not really software products, per se; they’re platforms. As a Microsoft Partner in 2003 when Project Server got its first big push, I heard it loud and clear: “Some assembly required. You might only make 7% on the licensing, but the world’s your oyster for services.”

    In the past few years, Microsoft froze the market for major Microsoft Project decisions by making it clear that the existing offering is not getting updates while the new offering (Project for the web) doesn’t do what the old one did. And in a fascinating timing coincidence, the market substantially adopted Microsoft 365 during that period, which enables access to Project for the web.

    Many of Info-Tech’s clients are justifiably curious, confused, and concerned, while the Microsoft Partners have persisted in their knowledge and capability. So, we asked Microsoft Canada for referrals and introductions to leading Microsoft Partners and spent six months collaborating with them on fresh research into the underlying platform.

    Disclosure: Info-Tech conducted collaborative research with the partners listed on the previous slide to produce this publication. Market trends and reactions were studied, but the only clients identified were in case studies provided by the Microsoft Partners. Info-Tech’s customers have been, and remain, anonymous. (Barry Cousins, Project Portfolio Management Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group)

    MS Gold Partner Spotlight:

    OnePlan

    Logo for One Plan.
    Headquarters: San Marcos, California, and Toronto, Ontario
    Number of Employees: ~80
    Active Since: 2007 (as EPMLive)
    Website: www.oneplan.ai

    Who are they?

    • While the OnePlan brand has only been the marketplace for a few years, the company has been a major player in MS Gold Partner space for well over a decade.
    • Born out of EPMLive in the mid-aughts, OnePlan Solutions has evolved through a series of acquisitions, including Upland, Tivitie, and most recently Wicresoft.

    What do they do?

    • Software: Its recent rebranding is largely because OnePlan Solutions is as much a software company as it is a professional services firm. The OnePlan software product is an impressive solution that can be used on its own to facilitate the portfolio approaches outlined on the next slide and that can also integrate with the tools your organization is already using to manage tasks (see here for a full rundown of the solutions within the Microsoft stack and beyond OnePlan can integrate with).
    • Beyond its ability to integrate with existing solutions, as a software product, OnePlan has modules for resource planning, strategic portfolio planning, financial planning, time tracking, and more.

    • PPM Consulting Services: The OnePlan team also offers portfolio management consulting services. See the next slide for a list of its approaches to project portfolio management.

    Markets served

    • US, Canada, Europe, and Australia

    Channel Differentiation

    • OnePlan scales to all the PPM needs of all industry types.
    • Additionally, OnePlan offers insights and functionality specific to the needs of BioTech-Pharma.

    What differentiates OnePlan?

    • OnePlan co-developed the Project Accelerator for Project for the web with Microsoft. The OnePlan team’s involvement in developing the Accelerator and making it free for users to access suggests it is aligned to and has expertise in the purpose-built and collaborative vision behind Microsoft’s move away from Project Online and toward the Power Platform and Teams collaboration.
    • 2021 MS Gold Partner of the Year. At Microsoft’s recent Microsoft Inspire event, OnePlan was recognized as the Gold Partner of the Year for Project and Portfolio Management as well as a finalist for Power Apps and Power Automate.
    • OnePlan Approaches: Below is a list of the services or approaches to project portfolio management that OnePlan provides. See its website for more details.
      • Strategic Portfolio Management: Align work to objectives and business outcomes. Track performance against the proposed objectives outcomes.
      • Agile Portfolio Management: Implement Agile practices across the organization, both at the team and executive level.
      • Adaptive Portfolio Management: Allow teams to use the project methodology and tools that best suit the work/team. Maintain visibility and decision making across the entire portfolio.
      • Professional Services Automation: Use automation to operate with greater efficiency.

    "OnePlan offers a strategic portfolio, financial and resource management solution that fits the needs of every PMO. Optimize your portfolio, financials and resources enterprise wide." (Paul Estabrooks, Vice President at OnePlan)

    OnePlan Case Study

    This case study was provided to Info-Tech by OnePlan.

    Brambles

    INDUSTRY: Supply Chain & Logistics
    SOURCE: OnePlan

    Overview: Brambles plays a key role in the delivery or return of products amongst global trading partners such as manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

    Challenge

    Brambles had a variety of Project Management tools with no easy way of consolidating project management data. The proliferation of project management solutions was hindering the execution of a long-term business transformation strategy. Brambles needed certain common and strategic project management processes and enterprise project reporting while still allowing individual project management solutions to be used as part of the PPM platform.

    Solution

    As part of the PMO-driven business transformation strategy, Brambles implemented a project management “operating system” acting as a foundation for core processes such as project intake, portfolio management, resource, and financial planning and reporting while providing integration capability for a variety of tools used for project execution.

    OnePlan’s new Adaptive PPM platform, combining the use of PowerApps and OnePlan, gives Brambles the desired PPM operating system while allowing for tool flexibility at the execution level.

    Results

    • Comprehensive picture of progress across the portfolio.
    • Greater adoption by allowing flexibility of work management tools.
    • Modern portfolio management solution that enables leadership to make confident decision.

    Solution Details

    • OnePlan
    • Project
    • Power Apps
    • Power Automate
    • Power BI
    • Teams

    Contacting OnePlan Solutions

    www.oneplan.ai

    Joe Larscheid: jlarscheid@oneplan.ai
    Paul Estabrooks: pestabrooks@oneplan.ai
    Contact Us: contact@oneplan.ai
    Partners: partner@oneplan.ai

    Partner Resources. OnePlan facilitates regular ongoing live webinars on PPM topics that anyone can sign up for on the OnePlan website.

    For more information on upcoming webinars, or to access recordings of past webinars, see here.

    Additional OnePlan Resources

    1. How to Extend Microsoft Teams into a Collaborative Project, Portfolio and Work Management Solution (on-demand webinar, OnePlan’s YouTube channel)
    2. What Does Agile PPM Mean To The Modern PMO (on-demand webinar, OnePlan’s YouTube channel)
    3. OnePlan is fused with the Microsoft User Experience (blog article, OnePlan)
    4. Adaptive Portfolio Management Demo – Bringing Order to the Tool Chaos with OnePlan (product demo, OnePlan’s YouTube channel)
    5. How OnePlan is aligning with Microsoft’s Project and Portfolio Management Vision (blog article, OnePlan)
    6. Accelerating Office 365 Value with a Hybrid Project Portfolio Management Solution (product demo, OnePlan’s YouTube channel)

    MS Gold Partner Spotlight:

    PMO Outsource Ltd.

    Logo for PMO Outsource Ltd.

    Headquarters: Calgary, Alberta, and Mississauga, Ontario
    Website: www.pmooutsource.com

    Who are they?

    • PMO Outsource Ltd. is a Microsoft Gold Partner and PMI certified professional services firm based in Alberta and Ontario, Canada.
    • It offers comprehensive project and portfolio management offerings with a specific focus on project lifecycle management, including demand management, resource management, and governance and communication practices.

    What do they do?

    • Project Online and Power Platform Expertise. The PMO Outsource Ltd. team has extensive knowledge in both Microsoft’s old tech (Project Server and Desktop) and in its newer, cloud-based technologies (Project Online, Project for the web, the Power Platform, and Dynamics 365). As the case study in two slides demonstrates, PMO Outsource Ltd. Uses its in-depth knowledge of the Microsoft suite to help organizations automate project and portfolio data collection process, create efficiencies, and encourage cloud adoption.
    • PPM Consulting Services: In addition to its Microsoft platform expertise, the PMO Outsource Ltd. team also offers project and portfolio management consulting services, helping organizations evolve their process and governance structures as well as their approaches to PPM tooling.

    Markets served

    • Global

    Channel Differentiation

    • PMO Outsource Ltd. scales to all the PPM needs of all industry types.

    What differentiates PMO Outsource Ltd.?

    • PMO Staff Augmentation. In addition to its technology and consulting services, PMO Outsource Ltd. offers PMO staff augmentation services. As advertised on its website, it offers “scalable PMO staffing solutions. Whether you require Project Managers, Business Analysts, Admins or Coordinators, [PMO Outsource Ltd.] can fulfill your talent search requirements from a skilled pool of resources.”
    • Multiple and easy-to-understand service contract packages. PMO Outsource Ltd. offers many prepackaged service offerings to suit PMOs’ needs. Those packages include “PMO Management, Admin, and Support,” “PPM Solution, Site and Workflow Configuration,” and “Add-Ons.” For full details of what’s included in these services packages, see the PMO Outsource Ltd. website.
    • PMO Outsource Ltd. Services: Below is a list of the services or approaches to project portfolio management that PMO Outsource Ltd. Provides. See its website for more details.
      • Process Automation, Workflows, and Tools. Facilitate line of sight by tailoring Microsoft’s technology to your organization’s needs and creating custom workflows.
      • PMO Management Framework. Receive a professionally managed PPM methodology as well as governance standardization of processes, tools, and templates.
      • Custom BI Reports. Leverage its expertise in reporting and dashboarding to create the visibility your organization needs.

    "While selecting an appropriate PPM tool, the PMO should not only evaluate the standard industry tools but also analyze which tool will best fit the organization’s strategy, budget, and culture in the long run." (Neeta Manghnani, PMO Strategist, PMO Outsource Ltd.)

    PMO Outsource Ltd. Case Study

    This case study was provided to Info-Tech by PMO Outsource Ltd.

    SAMUEL

    INDUSTRY: Manufacturing
    SOURCE: PMO Outsource Ltd.

    Challenge

    • MS Project 2013 Server (Legacy/OnPrem)
    • Out-of-support application and compliance with Office 365
    • Out-of-support third-party application for workflows
    • No capability for resource management
    • Too many manual processes for data maintenance and server administration

    Solution

    • Migrate project data to MS Project Online
    • Recreate workflows using Power Automate solution
    • Configure Power BI content packs for Portfolio reporting and resource management dashboards
    • Recreate OLAP reports from legacy environment using Power BI
    • Cut down nearly 50% of administrative time by automating PMO/PPM processes
    • Save costs on Server hardware/application maintenance by nearly 75%

    Full Case Study Link

    • For full details about how PMO Outsource Ltd. assisted Samuel in modernizing its solution and creating efficiencies, visit the Microsoft website where this case study is highlighted.

    Contacting PMO Outsource Ltd.

    www.pmooutsource.com

    700 8th Ave SW, #108
    Calgary, AB T2P 1H2
    Telephone : +1 (587) 355-3745
    6045 Creditview Road, #169
    Mississauga, ON L5V 0B1
    Telephone : +1 (289) 334-1228
    Information: info@pmooutsource.com
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pmo-outsource/

    Partner Resources. PMO Outsource Ltd.’s approach is rooted within a robust and comprehensive PPM framework that is focused on driving strategic outcomes and business success.

    For a full overview of its PPM framework, see here.

    Additional PMO Outsource Ltd. Resources

    1. 5 Benefits of PPM tools and PMO process automation (blog article, PMO Outsource Ltd.)
    2. Importance of PMO (blog article, PMO Outsource Ltd.)
    3. Meet the Powerful and Reimagined PPM tool for Everyone! (video, PMO Outsource Ltd. LinkedIn page)
    4. MS Project Tips: How to add #Sprints to an existing Project? (video, PMO Outsource Ltd. LinkedIn page)
    5. MS Project Tips: How to add a milestone to your project? (video, PMO Outsource Ltd. LinkedIn page)
    6. 5 Benefits of implementing Project Online Tools (video, PMO Outsource Ltd. LinkedIn page)

    MS Gold Partner Spotlight:

    Western Principles

    Logo for Western Principles.

    Headquarters: Vancouver, British Columbia
    Years Active: 16 Years
    Website: www.westernprinciples.com

    Who are they?

    • Western Principles is a Microsoft Gold Partner and UMT 360 PPM software provider based in British Columbia with a network of consultants across Canada.
    • In the last sixteen years, it has successfully conducted over 150 PPM implementations, helping in the implementation, training, and support of Microsoft Project offerings as well as UMT360 – a software solution provider that, much like OnePlan, enhances the PPM capabilities of the Microsoft platform.

    What do they do?

    • Technology expertise. The Western Principles team helps organizations maximize the value they are getting form the Microsoft Platform. Not only does it offer expertise in all the solutions in the MS Project ecosystem, it also helps organizations optimize their use and understanding of Teams, SharePoint, the Power Platform, and more. In addition to the Microsoft platform, Western Principles is partnered with many other technology providers, including UMT360 for strategic portfolio management, the Simplex Group for project document controls, HMS for time sheets, and FluentPro for integration, back-ups, and migrations.
    • PPM Consulting Services: In addition to its technical services and solutions, Western Principles offers PPM consulting and staff augmentation services.

    Markets served

    • Canada

    Channel Differentiation

    • Western Principles scales to all the PPM needs of all industry types, public and private sector.
    • In addition, its website offers persona-specific information based on the PPM needs of engineering and construction, new product development, marketing, and more.

    What differentiates Western Principles?

    • Gold-certified UMT 360 partner. In addition to being a Microsoft Gold Partner, Western Principles is a gold-certified UMT 360 partner. UMT 360 is a strategic portfolio management tool that integrates with many other work management solutions to offer holistic line of sight into the organization’s supply-demand pain points and strategic portfolio management needs. Some of the solutions UMT 360 integrates with include Project Online and Project for the web, Azure DevOps, Jira, and many more. See here for more information on the impressive functionality in UMT360.
    • Sustainment Services. Adoption can be the bane of most PPM tool implementations. Among the many services Western Principles offers, its “sustainment services” stand out. According to Western Principles’ website, these services are addressed to those who require “continual maintenance, change, and repair activities” to keep PPM systems in “good working order” to help maximize ROI.
    • Western Principles Services: In addition to the above, below is a list of some of the services that Western Principles offers. See its website for a full list of services.
      • Process Optimization: Determine your requirements and process needs.
      • Integration: Create a single source of truth.
      • Training: Ensure your team knows how to use the systems you implement.
      • Staff Augmentation: Provide experienced project team members based upon your needs.

    "One of our principles is to begin with the end in mind. This means that we will work with you to define a roadmap to help you advance your strategic portfolio … and project management capabilities. The roadmap for each customer is different and based on where you are today, and where you need to get to." (Western Principles, “Your Strategic Portfolio Management roadmap,” Whitepaper)

    Contacting Western Principles

    www.westernprinciples.com

    610 – 700 West Pender St.
    Vancouver, BC V6C 1G8
    +1 (800) 578-4155
    Information: info@westernprinciples.com
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/western-principle...

    Partner Resources. Western Principles provides a multitude of current case studies on its home page. These case studies let you know what the firm is working on this year and the type of support it provides to its clientele.

    To access these case studies, see here.

    Additional Western Principles Resources

    1. Program and Portfolio Roll ups with Microsoft Project and Power BI (video, Western Principles YouTube Channel)
    2. Dump the Spreadsheets for Microsoft Project Online (video, Western Principles YouTube Channel)
    3. Power BI for Project for the web (video, Western Principles YouTube Channel)
    4. How to do Capacity Planning and Resource Management in Microsoft Project Online [Part 1 & Part 2] (video, Western Principles YouTube Channel)
    5. Extend & Integrate Microsoft Project (whitepaper, Western Principles)
    6. Your COVID-19 Return-to-Work Plan (whitepaper, Western Principles)

    Watch Info-Tech’s Analyst-Partner Briefing Videos to lean more

    Info-Tech was able to sit down with the partners spotlighted in this step to discuss the current state of the PPM market and Microsoft’s place within it.

    • All three partners spotlighted in this step contributed to Info-Tech’s research process for this publication.
    • For two of the partners, OnePlan and PMO Outsource Ltd., Info-Tech was able to record a conversation where our analysts and the partners discuss Microsoft’s current MS Project offerings, the current state of the PPM tool market, and the services and the approaches of each respective partner.
    • A third video briefing with Western Principles has not happened yet due to logistical reasons. We are hoping we can include a video chat with our peers at Western Principles in the near future.
    Screenshot form the Analyst-Partner Briefing Videos. In addition to the content covered in this step, you can use these videos for further information about the partners to inform your next steps.

    Download Info-Tech’s Analyst-Partner Briefing Videos (OnePlan & PMO Outsource Ltd.)

    2.2.1 Create a partner outreach plan

    1-3 hours

    Input: Contents of this step, List of additional MS Gold Partners

    Output: A completed partner outreach program

    Materials: MS Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, Project Managers, CIO

    1. With an understanding of the partner ecosystem, compile a working group of PMO peers and stakeholders to produce a gameplan for engaging the MS Gold Partner ecosystem.
      • For additional partner options see Microsoft’s Partner Page.
    2. Using slide 20 in Info-Tech’s MS Project and M365 Action Plan Template, document the Partners you would want or have scheduled briefings with.
      • As you go through the briefings and research process, document the pros and cons and areas of specialized associated with each vendor for your particular work management implementation.

    Download the Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    2.2.2 Document your PM and PPM requirements

    1-3 hours

    Input: Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment, Project Management Maturity Assessment

    Output: MS Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    Materials: Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment, Project Management Maturity Assessment, MS Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    Participants: Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, Project Managers, CIO

    1. As you prepare to engage the Partner Community, you should have a sense of where your project management and project portfolio management gaps are to better communicate your tooling needs.
    2. Leverage tab 4 from both your Project Portfolio Management Assessment and Project Management Assessment from step 1.3 of this blueprint to help document and communicate your requirements. Those tabs prioritize your project and portfolio management needs by highest impact for the organization.
    3. You can use the outputs of the tab to inform your inputs on slide 23 of the MS Project & M365 Action Plan Template to present to organizational stakeholders and share with the Partners you are briefing with.

    Download the Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    Determine the Future of Microsoft Project for Your Organization

    Phase 3: Finalize Your Implementation Approach

    Phase 1: Determine Your Tool NeedsPhase 2: Weigh Your Implementation Options

    Phase 3: Finalize Your Implementation Approach

    • Step 1.1: Survey the M365 work management landscape
    • Step 1.2: Perform a process maturity assessment to help inform your M365 starting point
    • Step 1.3: Consider the right MS Project licenses for your stakeholders
    • Step 2.1: Get familiar with extending Project for the web using Power Apps
    • Step 2.2: Assess the MS Gold Partner Community
    • Step 3.1: Prepare an action plan

    Phase Outcomes

    An action plan concerning what to do with MS Project and M365 for your PMO or project organization.

    Step 3.1

    Prepare an action plan

    Activities

    • Compile the current state results
    • Prepare an Implementation Roadmap
    • Complete your presentation deck

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assess the impact of organizational change for the project
    • Develop your vision for stakeholders
    • Compile the current state results and document the implementation approach
    • Create clarity through a RACI and proposed implementation timeline

    This step usually involves the following participants:

    • Portfolio Manager (PMO Director)
    • PMO Admin Team
    • Business Analysts
    • Project Managers

    Outcomes of Step

    • Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan

    Assess the impact of organizational change

    Be prepared to answer: “What’s in it for me?”

    Before jumping into licensing and third-party negotiations, ensure you’ve clearly assessed the impact of change.

    Tailor the work effort involved in each step, as necessary:

    1. Assess the impact
      • Use the impact assessment questions to identify change impacts.
    2. Plan for change
      • Document the impact on each stakeholder group.
      • Anticipate their response.
      • Curate a compelling message for each stakeholder group.
      • Develop a communication plan.
    3. Act according to plan
      • Identify your executive sponsor.
      • Enable the sponsor to drive change communication.
      • Coach managers on how they can drive change at the individual level.

    Impact Assessment Questions

    • Will the change impact how our clients/customers receive, consume, or engage with our products/services?
    • Will there be a price increase?
    • Will there be a change to compensation and/or rewards?
    • Will the vision or mission of the job change?
    • Will the change span multiple locations/time zones?
    • Are multiple products/services impacted by this change?
    • Will staffing levels change?
    • Will this change increase the workload?
    • Will the tools of the job be substantially different?
    • Will a new or different set of skills be needed?
    • Will there be a change in reporting relationships?
    • Will the workflow and approvals be changed?
    • Will there be a substantial change to scheduling and logistics?

    Master Organizational Change Management Practices blueprint

    Develop your vision for stakeholders

    After careful analysis and planning, it’s time to synthesize your findings to those most impacted by the change.

    Executive Brief

    • Prepare a compelling message about the current situation.
    • Outline the considerations the working group took into account when developing the action plan.
    • Succinctly describe the recommendations proposed by the working group.

    Goals

    • Identify the goals for the project.
    • Explain the details for each goal to develop the organizational rationale for the project.
    • These goals are the building blocks for the change communication that the executive sponsor will use to build a coalition of sponsors.

    Future State Vision

    • Quantify the high-level costs and benefits of moving forward with this project.
    • Articulate the future- state maturity level for both the project and project portfolio management process.
    • Reiterate the organizational rationale and drivers for change.

    "In failed transformations, you often find plenty of plans, directives, and programs, but no vision…A useful rule of thumb: If you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are not yet done…" (John P. Kotter, Leading Change)

    Get ready to compile the analysis completed throughout this blueprint in the subsequent activities. The outputs will come together in your Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan.

    Use the Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template to help communicate your vision

    Our boardroom-ready presentation and communication template can be customized using the outputs of this blueprint.

    • Getting stakeholders to understand why you are recommending specific work management changes and then communicating exactly what those changes are and what they will cost is key to the success of your work management implementation.
    • To that end, the slides ahead walk you through how to customize the Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template.
    • Many of the current-state analysis activities you completed during phase 1 of this blueprint can be directly made use of within the template as can the decisions you made and requirements you documented during phase 2.
    • By the end of this step, you will have a boardroom-ready presentation that will help you communicate your future-state vision.
    Screenshot of Info-Tech's Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template with a note to 'Update the presentation or distribution date and insert your name, role, and organization'.

    Download Info-Tech’s Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    3.1.1 Compile current state results

    1-3 hours

    Input: Force Field Analysis Tool, Tool Audit Workbook, Project Management Maturity Assessment Tool, Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Tool

    Output: Section 1: Executive Brief, Section 2: Context and Constraints

    Materials: Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template

    Participants: PMO Director, PMO Admin Team, Business Analysts, Project Managers

    1. As a group, review the results of the tools introduced throughout this blueprint. Use this information along with organizational knowledge to document the business context and current state.
    2. Update the driving forces for change and risks and constraints slides using your outputs from the Force Field Analysis Tool.
    3. Update the current tool landscape, tool satisfaction, and tool audit results slides using your outputs from the Tool Audit Workbook.
    4. Update the gap analysis results slides using your outputs from the Project Management and Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Tools.

    Screenshots of 'Business Context and Current State' screen from the 'Force Field Analysis Tool', the 'Tool Audit Results' screen from the 'Tool Audit Workbook', and the 'Project Portfolio Management Gap Analysis Results' screen from the 'PM and PPM Maturity Assessments Tool'.

    Download the Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

    3.2.1 Option A: Prepare a DIY roadmap

    1-3 hours; Note: This is only applicable if you have chosen the DIY route

    Input: List of key PPM decision points, List of who is accountable for PPM decisions, List of who has PPM decision-making authority

    Output: Section 3: DIY Implementation Approach

    Materials: Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template

    Participants: PMO Director, PMO Admin Team, Business Analysts, Project Managers

    1. As a group, review the results of the Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool. Use this information along with organizational knowledge and discussion with the working group to complete Section 3: DIY Implementation Approach.
    2. Copy and paste your results from tab 5 of the Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool. Update the Implementation Approach slide to detail the rationale for selecting this option.
    3. Update the Action Plan to articulate the details for total and annual costs of the proposed licensing solution.
    4. Facilitate a discussion to determine roles and responsibilities for the implementation. Based on the size, risk, and complexity of the implementation, create a reasonable timeline.
    Screenshots from the 'Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template' outlining the 'DIY Implementation Approach'.

    Download the Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template

    3.2.1 Option b: Prepare a Partner roadmap

    1-3 hours; Note: This is only applicable if you have chosen the Partner route

    Input: Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool, Information on Microsoft Partners

    Output: Section 4: Microsoft Partner Implementation Route

    Materials: Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template

    Participants: PMO Director, PMO Admin Team, Business Analysts, Project Managers

    1. As a group, review the results of the Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool. Use this information along with organizational knowledge and discussion with the working group to complete Section 4: Microsoft Partner Implementation Route.
    2. Copy and paste your results from tab 5 of the Microsoft Project and M365 Licensing Tool. Update the Implementation Approach slide to detail the rationale for selecting this option.
    3. Develop an outreach plan for the Microsoft Partners you are planning to survey. Set targets for briefing dates and assign an individual to own any back-and-forth communication. Document the pros and cons of each Partner and gauge interest in continuing to analyze the vendor as a possible solution.
    4. Facilitate a discussion to determine roles and responsibilities for the implementation. Based on the size, risk, and complexity of the implementation, create a reasonable timeline.

    Screenshots from the 'Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template' outlining the 'Microsoft Partner Implementation Route'.

    Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template

    3.1.2 Complete your presentation deck

    1-2 hours

    Input: Outputs from the exercises in this blueprint

    Output: Section 5: Future-State Vision and Goals

    Materials: Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template

    Participants: PMO Director, PMO Admin Team, Business Analysts, Project Managers

    1. Put the finishing touches on your presentation deck by documenting your future- state vision and goals.
    2. Prepare to present to your stakeholders.
      • Understand your audience, their needs and priorities, and their degree of knowledge and experiences with technology. This informs what to include in your presentation and how to position the message and goal.
    3. Review the deck beginning to end and check for spelling, grammar, and vertical logic.
    4. Practice delivering the vision for the project through several practice sessions.

    Screenshots from the 'Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template' regarding finishing touches.

    Microsoft Project and M365 Action Plan Template

    Pitch your vision to key stakeholders

    There are multiple audiences for your pitch, and each audience requires a different level of detail when addressed. Depending on the outcomes expected from each audience, a suitable approach must be chosen. The format and information presented will vary significantly from group to group.

    Audience

    Key Contents

    Outcome

    Business Executives

    • Section 1: Executive Brief
    • Section 2: Context and Constraints
    • Section 5: Future-State Vision and Goals
    • Identify executive sponsor

    IT Leadership

    • Sections 1-5 with a focus on Section 3 or 4 depending on implementation approach
    • Get buy-in on proposed project
    • Identify skills or resourcing constraints

    Business Managers

    • Section 1: Executive Brief
    • Section 2: Context and Constraints
    • Section 5: Future-State Vision and Goals
    • Get feedback on proposed plan
    • Identify any unassessed risks and organizational impacts

    Business Users

    • Section 1: Executive Brief
    • Support the organizational change management process

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Knowledge Gained
    • How you work: Work management and the various ways of working (personal and team task management, strategic project portfolio management, formal project management, and enterprise project and portfolio management).
    • Where you need to go: Project portfolio management and project management current- and target-state maturity levels.
    • What you need: Microsoft Project Plans and requisite M365 licensing.
    • The skills you need: Extending Project for the web.
    • Who you need to work with: Get to know the Microsoft Gold Partner community.
    Deliverables Completed
    • M365 Tool Guides
    • Tool Audit Workbook
    • Force Field Analysis Tool
    • Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessment Tool
    • Project Management Maturity Assessment Tool
    • Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

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

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

    Additional Support

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

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

    To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

    Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

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

    Perform a work management tool audit

    Gain insight into the tools that drive value or fail to drive value across your work management landscape with a view to streamline the organization’s tool ecosystem.

    Prepare an action plan for your tool needs

    Prepare the right work management tool recommendations for your IT teams and/or business units and develop a boardroom-ready presentation to communicate needs and next steps.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Neeta Manghnani
    PMO Strategist
    PMO Outsource Ltd.

    Photo of Neeta Manghnani, PMO Strategist, PMO Outsource Ltd.
    • Innovative, performance-driven executive with significant experience managing Portfolios, Programs & Projects, and technical systems for international corporations with complex requirements. A hands-on, dynamic leader with over 20 years of experience guiding and motivating cross-functional teams. Highly creative and brings a blend of business acumen and expertise in multiple IT disciplines, to maximize the corporate benefit from capital investments.
    • Successfully deploys inventive solutions to automate processes and improve the functionality, scalability and security of critical business systems and applications. Leverages PMO/PPM management and leadership skills to meet the strategic goals and business initiatives.

    Robert Strickland
    Principal Consultant & Owner
    PMO Outsource Ltd.

    Photo of Robert Strickland, Principal Consultant and Owner, PMO Outsource Ltd.
    • Successful entrepreneur, leader, and technologist for over 15 years, is passionate about helping organizations leverage the value of SharePoint, O365, Project Online, Teams and the Power Platform. Expertise in implementing portals, workflows and collaboration experiences that create business value. Strategic manager with years of successful experience building businesses, developing custom solutions, delivering projects, and managing budgets. Strong transformational leader on large implementations with a technical pedigree.
    • A digital transformation leader helping clients move to the cloud, collaborate, automate their business processes and eliminate paper forms, spreadsheets and other manual practices.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    • Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy
      Time is money; spend it wisely.
    • Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices
      Holistically balance IT supply and demand to avoid overallocation.
    • Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects
      Spend less time managing processes and more time delivering results

    Bibliography

    “13 Reasons not to use Microsoft Project.” Celoxis, 14 Sept. 2018. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Advisicon. “Project Online vs Project for the Web.” YouTube, 13 Nov. 2013. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Branscombe, Mary. “Is Project Online ready to replace Microsoft Project?” TechRepublic, 23 Jan. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Chemistruck, Dan. “The Complete Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Licensing Comparison.” Infused Innovations, 4 April 2019. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Compare Project management solutions and costs.” Microsoft. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Day to Day Dynamics 365. “Microsoft Project for the web - Model-driven app.” YouTube, 29 Oct. 2019. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Deploying Project for the web.” Microsoft, 24 Aug. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Differentiate your business by attaining Microsoft competencies.” Microsoft, 26 Jan. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Extend & Integrate Microsoft Project.” Western Principles. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Get Started with Project Power App.” Microsoft. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Hosking, Ben. “Why low code software development is eating the world.” DevGenius, May 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “How in the World is MS Project Still a Leading PM Software?” CBT Nuggets, 12 Nov. 2018. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Integent. “Project for the Web - Create a Program Entity and a model-driven app then expose in Microsoft Teams.” YouTube, 25 Mar. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Introducing the Project Accelerator.” Microsoft, 10 Mar. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Join the Microsoft Partner Network.” Microsoft. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Kaneko, Judy. “How Productivity Tools Can Lead to a Loss of Productivity.” Bluescape, 2 Mar. 2018 Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Kotter, John. Leading Change. Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

    Leis, Merily. “What is Work Management.” Scoro. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Liu, Shanhong. “Number of Office 365 company users worldwide as of June 2021, by leading country.” Statistica, 2021. Web.

    Manghnani, Neeta. “5 Benefits of PPM tools and PMO process automation.” PMO Outsource Ltd., 11 Apr. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plan options.” Microsoft, 31 Aug. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Microsoft 365 for enterprise.” Microsoft. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021

    “Microsoft Office 365 Usage Statistics.” Thexyz blog, 18 Sept. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Power Virtual Agents Licensing Guide.” Microsoft, June 2021. Web.

    “Microsoft Project service description.” Microsoft, 31 Aug. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Microsoft Project Statistics.” Integent Blog, 12 Dec. 2013. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Nanji, Aadil . Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era. Info-Tech Research Group, 12 Mar. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Number of Office 365 company users worldwide as of June 2021, by leading country.” Statista, 8 June 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Overcoming disruption in a digital world.” Asana. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Pajunen, Antti. “Customizing and extending Project for the web.” Day to Day Dynamics 365, 20 Jan. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Partner Center Documentation.” Microsoft. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Pragmatic Works. “Building First Power Apps Model Driven Application.” YouTube, 21 June 2019. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Project architecture overview.” Microsoft, 27 Mar. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Project for the web Accelerator.” GitHub. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Project for the web admin help.” Microsoft, 28 Oct. 2019. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Project for the Web – The New Microsoft Project.” TPG. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Project for the Web Security Roles.” Microsoft, 1 July 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “Project Online: Project For The Web vs Microsoft Project vs Planner vs Project Online.” PM Connection, 30 Nov. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Redmond, Tony. “Office 365 Insights from Microsoft’s FY21 Q2 Results.” Office 365 for IT Pros, 28 Jan. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Reimagine Project Management with Microsoft. “Advanced deployment for Project for the web.” YouTube, 4 Aug. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Reimagine Project Management with Microsoft. “Overview of Microsoft Project.” YouTube, 29 July 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “See which partner offer is right for you.” Microsoft. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Shalomova, Anna. “Microsoft Project for Web 2019 vs. Project Online: What’s Best for Enterprise Project Management?” FluentPro, 23 July 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Speed, Richard. “One Project to rule them all: Microsoft plots end to Project Online while nervous Server looks on.” The Register, 28 Sept. 2018. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Spataro, Jared. “A new vision for modern work management with Microsoft Project.” Microsoft, 25 Sept. 2018. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Stickel, Robert. “OnePlan Recognized as Winner of 2021 Microsoft Project & Portfolio Management Partner of the Year.” OnePlan, 8 July 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Stickel, Robert. “The Future of Project Online.” OnePlan, 2 Mar. 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Stickel, Robert. “What It Means to be Adaptive.” OnePlan, 24 May 2021. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “The Future of Microsoft Project Online.” OnePlan. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Weller, Joe. “Demystifying Microsoft Project Licensing.” Smartsheet, 10 Mar. 2016. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Western Principles Inc. “Dump the Spreadsheets for Microsoft Project Online.” YouTube, 2 July 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Western Principles Inc. “Project Online or Project for the web? Which project management system should you use?” YouTube, 11 Aug. 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    “What is Power Query?” Microsoft, 22 July 2021. Web.

    Wicresoft. “The Power of the New Microsoft Project and Microsoft 365.” YouTube, 29 May 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Wicresoft. “Why the Microsoft Power Platform is the Future of PPM.” YouTube, 11 June 2020. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

    Innovation

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    • Teaser Video: Visit Website
    • Teaser Video Title: Digital Ethics = Data Equity
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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Governance
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-governance
    Innovation is the at heart of every organization, especially in these fast moving times. It does not matter if you are in a supporting or "traditional" sector.  The company performing the service in a faster, better and more efficient way, wins.

    innovation

    Cost Optimization

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    • Parent Category Name: Financial Management
    • Parent Category Link: /financial-management
    Minimize the damage of IT cost cuts

    Embed Business Relationship Management in IT

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    • Parent Category Name: Manage Business Relationships
    • Parent Category Link: /manage-business-relationships
    • While organizations realize they need to improve business relationships, they often don’t know how.
    • IT doesn’t know what their business needs and so can’t add as much value as they’d like.
    • They find that their partners often reach out to third parties before they connect with internal IT.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Business relationship management (BRM) is not just about communication, it’s about delivering on business value.
    • Build your BRM program on establishing trust.

    Impact and Result

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

    Embed Business Relationship Management in IT Research & Tools

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

    1. Embed Business Relationship Management Deck – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to establish a practice with well-embedded business relationships, driving IT success.

    This blueprint helps you to establish a relationship with your stakeholders, both within and outside of IT. You’ll learn how to embed relationship management throughout your organization.

    • Embed Business Relationship Management in IT – Phases 1-5

    2. BRM Workbook Deck – A workbook for you to capture the results of your thinking on the BRM practice.

    Use this tool to capture your findings as you work through the blueprint.

    • Embed Business Relationship Management in IT Workbook

    3. BRM Buy-In and Communication Template – A template to help you communicate what BRM is to your organization, that leverages feedback from your business stakeholders and IT.

    Customize this tool to obtain buy in from leadership and other stakeholders. As you continue through the blueprint, continue to leverage this template to communicate what your BRM program is about.

    • BRM Buy-In and Communication Template

    4. BRM Role Expectations Worksheet – A tool to help you establish how the BRM role and/or other roles will be managing relationships.

    This worksheet template is used to outline what the BRM practice will do and associate the expectations and tasks with the roles throughout your organization. Use this to communicate that while your BRM role has a strategic focus and perspective of the relationship, other roles will continue to be important for relationship management.

    • Role Expectations Worksheet

    5. BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet – A tool to help you establish your stakeholders and your engagement with them.

    This worksheet allows you to list the stakeholders and their priority in order to establish how you want to engage with them.

    • BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet

    6. Business Relationship Manager Job Descriptions – These templates can be used as a guide for defining the BRM role.

    These job descriptions will provide you with list of competencies and qualifications necessary for a BRM operating at different levels of maturity. Use this template as a guide, whether hiring internally or externally, for the BRM role.

    • Business Relationship Manager – Level 1
    • Business Relationship Manager – Level 2
    • Business Relationship Manager – Level 3
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Embed Business Relationship Management in IT

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

    1 Foundation: Assess and Situate

    The Purpose

    Set the foundation for your BRM practice – understand your current state and set the vision.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of current pain points and benefits to be addressed through your BRM practice. Establish alignment on what your BRM practice is – use this to start obtaining buy-in from stakeholders.

    Activities

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    1.4 Create Vision

    1.5 Create the BRM Mission

    1.6 Establish Goals

    Outputs

    BRM definition

    Identify areas to be addressed through the BRM practice

    Shared vision, mission, and understanding of the goals for the brm practice

    2 Plan

    The Purpose

    Determine where the BRM fits and how they will operate within the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Learn how the BRM practice can best act on your goals.

    Activities

    2.1 Establish Guiding Principles

    2.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

    2.3 Establish BRM Expectations

    2.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

    2.5 Align Capabilities

    Outputs

    An understanding of where the BRM sits in the IT organization, how they align to their business partners, and other roles that support business relationships

    3 Implement

    The Purpose

    Determine how to identify and work with key stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Determine ways to engage with stakeholders in ways that add value.

    Activities

    3.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

    3.2 Identify Key Influencers

    3.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

    3.4 Create the Prioritization Map

    3.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

    Outputs

    Shared understanding of business value

    A plan to engage with stakeholders

    4 Reassess and Embed

    The Purpose

    Determine how to continuously improve the BRM practice.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An ongoing plan for the BRM practice.

    Activities

    4.1 Create Metrics

    4.2 Prioritize Your Projects

    4.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

    4.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

    4.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

    4.6 Create Your Communication Plan

    Outputs

    Measurements of success for the BRM practice

    Prioritization of projects

    BRM plan

    Further reading

    Embed Business Relationship Management in IT

    Show that IT is worthy of Trusted Partner status.

    Executive Brief

    Analyst Perspective

    Relationships are about trust.

    As long as humans are involved in enabling technology, it will always remain important to ensure that business relationships support business needs. At the cornerstone of those relationships is trust and the establishment of business value. Without trust, you won’t be believed, and without value, you won’t be invited to the business table.

    Business relationship management can be a role, a capability, or a practice – either way it’s essential to ensure it exists within your organization. Show that IT can be a trusted partner by showing the value that IT offers.

    Photo of Allison Straker, Research Director, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

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

    Your challenge: Why focus on business relationship management?

    Is IT saying this about business partners?

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

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

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

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

    Three stamps with the words 'Value', 'Innovation', and 'Advocacy'. Are business partners saying this about IT?

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

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

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

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

    Common obstacles

    While organizations realize they need to do better, they often don’t know how to improve.

    Organizations want to:
    • Understand and strategically align to business goals
    • Ensure stakeholders are satisfied
    • Show project value/success

    … these are all things that a mature business relationship can do to improve your organization.

    Key improvement areas identified by business leaders and IT leaders

    Bar chart comparing 'CXO' and 'CIO' responses to multiple areas one whether they need significant improvement or only some improvement. Areas in question are 'Understand Business Goals', 'Define and align IT strategy', 'Measure stakeholder satisfaction with IT', and 'Measure IT project success'. Source: CEO/CIO Alignment Diagnostic, N=446 organizations.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    BRMs who focus on achieving business value can improve organizational results.

    Visualization of a piggy bank labelled 'Business Value' with a person on a ladder labelled 'Strategic Tactical Operational' putting coins into the bank which are labelled 'External & internal views', 'Applied knowledge of the business', 'Strategic perspective', 'Trusted relationship', and 'Empathetic engagements “What’s in it for me/them?”'.

    Business relationships can take a strategic, tactical, or operational perspective.

    While all levels are needed, focus on a strategic perspective for optimal outcomes.

    Create business value through:

    • Applying your knowledge of the business so that conversations aren’t about what IT provides. Focus on what the overall business requires.
    • Ensuring your knowledge includes what is going on internally at your organization and also what occurs externally within and outside the industry (e.g. vendors, technologies used in similar industries or with similar customer interactions).
    • Discussing with the perspective of “what’s in it for [insert business partner here]” – don’t just present IT’s views.
    • Building a trusted strategic relationship – don’t just do well at the basics but also focus on the strategy that can move the organization to where it needs to be.

    Neither you nor your partners can view IT as separate from your overall business…

    …your IT goals need to be aligned with those of the overall business

    IT Maturity Pyramid with 'business goals' and 'IT goals' moving upward along its sides. It has five levels, 'unstable - Ad hoc – IT is too busy and the business is unsatisfied (too expensive, too long, not delivering on needs)', 'firefighter - Order taker – IT engaged on as-needed basis. IT unable to forecast demand to manage own resources', 'trusted operator - IT and business are not always sure of each other’s direction/priorities’, ‘business partner - IT understands and delivers on business needs', and 'innovator - Business and IT work together to achieve shared goals'.

    IT and other lines of business need to partner together – they are all part of the same overall business.

    Four puzzle pieces fitting together representing 'IT' and three other Lines of Business '(LOB)'

    <

    Why it’s important to establish a BRM program

    IT Benefits

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

    Business Benefits

    • Provides business teams with a view of the services that IT can help them with
    • Brings IT to the table with value-driven solutions
    • Creates an overall roadmap aligning both partners
    Ladder labelled 'Strategic Tactical Operational'.
    • Drive business value into the organization via innovative technology solutions.
    • Improve ability to meet and exceed business goals and objectives, resulting in more satisfied stakeholders (C-suite, board of directors).
    • Enhance ability to execute business activities to meet end-customer requirements and expectations, resulting in more satisfied customers.

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

    Piggy bank labelled 'Business Value'.

    When IT understands the business, they provide better value

    Understanding all parties – including the business needs and context – is critical to effective business relationships.

    Establishing a focus on business relationship management is key to improving IT satisfaction.

    When business partners are satisfied that IT understands their needs, they have a higher perception of the value of overall IT

    Bar chart with axes 'Business satisfaction with IT understanding of needs' and 'Perception of IT value'. There is an upward trend.

    The relationship between the perception of IT value and business satisfaction is strong (r=0.89). Can you afford not to increase your understanding of business needs?

    (Source: Info-Tech Research Group diagnostic data/Business-Aligned IT Strategy blueprint (N=652 first-year organizations that completed the CIO Business Vision diagnostic))

    A tale of two IT partners

    Teleconference with an IT partner asking them to 'Tell me everything'.

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

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

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

    Teleconference with an IT partner that approached with knowledge of your business and industry.

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

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

    BRM success is measurable Measuring tape.

    1) Survey your stakeholders to measure improvements in customer satisfaction 2) Measure BRM success against the goals for the practice

    Business satisfaction survey

    • Audience: Business leaders
    • Frequency: Annual
    • Metrics:
      • Overall Satisfaction score
      • Overall Value score
      • Relationship Satisfaction:
        • Understand needs
        • Meet needs
        • Communication
    Two small tables showing example 'Value' and 'Satisfaction' scores. Dart board with five darts, each representing a goal, 'Demand Shaping', 'Value Realization', 'Servicing', 'Exploring', and 'Other Goal(s)'.
    Table with a breakdown of the example 'Satisfaction' score, with individual scores for 'Needs', 'Execution', and 'Communication'.

    Maturing your BRM practice is a journey

    Info-Tech has developed an approach that can be used by any organization to improve or successfully implement BRM. The same ladder as before with words 'Strategic', 'Tactical', 'Operational', and a person climbing on it. Become a Trusted Partner and Advisor
    KNOWLEDGE OF INDUSTRY

    STRATEGIC

    Value Creator and Innovator

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

    KNOWLEDGE OF FUNCTIONS

    TACTICAL

    Influencer and Advocate

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

    TABLE STAKES:
    COMMUNICATION
    SERVICE DELIVERY
    PROJECT DELIVERY

    OPERATIONAL

    Deliver

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

    Foundation: Define and communicate the meaning and vision of BRM

    At each level, keep maturing your BRM practice

    ITPartnerWhat to do to move to the next level

    Strategic Partner

    Shared goals for maximizing value and shared risk and reward

    5

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

    Value Creator and Innovator

    See partners as integral to business success and growth

    Focus on continuous learning and improvement.

    Trusted Advisor

    Cooperation based on mutual respect and understanding

    4

    Partners understand, work with, and help improve capabilities.

    Influencer and Advocate

    Sees IT as helpful and reliable

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

    Service Provider

    Routine – innovation is a challenge

    3

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

    Priorities set but still always falling behind.

    Views IT as helpful but they don’t provide guidance

    IT needs to excel in portfolio and transition management.

    Business needs to engage IT in strategy.

    Order Taker

    Distrust, reactive

    2

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

    Delivery Service

    Engages with IT on an as-needed basis

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

    Business needs to embrace BRM role and service management.

    Ad Hoc

    Loudest in, first out

    1

    Too busy doing the basics; in firefighter mode.

    Low satisfaction (cost, duration, quality)

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

    IT needs to establish intake/demand management.


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

    (Adapted from BRM Institute Maturity Model and Info-Tech’s own model)

    The Info-Tech path to implement BRM

    Use Info-Tech’s ASPIRe method to create a continuously improving BRM practice.

    Info-Tech's ASPIRe method visualized as a winding path. It begins with 'Role Definition', goes through many 'Role Refinements' and ends with 'Metrics'. The main steps to which the acronym refers are 'Assess', 'Situate', 'Plan', 'Implement', and 'Reassess & Embed'.

    Insight summary

    BRM is not just about communication, it’s about delivering on business value.

    Business relationship management isn’t just about having a pleasant relationship with stakeholders, nor is it about just delivering things they want. It’s about driving business value in everything that IT does and leveraging relationships with the business and IT, both within and outside your organization.

    Understand your current state to determine the best direction forward.

    Every organization will apply the BRM practice differently. Understand what’s needed within your organization to create the best fit.

    BRM is not just a communication conduit between IT and the business.

    When implemented properly, a BRM is a value creator, advocate, innovator, and influencer.

    The BRM role must be designed to match the maturity level of the IT organization and the business.

    Before you can create incremental business value, you must master the fundamentals of service and project delivery.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Knowledge of your current situation is only half the battle; knowledge of the business/industry is key.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable:

    Executive Buy-In and Communication Presentation Template

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

    Sample of Info-Tech's key deliverable, the Executive Buy-In and Communication Presentation Template.

    BRM Workbook

    Capture the thinking behind your organization’s BRM program.

    Sample of Info-Tech's BRM Workbook deliverable.

    BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet

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

    Sample of Info-Tech's BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet deliverable.

    BRM Role Expectations Worksheet

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

    Sample of Info-Tech's BRM Role Expectations Worksheet deliverable.

    Guided Implementation

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

    A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    Phase 5

    Call #1: Discuss goals, current state, and an overview of BRM.

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

    Call #3: Establish BRM mission, vision, and goals. Call #4: Develop guiding principles.

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

    Call #6: Establish business value. Discuss stakeholders and engagement planning. Call #7: Develop metrics. Discuss portfolio management.

    Call #8: Develop a communication or rollout plan.

    Workshop Overview

    Complete the CIO-Business Vision diagnostic prior to the workshop.
    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Post-Workshop
    Activities
    Set the Foundation
    Assess & Situate
    Define the Operating Model
    Plan
    Define Engagement
    Implement
    Implement BRM
    Reassess
    Next steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    1.1 Discuss rationale and importance of business relationship management

    1.2 Review CIO BV results

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

    1.4 Establish BRM vision and mission

    1.5 Define objectives and goals for maturing the practice

    2.1 Create your list of guiding principles (optional)

    2.2 Define business value

    2.3. Establish the operating model for the BRM practice

    2.4 Define capabilities

    3.1. Identify key stakeholders

    3.2 Map, prioritize, and categorize the stakeholders

    3.4 Create an engagement plan

    4,1 Define metrics

    4.2 Identify remaining enablers/blockers for practice implementation

    4.3 Create roadmap

    4.4 Create communication plan

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps

    Deliverables
    1. Summary of CIO Business Vision results
    2. Vision and list of objectives for the BRM program
    3. List of business and IT pain points
    1. BRM role descriptions, capabilities, and ownership definitions
    1. BRM reporting structure
    2. BRM engagement plans
    1. BRM communication plan
    2. BRM metrics tracking plan
    3. Action plan and next step
    1. Workshop Report

    ASSESS

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

    3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

    3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

    3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

    3.5 Align Capabilities

    Implement

    4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

    4.2 Identify Key Influencers

    4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

    4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

    4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

    Reassess & Embed

    5.1 Create Metrics

    5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

    5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

    5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

    5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

    5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

    To assess BRM, clarify what it means to you

    Who are BRM relationships with? Octopus holding icons with labels 'Tech Partners', 'Lines of Business', and 'External Partners'. The BRM has multiple arms/legs to ensure they’re aligned with multiple parties – the partners within the lines of business, external partners, and technology partners.
    What does a BRM do? Engage the right stakeholders – orchestrate key roles, resources, and capabilities to help stimulate, shape, and harvest business value.

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

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

    Three figures performing different actions, labelled 'orchestrate', 'connect', and 'navigate'.
    What does a BRM focus on? Circle bisected at many random points to create areas of different colors with four color-coded circles surrounding it. Demand Shaping – Surfacing and shaping business demand
    Value Harvesting – Identifying ways to increase business value and providing insights
    Exploring – Rationalizing demand and reviewing new business, technology, and industry insights
    Servicing – Managing expectations and facilitating business strategy; business capability road mapping

    Determine what business relationship management is

    Many organizations face business dissatisfaction because they do not understand what the role of a BRM should be.

    A BRM Is NOT:
    • Order taker
    • Service desk
    • Project manager
    • Business analyst
    • Service delivery manager
    • Service owner
    • Change manager
    A BRM Is:
    • Value creator
    • Innovator
    • Trusted advisor
    • Strategic partner
    • Influencer
    • Business subject matter expert
    • Advocate for the business
    • Champion for business process improvement
    Business relationship management does not mean a go-between for the business and IT. Its focus should be on delivering VALUE and INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS to the business.

    1.1 What is BRM?

    1 hour

    Input: Your preliminary thoughts and ideas on BRM

    Output: Themes summarizing what BRM will be at your organization

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Each team member will take a colored sticky note to capture what BRM is and what it isn’t.
    2. As a group, review and discuss the sticky notes.
    3. Group them into themes summarizing what BRM will be at your organization.
    4. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm the definition of BRM at your organization.
    5. Create a refined summary statement and capture it in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    It’s important to understand what the business thinks; ask them the right questions

    Leverage the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic to provide clarity on:
    • The organization’s view on satisfaction and importance of core IT services
    • Satisfaction across business priorities
    • IT’s capacity to meet business needs

    Contact your Account Representative to get started

    Sample of various scorecards from the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic.

    1.2 Use their responses to help guide your BRM program

    1 hour

    Input: CIO-Business Vision Diagnostic, Other business feedback

    Output: Summary of your partners’ view of the IT relationship

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: CIO, IT management team

    1. Complete the CIO Business Vision diagnostic.
    2. Analyze the findings from the Business Vision diagnostic or other business relationship and satisfaction surveys. Key areas to look at include:
      • Overall IT Satisfaction
      • IT Value
      • Relationship (Understands Needs, Communicates Effectively, Executes Requests, Trains Effectively)
      • Shadow IT
      • Capacity Needs
      • Business Objectives
    3. Capture the following on your analysis:
      • Success stories – what your business partners are satisfied with
      • Challenges – are the responses consistent across departments?
    4. Leverage the workbook to capture your findings the goals. Key highlights should be documented in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture ideas

    Polish the goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Perform a SWOT analysis to explore internal and external business factors

    A SWOT analysis is a structured planning method organizations use to evaluate the effects of internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats on a project or business venture.

    Why It Is Important

    • Business SWOT reveals internal and external trends that affect the business. You may uncover relevant information about the business that the other analysis methods did not reveal.
    • The organizational strengths or weaknesses will shed some light on implications that you might not have considered otherwise, such as brand perception or internal staff capability to change.

    Key Tips/Information

    • Although this activity is simple in theory, there is much value to be gained when performed effectively.
    • Focus on weaknesses that can cause a competitive disadvantage and strengths that can cause a competitive advantage.
    • Rank your opportunities and threats based on impact and probability.
    • Info-Tech members who have derived the most insights from a business SWOT analysis usually involved business stakeholders in the analysis.

    SWOT diagram split into four quadrants representing 'Strengths' at top left, 'Opportunities' at bottom left, 'Weaknesses' at top right, and 'Threats' at bottom right.

    Review these questions to help you conduct your SWOT analysis on the business

    Strengths (Internal)
    • What competitive advantage does your organization have?
    • What do you do better than anyone else?
    • What makes you unique (human resources, product offering, experience, etc.)?
    • Do you have location, price, cost, or quality advantages?
    • Does your organizational culture offer an advantage (hiring the best people, etc.)?
    • Do you have a high level of customer engagement or satisfaction?
    Weaknesses (Internal)
    • What areas of your business require improvement?
    • Are there gaps in capabilities?
    • Do you have financial vulnerabilities?
    • Are there leadership gaps (succession, poor management, etc.)?
    • Are there reputational issues?
    • Are there factors contributing to declining sales?
    Opportunities (External)
    • Are there market developments or new markets?
    • Are there industry or lifestyle trends (move to mobile, etc.)?
    • Are there geographical changes in the market?
    • Are there new partnerships or mergers and acquisitions (M&A) opportunities?
    • Are there seasonal factors that can be used to the advantage of the business?
    • Are there demographic changes that can be used to the advantage of the business?
    Threats (External)
    • Are there obstacles that the organization must face?
    • Are there issues with respect to sourcing of staff or technologies?
    • Are there changes in market demand?
    • Are your competitors making changes that you are not making?
    • Are there economic issues that could affect your business?

    1.3 Analyze internal and external business factors using a SWOT analysis

    1 hour

    Input: IT and business stakeholder expertise

    Output: Analysis of internal and external factors impacting the IT organization

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: CIO, IT management team

    1. Break the group into two teams:
      • Assign team A internal strengths and weaknesses.
      • Assign team B external opportunities and threats.
    2. Think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as they pertain to the IT-business relationship. Consider people, process, and technology elements.
    3. Have the teams brainstorm items that fit in their assigned grids. Use the prompt questions on the previous slide as guidance.
    4. Pick someone from each group to fill in the SWOT grid.
    5. Conduct a group discussion about the items on the list; identify implications for the BRM/IT.

    Capture in the BRM Workbook

    SITUATE

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

    3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

    3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

    3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

    3.5 Align Capabilities

    Implement

    4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

    4.2 Identify Key Influencers

    4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

    4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

    4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

    Reassess & Embed

    5.1 Create Metrics

    5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

    5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

    5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

    5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

    5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

    Your strategy informs your BRM program

    Your strategy is a critical input into your program. Extract critical components of your strategy and convert them into a set of actionable principles that will guide the selection of your operating model.

    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy' blueprint.

    Vision, Mission & Principles Chevron pointing right.
    • Leverage your vision and mission statements that communicate aspirations and purpose for key information that can be turned into design principles.
    Business Goal Implications Chevron pointing right.
    • Implications are derived from your business goals and will provide important context about the way BRM needs to change to meet its overarching objectives.
    • Understand how those implications will change the way that work needs to be done – new capabilities, new roles, new modes of delivery, etc.
    Target-State Maturity Chevron pointing right.
    • Determine your target-state relationship maturity for your organization using the BRM goals that have been uncovered.

    Outline your mission and vision for your BRM practice

    If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, how do you know if you’ve arrived?

    Establish the vision of what your BRM practice will achieve.

    Your vision will paint a picture for your stakeholders, letting them know where you want to go with your BRM practice.

    Stock image of a hand painting on a large canvas.

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

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

    Good Visions
    • Attainable – Aspirational but still within reach
    • Communicable – Easy to comprehend
    • Memorable – Not easily forgotten
    • Practical – Solid, realistic
    • Shared – Create a culture of shared ownership across the team/company
    When Visions Fail
    • Not Shared: Lack of buy-in, no alignment with stakeholders
    • Impractical: No plan or strategy to deliver on the vision
    • Unattainable: Set too far in the future
    • Forgettable: Not championed, not kept in mind
    (Source: UX Magazine, 2011)

    Derive the BRM vision statement

    Stock image of an easel with a bundle of paint brushes beside it. Begin the process of deriving the business relationship management vision statement by examining your business and user concerns. These are the problems your organization is trying to solve.
    Icon of one person asking another a question.
    Problem Statements
    First, ask what problems your organization hopes to solve.
    Icon of a magnifying glass on a box.
    Analysis
    Second, ask what success would look like when those problems were solved.
    Icon of two photos in quotes.
    Vision Statement
    Third, polish the answer into a short but meaningful phrase.

    Paint the picture for your team and stakeholders so that they align on what BRM will achieve.

    Vision statements demonstrate what your practice “aspires to be”

    Your vision statement communicates a desired future state of the BRM organization. The statement is expressed in the present tense. It seeks to articulate the desired role of business relationship management and how it will be perceived.

    Sample vision statements:

    • To be a trusted advisor and partner in enabling business innovation and growth through an engaged design practice.
    • The group will strive to become a world-class value center that is a catalyst for innovation.
    • Apple: “We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing.” (Mission Statement Academy, May 2019.)
    • Coca-Cola: “To refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions, and to create value and make a difference.” (Mission Statement Academy, August 2019.)

    2.1 Vision generation

    1 hour

    Input: IT and business strategies

    Output: Vision statement

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the goals and the sample vision statements provided on the previous slide.
    2. Brainstorm possible vision statements that can apply to your practice. Refer to the guidance provided on the previous page – ensure that it paints a picture for the reader to show the desired target state.
    3. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm the vision. Capture the refined statement in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.
    Strong vision statements have the following characteristics
    • Describe a desired future
    • Focus on ends, not means
    • Communicate promise
    • Concise, no unnecessary words
    • Compelling
    • Achievable
    • Inspirational
    • Memorable

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture ideas

    Polish the goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Create the mission statement from the problems and the vision statement

    Your mission demonstrates your current intent and the purpose driving you to achieve your vision.

    It reflects what the organization does for users/customers.

    The main word 'Analysis' is sandwiched between 'Goals and Problems' and 'Vision Statement', each with arrow pointing to the middle. Make sure the practice’s mission statement reflects answers to the questions below:

    The questions:

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

    “A mission statement illustrates the purpose of the organization, what it does, and what it intends on achieving. Its main function is to provide direction to the organization and highlight what it needs to do to achieve its vision.” (Joel Klein, BizTank (in Hull, “Answer 4 questions to get a great mission statement.”))

    Sample mission statements

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

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

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

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

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

    2.2 Develop your own mission statement

    1 hour

    Input: IT and business strategies, Vision

    Output: Mission statement

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the goals and the vision statement generated in the previous activities.
    2. Brainstorm possible mission statements that can apply to your BRM practice. Capture this in your BRM workbook.
    3. Refine your mission statement. Refer to the guidance provided on the previous page – ensure that the mission provides “the why”. Document the refined mission statement in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    “People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe.” (Sinek, Transcript of “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”)

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Areas that BRMs focus on include:

    Establish how much of these your practice will focus on.

    VALUE HARVESTING
    • Tracks and reviews performance
    • Identifies ways to increase business value
    • Provides insights on the results of business change/initiatives
    Circle bisected at many random points to create areas of different colors with four color-coded circles surrounding it. DEMAND SHAPING
    • Isn’t just demand/intake management
    • Surfaces and shapes business demand
    • Is influenced by knowledge of the overall business and external entities
    SERVICING
    • Coordinates resources
    • Manages expectations
    • Facilitates business strategy, business capability road-mapping, and portfolio and program management
    EXPLORING
    • Identifies and rationalizes demand
    • Reviews new business, technology, and industry insights
    • Identifies business value initiatives

    Establish what success means for your focus areas

    Brainstorm objectives and success areas for your BRM practice.

    Circle bisected at many random points to create areas of different colors with four color-coded circles surrounding it. VALUE HARVESTING
    Success may mean that you:
    • Understand the drivers and what the business needs to attain
    • Demonstrate focus on value in discussions
    • Ensure value is achieved, tracking it during and beyond deployment
    DEMAND SHAPING
    Success may mean that you:
    • Understand the business
    • Are engaged at business meetings (invited to the table)
    • Understand IT; communicate clarity around IT to the business
    • Help IT prioritize needs
    SERVICING
    Success may mean that you:
    • Understand IT services and service levels that are required
    • Provide clarity around services and communicate costs and risks
    EXPLORING
    Success may mean that you:
    • Surface new opportunities based on understanding of pain points and growth needs
    • Research and partner with others to further the business
    • Engage resources with a focus on the value to be delivered

    2.3 Establish BRM goals

    1 hour

    Input: Mission and vision statements

    Output: List of goals

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: CIO, IT management team, BRM team

    1. Use the previous slides as a starting point – review the focus areas and sample associated objectives.
    2. Determine if all apply to your role.
    3. Brainstorm the objectives for your BRM practice.
    4. Discuss and refine the objectives and goals until the team agrees on your starting set.
    5. Leverage the workbook to establish the goals. Capture refined goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    PLAN

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

    3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

    3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

    3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

    3.5 Align Capabilities

    Implement

    4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

    4.2 Identify Key Influencers

    4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

    4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

    4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

    Reassess & Embed

    5.1 Create Metrics

    5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

    5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

    5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

    5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

    5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

    Guiding principles help you focus the development of your practice

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

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

    Sample Guiding Principles

    Principle Name

    Principle Statement

    Customer Focus We will prioritize internal and external customer perspectives
    External Trends We will monitor and liaise with external organizations to bring best practices and learnings into our own
    Organizational Span We embed relationship management across all levels of leadership in IT
    Role If the resource does not have a seat at the table, they are not performing the BRM role

    3.1 Establish guiding principles (optional activity)

    Input: Mission and vision statements

    Output: BRM guiding principles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as well as the overarching goals, mission, and vision.
    2. Identify a set of principles that the BRM practice should have. Guiding principles are shared, long-lasting beliefs that guide the use of business relationship management in your organization.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Establish the BRM partner model and alignment

    Having the right model and support is just as important as having the right people.

    Gears with different BRM model terms: 'BRM Capabilities', 'BRM & Other Roles', 'Scope (pilot)', 'Operating Unit', 'BRM Expectations Across the organization', and 'Delivery & Support'.

    Don’t boil the ocean: Start small

    It may be useful to pilot the BRM practice with a small group within the organization – this gives you the opportunity to learn from the pilot and share best practices as you expand your BRM practice.

    You can leverage the pilot business unit’s feedback to help obtain buy-in from additional groups.

    Evaluate the approaches for your pilot:
    Work With an Engaged Business Unit
    Icon of a magnifying glass over a group of people.

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

    Target Underperforming Area(s)
    Icon of an ambulance.

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

    Target the Area(s) Driving the Most Business Value
    Icon of an arrow in a bullseye.

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

    Work Across a Single Business Process
    Icon of a process tree.

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

    Leverage BRM goals to determine where the role fits within the organization

    Organization tree with a strategic BRM.

    Strategic BRMs are considered IT leaders, often reporting to the CIO.


    Organization tree with an operational BRM.

    In product-aligned organizations, the product owners will own the strategic business relationship from a product perspective (often across LOB), while BRMs will own the strategic role for the line(s) of businesses (often across products) that they hold a relationship with. The BRM role may be played by a product family leader.


    Organization tree with a BRM in a product-aligned organization.

    BRMs may take on a more operational function when they are embedded within another group, such as the PMO. This manifests in:

    • Accountability for projects and programs
    • BRM conversations around projects and programs rather than overall needs
    • Often, there is less focus on stimulating need, more about managing demand
    • This structure may be useful for smaller organizations or where organizations are piloting the relationship capability

    Use the IT structure and the business structure to determine how to align BRM and business partners. Many organizations ensure that each LOB has a designated BRM, but each BRM may work with multiple LOBs. Ensure your alignment provides an even and manageable distribution of work.

    Don’t be intimidated by those who play a significant role in relationship management

    Layers representing the BRM, BA, and Product Owner. Business Relationship Manager: Portfolio View
    • Ongoing with broader organization-wide objectives
    • A BRM’s strategic perspective is focused across projects and products
    The BRM will look holistically across a portfolio, rather than on specific projects or products. Their focus is ensuring value is delivered that impacts the overall organization. Multiple BRMs may be responsible for lines of businesses and ensure that products and project enable LOBs effectively.
    Business Analyst: Product or Project View
    • Works within a project or product
    • Accomplishes specific objectives within the project/product
    The BA tends to be involved in project work – to that end, they are often brought in a bit before a project begins to better understand the context. They also often remain after the project is complete to ensure project value is delivered. However, their main focus is on delivering the objectives within the project.
    Product Owner: Product View
    • Ongoing and strategic view of entire product, with product-specific objectives
    The Product Owner bridges the gap between the business and delivery to ensure their product continuously delivers value. Their focus is on the product.

    3.2 Establish the BRM’s place in the organizational structure

    Input: BRM goals, IT organizational structure, Business organizational structure

    Output: BRM operating model

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the current organizational structure – both IT and overall business.
    2. Think about the maturity of the IT organization and what you and your partners will be able to support at this stage in the relationship or journey. Establish whether it is necessary to start with a pilot.
    3. Consider the reporting relationship that is required to support the desired maturity of your practice – who will your BRM function report into?
    4. Consider the distribution of work from your business partners. Establish which BRM is responsible for which partners.
    5. Document where the BRM fits in the organization in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Align your titles to your business partners and ensure it demonstrates your strategic goals

    Some titles that may reflect alignment with your partners:
    • Business Capability Manager
    • Business Information Officer
    • Business Relationship Manager
    • Director, Technology Partner
    • IT Business Relationship Manager
    • People Relationship Manager
    • Relationship and Strategy Officer
    • Strategic Partnership Director
    • Technology Partner/People Partner/Finance Partner/etc.
    • Value Management Officer

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

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

    Determine the expectations for your BRM role(s)

    Below are standard expectations from BRM job descriptions. Establish whether there are changes required for your organization.

    Act as a Relationship Manager
    • Build strong, collaborative relationships with business clients
    • Build strong, collaborative relationships with IT service owners
    • Track client satisfaction with services provided
    • Continuously improve, based on feedback from clients
    Communicate With Business Stakeholders
    • Ensure that effective communication occurs related to service delivery and project delivery (e.g. planned downtime, changes, open tickets)
    • Manage expectations of multiple business stakeholders
    • Provide a clear point of contact within IT for each business stakeholder
    • Act as a bridge between IT and the business
    Service Delivery

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

    • Understand at a high level the services and technologies in use
    • Work with clients to plan and make sure they understand the relevance and impact of IT changes to their operations
    • Define, agree to, and report on key service metrics
    • Act as an escalation point for major issues with any aspect of service delivery
    • Work with service owners to develop and monitor service improvement plans
    Project/Product Delivery
    • Ensure that the project teams provide regular reports regarding project status, issues, and changes
    • Work with project managers and clients to ensure project requirements are well understood and documented and approved by all stakeholders
    • Ensure that the project teams provide key project metrics on a regular basis to all relevant stakeholders

    Determine role expectations (slide 2 of 3)

    Knowledge of the Business

    Understand the main business activities for each department:

    • Understand which IT services are required to complete each business activity
    • Understand business processes and associated business activities for each user group within a department
    Advocate for Your Business Clients
    • Act as an advocate for the client – be invested in client success
    • Understand the strategies and plans of the clients and help develop an IT strategic plan/roadmap that maps to business strategies
    • Help the business understand project governance processes
    • Help clients to develop proposals and advance them through the project intake and assessment process
    Influence Business and IT Stakeholders
    • Influence business and IT stakeholders at multiple levels of the organization to help clients achieve their business objectives
    • Leverage existing relationships to convince decision makers to move forward with business and IT initiatives that will benefit the department and the organization as a whole
    • Understand and solve issues and challenges such as differing agendas, political considerations, and resistance to change
    Knowledge of the Market
    • Understand the industry – trends, competition, future direction
    • Leverage what others are doing to bring innovative ideas to the organization
    • Understand what end customers expect with regards to IT services and bring this intelligence to business leaders and decision makers

    Determine role expectations (slide 3 of 3)

    Value Creator
    • Understand how services currently offered by IT can be put to best use and create value for the business
    • Work collaboratively with clients to define and prioritize technology initiatives (new or enhanced services) that will bring the most business benefit
    • Lead initiatives that help the business achieve or exceed business goals and objectives
    • Lead initiatives that create business value (increased revenue, lower costs, increased efficiency) for the organization
    Innovator
    • Lead initiatives that result in new and better ways of doing business
    • Identify opportunities for using IT in new and innovative ways to bring value to the business and drive the business forward
    • Leverage knowledge of the business, knowledge of the industry, and knowledge of leading-edge technological solutions to transform the way the business operates and provides services to its customers

    3.3 Establish BRM expectations

    Input: BRM goals

    Output: BRM expectations

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the BRM expectations on the previous slides.
    2. Customize them – are they the appropriate set of expectations needed for your organization? What needs to be edited in or out?
    3. Add relevant expectations – what are the things that need to be done in the BRM practice at your organization?
    4. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm BRM expectations. Make sure you update them in the BRM Role Expectation Spreadsheet.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

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

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

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

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

    3.4 Identify roles with BRM responsibilities

    Input: BRM goals

    Output: BRM-aligned roles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Various roles can play a part in the BRM practice, managing business relationships. Which ones make sense in your organization, given the BRM goals?
    2. Identify the roles and capture in the BRM Role Expectation Spreadsheet. Use the Role Expectation Alignment tab, row 1.


    Download the Role Expectations Worksheet

    Determine the focus for each role that may manage business relationships

    Icon of a telescope. STRATEGIC Sets Direction: Focus of the activities is at the holistic, enterprise business level “relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them” e.g. builds overarching relationships to enable and support the organization’s strategy; has strategic conversations
    Icon of a house in a location marker. TACTICAL Figures Out the How: Focuses on the tactics required to achieve the strategic focus “skillful in devising means to ends” e.g. builds relationships specific to tactics (projects, products, etc.)
    Icon of a gear cog with a checkmark. OPERATIONAL Executes on the Direction: Day-to-day operations; how things get done “relating to the routine functioning and activities of a business or organization” e.g. builds and leverages relationships to accomplish specific goals (within a project or product)

    3.5 Align BRM capabilities to roles

    Input: Current-state model, Business value matrix, Objectives and goals

    Output: BRM-aligned roles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review each group of role expectations – Act as a Relationship Manager, Communicate with Business Stakeholders, etc. For each group, determine the focus each role can apply to it – strategic, tactical, or operational. Refer to the previous slide for examples.
    2. Capture on the spreadsheet:
      • S – This role is required to have a strategic view of the capabilities. They are accountable and set direction for this aspect of relationship management.
      • T – Indicate if the role is required to have a tactical view of the capabilities. This would include whether the role is required to figure out how the capabilities will be done; for example, is the role responsible for carrying out service management or are they just involved to ensure that that set of expectations are being performed?
      • O – Indicate if the role will have an operational view – are they the ones responsible for doing the work?
      • Note: In some organizations, a role may have more than one of these.
    3. The spreadsheet will highlight the cells in green if the role plays more of the strategic role, yellow for tactical, and brown for operational. This provides an overall visual of each role’s part in relationship management.
    4. (Optional) Review each detailed expectation within the group. Evaluate whether specific roles will have a different focus on the unique role expectations.

    Leverage the Role Expectations Worksheet

    Sample role expectation alignment

    Sample of a role expectation alignment table with expectation names and descriptions on the left and a matrix of which roles should have a Strategic (S), Tactical (T), or Operational (O) view of the capabilities.

    IMPLEMENT

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

    3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

    3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

    3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

    3.5 Align Capabilities

    Implement

    4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

    4.2 Identify Key Influencers

    4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

    4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

    4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

    Reassess & Embed

    5.1 Create Metrics

    5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

    5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

    5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

    5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

    5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

    Speak the same language as your partners: Business Value

    Business value represents the desired outcome from achieving business priorities.

    Value is not only about revenue or reduced expenses. Use this internal-external and capability-financial business value matrix to more holistically consider what is valuable to stakeholders.

    Improved Capabilities
    Enhance Services
    Products and services that enable business capabilities and improve an organization’s ability to perform its internal operations.
    Increase Customer Satisfaction
    Products and services that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce practical market information and insights.
    Inward Outward
    Save Money
    Products and services that reduce overhead. They typically are less related to broad strategic vision or goals and more simply limit expenses that would occur had the product or service not put in place.
    Make money
    (Return on Investment)
    Products and services that are specifically related to the impact on an organization’s ability to create a return on investment.
    Financial Benefits

    Business Value Matrix Axes:

    Financial Benefits vs. Improved Capabilities
    • Improved capabilities refers to the enhancement of business capabilities and skill sets.
    • Financial Benefits refers to the degree in which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and is often highly tangible.
    Inward vs. Outward Orientation
    • Inward refers to value sources that have an internal impact an organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in performing its operations.
    • Outward refers to value sources that come from interactions with external factors, such as the market or your customers.

    4.1 Activity: Brainstorm sources of business value

    Input: Product and service knowledge, Business process knowledge

    Output: Understanding of different sources of business value

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Identify your key stakeholders. These individuals are the critical business strategic partners in the organization’s governing bodies.
    2. Brainstorm the different types of business value that the BRM practice can produce.
    3. Is the item more focused on improving capabilities or generating financial benefits?
    4. Is the item focused on the customers you serve or the IT team?
    5. Enter your value item into a cell on the Business Value Matrix based on where it falls on these axes.
    6. Start to think about metrics you can use to measure how effective the product or service is at generating the value source.
    Simplified version of the Business Value Matrix on the previous slide.

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture sources of business value

    Brainstorm the different sources of business value (continued)

    See appendix for more information on value drivers:
    Example:
    Enhance Services
    • Dashboards/IT Situational Awareness
    • Improve measurement of services for data-driven analytics that can improve services
    • Collaborate to support Enterprise Architecture
    • Approval for and support of new applications per customer demand
    • Provide consultation for IT issues
    Axis arrow with 'Improved Capabilities'.
    Axis arrow with 'Financial Benefits'.
    Reach Customers
    • Provide technology roadmaps for IT services and devices
    • Improved "PR" presence: websites, service catalog, etc.
    • Enhance customer experience
    • Faster Time-to-market delivering innovative technologies and current services
    Axis arrow with 'Inward'.Axis arrow with 'Outward'.
    Reduce Costs
    • Achieve better pricing through enterprise agreements for IT services that are duplicated across several orgs
    • Prioritization/ development of roadmap
    • Portfolio management / reduce duplication of services
    • Evolve resourcing strategies to integrate teams (e.g. do more with less)
    Return on Investment
    • Customer -focused dashboards
    • Encourage use of centralized services through external collaboration capabilities that fit multiple use cases
    • Devise strategies for measured/supported migration from older IT systems/software

    Implications of ineffective stakeholder management

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

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

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

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

    Challenges

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

    Implications

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

    Cheat Sheet: Identify stakeholders

    Ask stakeholders “who else should I be talking to?” to discover additional stakeholders and ensure you don’t miss anyone.

    List the people who are identified through the following questions: Take a 360-degree view of potential internal and external stakeholders who might be impacted by the initiative.
    • Who will be adversely affected by potential environmental and social impacts in areas of influence that are affected by what you are doing?
    • At which stage will stakeholders be most affected (e.g. procurement, implementation, operations, decommissioning)?
    • Will other stakeholders emerge as the phases are started and completed?
    • Who is sponsoring the initiative?
    • Who benefits from the initiative?
    • Who loses from the initiative?
    • Who can make approvals?
    • Who controls resources?
    • Who has specialist skills?
    • Who implements the changes?
    • Who are the owners, governors, customers, and suppliers to impacted capabilities or functions?

    Executives

    Peers

    Direct reports

    Partners

    Customers

    Stock image of a world.

    Subcontractors

    Suppliers

    Contractors

    Lobby groups

    Regulatory agencies

    Establish your stakeholder network “map”

    Follow the trail of breadcrumbs from your direct stakeholders to their influencers to uncover hidden stakeholders.

    Your stakeholder map defines the influence landscape your BRM team operates in. It is every bit as important as the teams who enhance, support, and operate your products directly.

    Notes on the network map

    • Pay special attention to influencers who have many arrows; they are called “connectors,” and due to their diverse reach of influence, should themselves be treated as significant stakeholders.
    • Don’t forget to consider the through-lines from one influencer through intermediate stakeholders or influencers to the final stakeholder – a single influencer may have additional influence via multiple, possibly indirect paths to a single stakeholder.

    Legend for the example stakeholder network map below. 'Black arrows indicate the direction of professional influence'. 'Dashed green arrows indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships'

    Example stakeholder network map visualizing relationships between different stakeholders.

    4.2 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

    Input: List of stakeholders

    Output: Relationships among stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. List direct stakeholders for your area. Ensure it includes stakeholders across the organization (both IT and business units).
    2. Determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders. Consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list: assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
    3. Create a stakeholder network map to visualize relationships.
      • (Optional) Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
      • (Optional) Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.
    4. Capture the list or diagram of your stakeholders in your workbook.

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture stakeholders

    Categorize your stakeholders with a stakeholder prioritization map

    A stakeholder prioritization map help teams categorize their stakeholders by their level or influence and ownership.

    There are four areas in the map and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.

    • Players – players have a high interest in the initiative and the influence to effect change over the initiative. Their support is critical and a lack of support can cause significant impediment to the objectives.
    • Mediators – mediators have a low interest but significant influence over the initiative. They can help to provide balance and objective opinions to issues that arise.
    • Noisemakers – noisemakers have low influence but high interest. They tend to be very vocal and engaged, either positively or negatively, but have little ability to enact their wishes.
    • Spectators – generally, spectators are apathetic and have little influence over or interest in the initiative.

    Stakeholder prioritization map with axes 'Influence' and 'Ownership/Interest' splitting the map into four quadrants: 'Spectators Low/Low', 'Noisemakers Low/High', 'Mediators High/Low', and 'Players High/High'.

    4.3 Group your stakeholders into categories

    Input: Stakeholder Map

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

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

    Stakeholder prioritization map with example 'Stakeholders' placed in or across the four quadrants.

    Level of Influence

    • Power: Ability of a stakeholder to effect change.
    • Urgency: Degree of immediacy demanded.
    • Legitimacy: Perceived validity of stakeholder’s claim.
    • Volume: How loud their “voice” is or could become.
    • Contribution: What they have that is of value to you.

    Level of Interest

    How much are the stakeholder’s individual performance and goals directly tied to the success or failure of the product?

    Use the BRM Workbook to map your stakeholders

    Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

    Each group of stakeholders draws attention and resources away from critical tasks.

    By properly identifying your stakeholder groups, you can develop corresponding actions to manage stakeholders in each group. This can dramatically reduce wasted effort trying to satisfy Spectators and Noisemakers while ensuring the needs of the Mediators and Players are met.

    Type Quadrant Actions
    Players High influence; high interest Actively Engage
    Keep them engaged through continuous involvement. Maintain their interest by demonstrating their value to its success.
    Mediators High influence; low interest Keep Satisfied
    They can be the game changers in groups of stakeholders. Turn them into supporters by gaining their confidence and trust, and include them in important decision-making steps. In turn, they can help you influence other stakeholders.
    Noisemakers Low influence; high interest Keep Informed
    Try to increase their influence (or decrease it if they are detractors) by providing them with key information, supporting them in meetings, and using Mediators to help them.
    Spectators Low influence; low interest Monitor
    They are followers. Keep them in the loop by providing clarity on objectives and status updates.

    Prioritize your stakeholders

    There may be too many stakeholders to be able to manage them all. Focus your attention on the stakeholders that matter most.

    Apply a third dimension for stakeholder prioritization: support.

    Support, in addition to interest and influence, is used to prioritize which stakeholders are should receive the focus of your attention. This table indicates how stakeholders are ranked:

    Table with 'Stakeholder Categories' and their 'Level of Support' for prioritizing. Support levels are 'Supporter', 'Evangelist', 'Neutral', and 'Blocker'.

    Support can be determined by rating the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would recommend IT at your organization/your group? Our four categories of support:

    • Blocker – beware of the blocker. These stakeholders do not support your cause and have the necessary drive to impede the achievement of your objectives.
    • Semi-Supporter – while these stakeholders are committed to your objectives, they are somewhat apathetic to advocate on your behalf. They will support you so long as it does not require much effort from them to do so.
    • Neutral – neutrals do not have much commitment to your objectives and are not willing to expend much energy to either support or detract from them.
    • Supporter – these stakeholders are committed to your initiative and are willing to whole-heartedly provide you with support.

    4.4 Update your stakeholder quadrant to include the three dimensions

    Input: Stakeholder Map

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Identify the level of support of each stakeholder by answering the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would support your initiative/endeavor?
    2. Map your results to the model in your workbook to determine each stakeholder’s category.
    Stakeholder prioritization map with example 'Persons' placed in or across the four quadrants. with The third dimension, 'Level of Support', is color-coded.

    Use the BRM Workbook to map your stakeholders

    Leverage your map to think about how to engage with your stakeholders

    Not all stakeholders are equal, nor can they all be treated the same. Your stakeholder quadrant highlights areas where you may need to engage differently.

    Blockers

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

    Neutral & Evangelists

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

    Supporters

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

    4.5 Create your engagement plan

    Input: Stakeholder Map/list of stakeholders

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Leverage the BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan spreadsheet. List your key stakeholders.
    2. Consider: how do you show value at your current maturity level so that you can gain trust and your relationship can mature? Establish where your relationship lacks maturity, and consider whether you need to engage with them on a more strategic, tactical, or even operational manner.
      • At lower levels of maturity (Table Stakes), focus on service delivery, project delivery, and communication.
      • At mid-level maturity (Influencer/Advocate), focus on business pain points and a deeper knowledge of the business.
      • At higher maturity levels (Value Creator/Innovator), focus on creating value by leading innovative initiatives that drive the business forward.
    3. Review the stakeholder quadrant. Update the frequency of your communication accordingly.
    4. Capture the agenda for your engagements with them.

    Download and use the BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan

    Your agenda should vary with the maturity of your relationship

    Agenda
    Stakeholder Information Type Meeting Frequency Lower Maturity Mid-Level Maturity Higher Maturity
    VP Strategic Quarterly
    • Summary of current and upcoming projects and initiatives
    • Business pain points for the department
    • Proposed solutions to address business pain points
    • Innovative solutions to improve business processes and drive value for the department and the organization
    Director Strategic, Tactical Monthly
    • Summary of recent and upcoming changes
    • Summary of current and upcoming projects and initiatives
    • Business pain points for the department
    • Proposed business process improvements
    • Current and upcoming project proposals to address business pain points
    • Innovative solutions to help the department achieve its business goals and objectives
    Manager Tactical Monthly
    • Summary of service desk tickets
    • Summary of recent and upcoming changes
    • Summary of current and upcoming projects and initiatives
    • Business pain points for the team
    • Proposed business activity improvements
    • Current and upcoming projects to address business pain points
    • Innovative solutions to help business users perform their daily business activities more effectively and efficiently

    Lower Maturity – Focus on service delivery, project delivery, and communication

    Mid-Level Maturity – Focus on business pain points and a deeper knowledge of the business

    Higher Maturity – Focus on creating value by leading innovative initiatives that drive the business forward

    Stakeholder – Include both IT and business stakeholders at appropriate levels

    Agenda – Manage stakeholders expectations, and clarify how your agenda will progress as the partnership matures

    REASSESS & EMBED

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

    3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

    3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

    3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

    3.5 Align Capabilities

    Implement

    4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

    4.2 Identify Key Influencers

    4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

    4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

    4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

    Reassess & Embed

    5.1 Create Metrics

    5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

    5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

    5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

    5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

    5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

    Measure your BRM practice success

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

    Stock image of multiple business people running off the end of a pointed finger like lemmings.

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

    S pecific

    M easurable

    A chievable

    R ealistic

    T ime-bound

    Embedding the BRM practice within your organization must be grounded in achievable outcomes.

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

    Determine whether your business is satisfied with IT

    Measuring tape.

    1

    Survey your stakeholders to measure improvements in customer satisfaction.

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

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

    Business satisfaction survey

    • Audience: Business leaders
    • Frequency: Annual
    • Metrics:
      • Overall Satisfaction score
      • Overall Value score
      • Relationship Satisfaction:
        • Understand needs
        • Meet needs
        • Communication
    Two small tables showing example 'Value' and 'Satisfaction' scores.
    Table with a breakdown of the example 'Satisfaction' score, with individual scores for 'Needs', 'Execution', and 'Communication'.

    Check if you’ve met the BRM goals you set out to achieve

    Measuring tape.

    2

    Measure BRM success against the goals for the practice.

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

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

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

    Dart board with five darts, each representing a goal, 'Demand Shaping', 'Value Realization', 'Servicing', 'Exploring', and 'Other Goal(s)'.

    5.1 Create metrics

    Input: Goals, The attributes which can align to goal success

    Output: Measurements of success

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Start with a consideration of your goals and objectives.
    2. Identify key aspects that can support confirming if the goal was successful.
    3. For each aspect, develop a method to measure success with a specific measurement.
    4. When creating the KPI consider:
      • How you know if you are achieving your objective (performance)?
      • How frequently will you be measuring this?
      • Are you looking for an increase, decrease, or maintenance of the metric?
    Table with columns 'BRM Goals', 'Measurement', 'KPI', and 'Frequency'.

    Use the BRM Workbook

    Don’t wait all year to find out if you’re on track

    Leverage the below questions to quickly poll your business partners on a more frequent basis.

    Partner instructions:

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

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

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

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

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

    Embedding the BRM practice also includes acknowledging the BRM’s part in balancing the IT portfolio

    IT needs to juggle “keeping the lights on” initiatives with those required to add value to the organization.

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Stock image of a man juggling business symbols.

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

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

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

    Flowchart for an example intake process.

    For support creating your intake process, go to Optimize Project Intake, Approval and Prioritization Sample of Info-Tech's Optimize Project Intake, Approval and Prioritization.

    Use value as your criteria to evaluate initiatives

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

    Sample of Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

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

    Enter risk/compliance criteria under operational alignment: projects must be aligned with the operational goals of the business and IT.

    Business value matrix.

    Enter these criteria under strategic alignment: projects must be aligned with the strategic goals of the business, customer, and IT.
    Enter financial criteria under financial: projects must realize monetary benefits, in increased revenue or decreased costs, while posing as little risk of cost overrun as possible.
    And don’t forget about feasibility: practical considerations for projects must be taken into account in selecting projects.

    5.2 Prioritize your investments/ projects (optional activity)

    Input: Value criteria

    Output: Prioritized project listing

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review and edit (if necessary) the criteria on tab 2 the Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.
      Screenshot from tab 2 of Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.
    2. Score initiatives and investments on tab 3 using your criteria.
      Screenshot from tab 3 of Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.
    Download Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

    Visualize where investments add value through an initiative portfolio map

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

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Example initiative portfolio map


    Example initiative portfolio map with initiatives in categories like 'Marketing Strategy' and 'Brand Mgmt.'. Certain groups of initiatives have labels detailing when they achieve collectively.

    5.3 Create a portfolio investment map (optional activity)

    Input: Business capability map

    Output: Portfolio investment map

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Build a capability map, outlining the value streams that support your organization’s goals and the high-level capabilities (level 1) that support the value stream (and goals).
      For more support in establishing the capability map, see Document Your Business Architecture.
      Example table for outlining 'Value Streams' and 'Level 1 Capabilities' through 'Goals'.
    2. Identify high-value capabilities for the organization.
    3. What are the projects and initiatives that will address the critical capabilities? Add these under the high-value capabilities.
    4. This process will help you demonstrate how projects align to business goals. Enter your capabilities and projects in Info-Tech’s Initiative Portfolio Map Template.
    Download Info-Tech’s Initiative Portfolio Map Template.

    Establish your annual BRM plan

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

    5.4 Establish your year-in-the-life plan

    Input: Engagement plan, BRM goals

    Output: Annual BRM plan

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Start with your business planning activities – what will you as a BRM be doing as your business establishes their plans and strategies? These could include:
      • Listening and feedback sessions
      • Third-party explorations
    2. Then look at your activities required to integrate within IT – what activities are required to align business directives within your IT groups? Examples can include:
      • Business strategy review
      • Capability map creation
      • Input into the Business-aligned IT strategy
      • IT budget input
    3. What activities are required to continuously improve the BRM role? This may consist of:
      • Feedback discussions with business partners
      • Roadshow with colleagues to communicate and refine the practice
    4. Map these on your annual calendar that can be shared with your colleagues.
    Capture in the BRM Workbook

    Communicate using the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Sample of a slide titled 'BRM Annual Cycle'.

    Sample BRM annual cycle

    Sample BRM annual cycle with row headers 'Business Feedback and Engagement', 'Business-IT Alignment', and 'BRM Improvement' mapped across a Q1 to Q4 timeline with individual tasks in each category.

    5.5 Build your transformation roadmap

    Input: SWOT analysis

    Output: Transformation roadmap

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Brainstorm and discuss the key enablers that are needed to help promote and ease your BRM program.
    2. Brainstorm and discuss the key blockers (or risks) that may interrupt or derail your BRM program.
    3. Brainstorm mitigation activities for each blocker.
    4. Enablers and mitigation activities can be listed on your transformation roadmap.

    Example:

    Enablers

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

    Blockers

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

    Mitigation

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

    Capture in the BRM Workbook

    5.5 Build your transformation roadmap (cont’d)

    1. Roadmap Elements:
      • List the artifacts, changes, or actions needed to implement the new BRM program.
      • For each item, identify how long it will take to implement or change by moving it into the appropriate swim lane. Use timing that makes sense for your organization: Quick Wins, Short Term, and Long Term; Now, Next, and Later; or Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4.

    Example transformation roadmap with BRM programs arranged in columns 'Now', 'Next (3-6 months)', 'Later (6+ months)', and 'Deferred'.

    Communicate the BRM changes to set your practice up for success

    Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state, and that makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff.

    The change message should:

    • Explain why the change is needed.
    • Summarize what will stay the same.
    • Highlight what will be left behind.
    • Emphasize what is being changed.
    • Explain how change will be implemented.
    • Address how change will affect various roles in the organization.
    • Discuss the staff’s role in making the change successful.
    Five elements of communicating change
    Diagram titled 'COMMUNICATING THE CHANGE' surrounded by useful questions: 'What is the change?', 'What will the role be for each department and individual?', 'Why are we doing it?', 'How long will it take us to do it?', and 'How are we going to go about it?'.
    (Source: The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change)

    Apply the following communication principles to make your BRM changes relevant to stakeholders

    “We tend to use a lot of jargon in our discussions, and that is a sure fire way to turn people away. We realized the message wasn’t getting out because the audience wasn’t speaking the same language. You have to take it down to the next level and help them understand where the needs are.” (Jeremy Clement, Director of Finance, College of Charleston, Info-Tech Interview, 2018)

    Be Relevant

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

    Be Clear

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

    Be Concise

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

    Be Consistent

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

    5.6 Create a communications plan tailored to each of your stakeholders

    Input: Prioritized list of stakeholders

    Output: Communication Plan

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. List stakeholders in order of importance in the first column.
    2. Identify the frequency with which you will communicate to each group.
    3. Determine the scope of the communication:
      • What key information needs to be included in the message to ensure they are informed and on board?
      • Which medium(s) will you use to communicate to that specific group?
    4. Develop a concrete timeline that will be followed to ensure that support is maintained from the key stakeholders.

    Audience

    All BRM Staff

    Purpose

    • Introduce and explain operating model
    • Communicate structural changes

    Communication Type

    • Team Meeting

    Communicator

    CIO

    Timing

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

    Related Blueprints

    Business Value
    Service Catalog
    Intake Management
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Document Your Business Architecture' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Manage Stakeholder Relations' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Fix Your IT Culture' blueprint.

    Selected Bibliography

    “Apple Mission and Vision Analysis.” Mission Statement Academy, 23 May 2019. Accessed 5 November 2020.

    Barnes, Aaron. “Business Relationship Manager and Plan Build Run.” BRM Institute, 8 April 2014.

    Barnes, Aaron. “Starting a BRM Team - Business Relationship Management Institute.” BRM Institute, 5 June 2013. Web.

    BRM Institute. “Business Partner Maturity Model.” Member Templates and Examples, Online Campus, n.d. Accessed 3 December 2021.

    BRM Institute. “BRM Assessment Templates and Examples.” Member Templates and Examples, Online Campus, n.d. Accessed 24 November 2021.

    Brusnahan, Jim, et al. “A Perfect Union: BRM and Agile Development and Delivery.” BRM Institute, 8 December 2020. Web.

    Business Relationship Management: The BRMP Guide to the BRM Body of Knowledge. Second printing ed., BRM Institute, 2014.

    Chapman, Chuck. “Building a Culture of Trust - Remote Leadership Institute.” Remote Leadership Institute, 10 August 2021. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “Coca Cola Mission and Vision Analysis.” Mission Statement Academy, 4 August 2019. Accessed 5 November 2020.

    Colville, Alan. “Shared Vision.” UX Magazine, 31 October 2011. Web.

    Cooper, Robert, G. “Effective Gating: Make product innovation more productive by using gates with teeth.” Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute, March/April 2009. Web.

    Heller, Martha. “How CIOs Can Make Business Relationship Management (BRM) Work.” CIO, 1 November 2016. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “How Many Business Relationship Managers Should You Have.” BRM Institute, 20 March 2013. Web.

    Hull, Patrick. “Answer 4 Questions to Get a Great Mission Statement.” Forbes, 10 January 2013. Web.

    Kasperkevic, Jana. “Bill Gates: Good Feedback Is the Key to Improvement.” Inc.com, 17 May 2013. Web.

    Merlyn, Vaughan. “Relationships That Matter to the BRM.” BRM Institute, 19 October 2016. Web.

    “Modernizing IT’s Business Relationship Manager Role.” The Hackett Group, 22 November 2019. Web.

    Monroe, Aaron. “BRMs in a SAFe World...That Is, a Scaled Agile Framework Model.” BRM Institute, 5 January 2021. Web.

    Selected Bibliography

    “Operational, adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2021. Accessed 29 January 2022.

    Sinek, Simon. “Transcript of ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action.’” TEDxPuget Sound, September 2009. Accessed 7 November 2020.

    “Strategic, Adj. and n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2016. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “Tactical, Adj.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2018. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, 23 September 2013. Web.

    “Twice the Business Value in Half the Time: When Agile Methods Meet the Business Relationship Management Role.” BRM Institute, 10 April 2015. Web.

    “Value Streams.” Scaled Agile Framework, 30 June 2020. Web.

    Ward, John. “Delivering Value from Information Systems and Technology Investments: Learning from Success.” Information Systems Research Centre, August 2006. Web.

    Appendix

    • Business Value Drivers
    • Service Blueprint
    • Stakeholder Communications
    • Job Descriptions

    Understand business value drivers for ROI and cost

    Make Money

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

    Return on Investment can be derived from:

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

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

    Save Money

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

    Reduce costs value can be derived from:

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

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

    Understand Business Value Drivers that Enhance Your Services

    Operations

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

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

    Risk and Compliance

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

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

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

    Internal Information

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

    Internal information value can be derived by:

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

    Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer

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

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

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

    Understand Business Value Drivers that Connect the Business to Your Customers

    Policy

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

    Policy value can be derived from:

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

    Customer Relations

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

    Customer satisfaction value can be derived from:

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

    Market Information

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

    Market information value can be achieved when an app:

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

    Market Share

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

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

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

    Service Blueprint

    Service design involves an examination of the people, process and technology involved in delivering a service to your customers.

    Service blueprinting provides a visual of how these are connected together. It enables you to identify and collaborate on improvements to an existing service.

    The main components of a service blueprint are:

    Customer actions – this anchors the service in the experiences of the customer

    Front-stage – this shows the parts of the service that are visible to the customer

    Back-stage – this is the behind-the-scenes actions necessary to deliver the experience to the customer

    Support processes – this is what’s necessary to deliver the back-stage (and front-stage/customer experience), but is not aligned from a timing perspective (e.g. it doesn’t matter if the fridge is stocked when the order is put in, as long as the supplies are available for the chef to use)

    Example service blueprint with the main components listed above as row headers.

    Physical Evidence and Time are blueprint components can be added in to provide additional context & support

    Example service blueprint with the main components plus added components 'Physical Evidence' and 'Time'.

    Stakeholder Communications

    Personalize
    • “What’s in it for me” & Persona development – understanding what the concerns are from the community that you will want to communicate about
    • Get to know the cultures of each persona to identify how they communicate. For the faculty, Teams might not be the answer, but faculty meetings might be, or sending messages via email. Each persona group may have unique/different needs
    • Meet them “where they are”: Be prepared to provide 5-minute updates (with “what’s in it for me” and personas in mind) at department meetings in cases where other communications (Teams etc.) aren’t reaching the community
    • Review the business vision diagnostic report to understand what’s important to each community group and what their concerns are with IT. Definitely review the comments that users have written.
    Show Proof
    • Share success stories tailored to users needs – e.g. if they have a concern with security, and IT implemented a new secure system to better meet their needs, then telling them about the success is helpful – shows that you’re listening and have responded to meet their concerns. Demonstrates how interacting with IT has led to positive results. People can more easily relate to stories

    Reference
    • Consider establishing a repository (private/unlisted YouTube channel, Teams, etc.) so that the community can search to view the tip/trick they need
    • Short videos are great to provide a snippet of the information you want to share
    Responses
    • Engage in 2-way communications – it’s about the messages IT wants to convey AND the messages you want them to convey to you. This helps to ensure that your messages aren’t just heard but are understood/resonate.
    • Let people know how they should communicate with IT – whether it’s engaging through Teams, via email to a particular address, or through in person sessions
    Test & Learn
    • Be prepared to experiment with the content and mediums, and use analytics to assess the results. For example if videos are posted on a site like SharePoint that already has analytics functionality, you can capture the number of views to determine how much they are viewed
    Multiple Mediums
    • Use a combination of one-on-one interviews/meetings and focus groups to obtain feedback. You may want to start with some of the respondents who provided comments on surveys/diagnostics

    BRM Job Descriptions

    Download the Job Descriptions:

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}295|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Asset Management
    • Parent Category Link: /asset-management

    You have a mandate to create an accurate and actionable database of the IT assets in your environment, but:

    • The data you have is often incomplete or wrong.
    • Processes are broken or non-existent.
    • Your tools aren’t up to the task of tracking ever more hardware, software, and relevant metadata.
    • The role of stakeholders outside the core ITAM team isn’t well defined or understood.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides accurate, accessible, actionable data on IT assets. But there’s no value in data for data’s sake. Enable collaboration between IT asset managers, business leaders, and IT leaders to develop an ITAM strategy that maximizes the value they can deliver as service providers.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop an approach and strategy for ITAM that is sustainable and aligned with your business priorities.
    • Clarify the structure for the ITAM program, including scope, responsibility and accountability, centralization vs. decentralization, outsourcing vs. insourcing, and more.
    • Create a practical roadmap to guide improvement.
    • Summarize your strategy and approach using Info-Tech’s templates for review with stakeholders.

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy Research & Tools

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

    1. Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy – A methodology to create a business-aligned, coherent, and durable approach to ITAM.

    This two-phase, step-by-step methodology will guide you through the activities to build a business-aligned, coherent, and durable approach to ITAM. Review the executive brief at the start of the slide deck for an overview of the methodology and the value it can provide to your organization.

    • Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy – Phases 1-2

    2. ITAM Strategy Template – A presentation-ready repository for the work done as you define your ITAM approach.

    Use this template to document your IT asset management strategy and approach.

    • ITAM Strategy Template

    3. IT Asset Estimations Tracker – A rough-and-ready inventory exercise to help you evaluate the work ahead of you.

    Use this tool to estimate key data points related to your IT asset estate, as well as your confidence in your estimates.

    • IT Asset Estimations Tracker

    Infographic

    Workshop: Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

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

    1 Identify ITAM Priorities & Goals, Maturity, Metrics and KPIs

    The Purpose

    Align key stakeholders to the potential strategic value of the IT asset management practice.

    Ensure the ITAM practice is focused on business-aligned goals.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Define a business-aligned direction and expected outcomes for your ITAM program.

    Activities

    1.1 Brainstorm ITAM opportunities and challenges.

    1.2 Conduct an executive alignment working session.

    1.3 Set ITAM priorities, goals and tactics.

    1.4 Identify target and current state ITAM maturity.

    Outputs

    ITAM opportunities and challenges

    Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities.

    ITAM metrics and KPIs

    ITAM maturity

    2 Identify Your Approach to Support ITAM Priorities and Goals

    The Purpose

    Translate goals into specific and coherent actions to enable your ITAM practice to deliver business value.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A business-aligned approach to ITAM, encompassing scope, structure, tools, audits, budgets, documentation and more.

    A high-level roadmap to achieve your vision for the ITAM practice.

    Activities

    2.1 Define ITAM scope.

    2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).

    2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    2.8 Improve your budget processes.

    2.9 Establish a documentation framework.

    2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.

    Outputs

    Your ITAM approach

    ITAM roadmap and communication plan

    Further reading

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Define your business-aligned approach to ITAM.

    Table of Contents

    4 Analyst Perspective

    5 Executive Summary

    17 Phase 1: Establish Business-Aligned ITAM Goals and Priorities

    59 Phase 2: Support ITAM Goals and Priorities

    116 Bibliography

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Define your business-aligned approach to ITAM.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Track hardware and software. Seems easy, right?

    It’s often taken for granted that IT can easily and accurately provide definitive answers to questions like “how many laptops do we have at Site 1?” or “do we have the right number of SQL licenses?” or “how much do we need to budget for device replacements next year?” After all, don’t we know what we have?

    IT can’t easily provide these answers because to do so you must track hardware and software throughout its lifecycle – which is not easy. And unfortunately, you often need to respond to these questions on very short notice because of an audit or to support a budgeting exercise.

    IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the solution. It’s not a new solution – the discipline has been around for decades. But the key to success is to deploy the practice in a way that is sustainable, right-sized, and maximizes value.

    Use our practical methodology to develop and document your approach to ITAM that is aligned with the goals of your organization.

    Photo of Andrew Sharp, Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Andrew Sharp
    Research Director
    Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Realize the value of asset management

    Cost optimization, application rationalization and reduction of technical debt are all considered valuable to right-size spending and improve service outcomes. Without access to accurate data, these activities require significant investments of time and effort, starting with creation of point-in-time inventories, which lengthens the timeline to reaching project value and may still not be accurate.

    Cost optimization and reduction of technical debt should be part of your culture and technical roadmap rather than one-off projects. Why? Access to accurate information enables the organization to quickly make decisions and pivot plans as needed. Through asset management, ongoing harvest and redeployment of assets improves utilization-to-spend ratios. We would never see any organization saying, “We’ve closed our year end books, let’s fire the accountants,” but often see this valuable service relegated to the back burner. Similar to the philosophy that “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the next best time is now,” the sooner you can start to collect, validate, and analyze data, the sooner you will find value in it.

    Photo of Sandi Conrad, Principal Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Sandi Conrad
    Principal Research Director
    Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    You have a mandate to create an accurate and actionable database of the IT assets in your environment, but:

    • The data you have is often incomplete or wrong.
    • Processes are broken or non-existent.
    • Your tools aren’t up to the task of tracking ever more hardware, software, and relevant metadata.
    • The role of stakeholders outside the core ITAM team isn’t well defined or understood.
    Common Obstacles

    It is challenging to make needed changes because:

    • There’s cultural resistance to asset tracking, it’s seen as busywork that doesn’t clearly create value.
    • Decentralized IT teams aren’t generating the data required to track hardware and licenses.
    • ITAM can’t direct needed tool improvements because the admins don’t report to ITAM.
    • It’s hard to find time to improve processes given the day-to-day demands on your time.
    Info-Tech’s Approach
    • Develop an approach and strategy for ITAM that is sustainable and aligned with your business priorities.
    • Clarify the structure for the ITAM program, including scope, responsibility and accountability, centralization vs. decentralization, outsourcing vs. insourcing, and more.
    • Create a practical roadmap to guide improvement.
    • Summarize your strategy and approach using Info-Tech’s templates for review with stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Insight

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides accurate, accessible, actionable data on IT assets. But there’s no value in data for data’s sake. Enable collaboration between IT asset managers, business leaders, and IT leaders to develop an ITAM strategy that maximizes the value they can deliver as service providers.

    Unlock business value with IT asset management

    • IT asset management (ITAM) is the practice of maintaining accurate, accessible, and actionable data on the assets within the organization’s IT estate. Each IT asset will have a record that tracks it across its lifecycle from purchase to disposal.
    • ITAM’s value is realized through other processes and practice areas that can leverage ITAM data to manage risk, improve IT services, and control costs.
    • Develop an approach to ITAM that maximizes the value delivered to the business and IT. ITAM succeeds when its partners succeed at delivering business value, and it fails when it doesn’t show value to those partners.

    This blueprint will help you develop your approach for the management of IT hardware and software, including cloud services. Leverage other Info-Tech methodologies to dive directly into developing hardware asset management procedures, software asset management procedures, or to implement configuration management best practices.

    Info-Tech Members report significant savings from implementing our hardware and software asset management frameworks. In order to maximize value from the process-focused methodologies below, develop your ITAM strategy first.

    Implement Hardware Asset Management (Based on Info-Tech Measured Value Surveys results from clients working through these blueprints, as of February 2022.)

    9.6/10

    $23k

    32

    Overall Impact Average $ Saved Average Days Saved
    Implement Software Asset Management (Based on Info-Tech Measured Value Surveys results from clients working through these blueprints, as of February 2022.)

    9.0/10

    $12k

    5

    Overall Impact Average $ Saved Average Days Saved

    ITAM provides both early and ongoing value

    ITAM isn’t one-and-done. Properly supported, your ITAM practice will deliver up-front value that will help demonstrate the value ongoing ITAM can offer through the maintenance of an accurate, accessible, and actionable ITAM database.

    Example: Software Savings from ITAM



    This chart shows the money saved between the first quote and the final price for software and maintenance by a five-person ITAM team. Over a year and a half, they saved their organization a total of $7.5 million from a first quote total of $21 million over that period.

    This is a perfect example of the direct value that ITAM can provide on an ongoing basis to the organization, when properly supported and integrated with IT and the business.

    Examples of up-front value delivered in the first year of the ITAM practice:

    • Save money by reviewing and renegotiating critical, high-spend, and undermanaged software and service contracts.
    • Redeploy or dispose of clearly unused hardware and software.
    • Develop and enforce standards for basic hardware and software.
    • Improve ITAM data quality and build trust in the results.

    Examples of long-term value from ongoing governance, management, and operational ITAM activities:

    • Optimize spend: Reallocate unused hardware and software, end unneeded service agreements, and manage renewals and audits.
    • Reduce risk: Provide comprehensive asset data for security controls development and incident management; manage equipment disposal.
    • Improve IT service: Support incident, problem, request, and change management with ITAM data. Develop new solutions with an understanding of what you have already.

    Common obstacles

    The rulebook is available, but hard to follow
    • ITAM takes a village, but stakeholders aren’t aware of their role. ITAM processes rely on technicians to update asset records, vendors to supply asset data, administrators to manage tools, leadership to provide direction and support, and more.
    • Constant change in the IT and business environment undermines the accuracy of ITAM records (e.g. licensing and contract changes, technology changes that break discovery tools, personnel and organizational changes).
    • Improvement efforts are overwhelmed by day-to-day activities. One study found that 83% of SAM teams’ time is consumed by audit-related activities. (Flexera State of ITAM Report 2022) A lack of improvement becomes a vicious cycle when stakeholders who don’t see the value of ITAM decline to dedicate resources for improvement.
    • Stakeholders expect ITAM tools to be a cure-all, but even at their best, they can’t provide needed answers without some level of configuration, manual input, and supervision.
    • There’s often a struggle to connect ITAM to value. For example, respondents to Info-Tech’s Management & Governance Diagnostic consistently rank ITAM as less important than other processes that ITAM directly supports (e.g. budget management and budget optimization). (Info-Tech MGD Diagnostic (n=972 unique organizations))
    ITAM is a mature discipline with well-established standards, certifications, and tools, but we still struggle with it.
    • Only 28% of SAM teams track IaaS and PaaS spend, and only 35% of SAM teams track SaaS usage.
    • Increasing SAM maturity is a challenge for 76% of organizations.
    • 10% of organizations surveyed have spent more than $5 million in the last three years in audit penalties and true-ups.
    • Half of all of organizations lack a viable SAM tool.
    • Seventy percent of SAM teams have a shortfall of qualified resources.
    • (Flexera State of ITAM Report 2022)

    Info-Tech's IT Asset Management Framework (ITAM)

    Adopt, manage, and mature activities to enable business value thorugh actionable, accessible, and accurate ITAM data

    Logo for Info-Tech Research Group. Enable Business Value Logo for #iTRG.
    Business-Aligned Spend
    Optimization and Transparency
    Facilitate IT Services
    and Products
    Actionable, Accessible,
    and Accurate Data
    Context-Aware Risk Management
    and Security Controls

    Plan & Govern

    Business Goals, Risks, and Structure
    • ITAM Goals & Priorities
    • Roles, Accountability, Responsibilities
    • Scope
    Ongoing Management Commitment
    • Resourcing & Funding
    • Policies & Enforcement
    • Continuous Improvement
    Culture
    • ITAM Education, Awareness & Training
    • Organizational Change Management
    Section title 'Operate' with a cycle surrounding key components of Operate: 'Data Collection & Validation', 'Tool Administration', 'License Management', and 'Lease Management'. The cycle consists of 'Request', 'Procure', 'Receive', 'Deploy', 'Manage', 'Retire & Dispose', and back to 'Request'.

    Build & Manage

    Tools & Data
    • ITAM Tool Selection & Deployment
    • Configuration Management Synchronization
    • IT Service Management Integration
    Process
    • Process Management
    • Data & Process Audits
    • Document Management
    People, Policies, and Providers
    • Stakeholder Management
    • Technology Standardization
    • Vendor & Contract Management

    Info-Tech Insight

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides actionable, accessible, and accurate data on IT assets. But there's no value in data for data's sake. Use this methodology to enable collaboration between ITAM, the business, and IT to develop an approach to ITAM that maximizes the value the ITAM team can deliver as service providers.

    Key deliverable

    IT asset management requires ongoing practice – you can’t just implement it and walk away.

    Our methodology will help you build a business-aligned strategy and approach for your ITAM practice with the following outputs:

    • Business-aligned ITAM priorities, opportunities, and goals.
    • Current and target state ITAM maturity.
    • Metrics and KPIs.
    • Roles, responsibilities, and accountability.
    • Insourcing, outsourcing, and (de)centralization.
    • Tools and technology.
    • A documentation framework.
    • Initiatives, a roadmap, and a communication plan.
    Each step of this blueprint is designed to help you create your IT asset management strategy:
    Sample of Info-Tech's key deliverable 'IT Asset Management' blueprint.

    Info-Tech’s methodology to develop an IT asset management strategy

    1. Establish business-aligned ITAM goals and priorities 2. Identify your approach to support ITAM priorities and goals
    Phase Steps
    • 1.1 Define ITAM and brainstorm opportunities and challenges.
    • Executive Alignment Working Session:
    • 1.2 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.
    • 1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities and priorities.
    • 1.4 Identify business-aligned ITAM goals and target maturity.
    • 1.5 Write mission and vision statements.
    • 1.6 Define ITAM metrics and KPIs.
    • 2.1 Define ITAM scope.
    • 2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).
    • 2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.
    • 2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.
    • 2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.
    • 2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.
    • 2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.
    • 2.8 Improve your budget processes.
    • 2.9 Establish a documentation framework.
    • 2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.
    Phase Outcomes Defined, business-aligned goals and priorities for ITAM. Establish an approach to achieving ITAM goals and priorities including scope, structure, tools, service management integrations, documentation, and more.
    Project Outcomes Develop an approach and strategy for ITAM that is sustainable and aligned with your business priorities.

    Insight Summary

    There’s no value in data for data’s sake

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides accurate, accessible, actionable data on IT assets. Enable collaboration between IT asset managers, business leaders, and IT leaders to develop an approach to ITAM that maximizes the value they can deliver as service providers.

    Service provider to a service provider

    ITAM is often viewed (when it’s viewed at all) as a low-value administrative task that doesn’t directly drive business value. This can make it challenging to build a case for funding and resources.

    Your ITAM strategy is a critical component to help you define how ITAM can best deliver value to your organization, and to stop creating data for the sake of data or just to fight the next fire.

    Collaboration over order-taking

    To align ITAM practices to deliver organizational value, you need a very clear understanding of the organization’s goals – both in the moment and as they change over time.

    Ensure your ITAM team has clear line of sight to business strategy, objectives, and decision-makers, so you can continue to deliver value as priorities change

    Embrace dotted lines

    ITAM teams rely heavily on staff, systems, and data beyond their direct area of control. Identify how you will influence key stakeholders, including technicians, administrators, and business partners.

    Help them understand how ITAM success relies on their support, and highlight how their contributions have created organizational value to encourage ongoing support.

    Project benefits

    Benefits for IT
    • Set a foundation and direction for an ITAM practice that will allow IT to manage risk, optimize spend, and enhance services in line with business requirements.
    • Establish accountability and responsibility for essential ITAM activities. Decide where to centralize or decentralize accountability and authority. Identify where outsourcing could add value.
    • Create a roadmap with concrete, practical next steps to develop an effective, right-sized ITAM practice.
    Stock image of a trophy. Benefits for the business
    • Plan and control technology spend with confidence based on trustworthy ITAM data.
    • Enhance IT’s ability to rapidly and effectively support new priorities and launch new projects. Effective ITAM can support more streamlined procurement, deployment, and management of assets.
    • Implement security controls that reflect your total technology footprint. Reduce the risk that a forgotten device or unmanaged software turns your organization into the next Colonial Pipeline.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

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

    A typical GI around 12 calls over the course of 6 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

    Call #2: Review business priorities.

    Call #3: Identify ITAM goals & target maturity.

    Call #4: Identify metrics and KPIs. Call #5: Define ITAM scope.

    Call #6: Acquire ITAM services.

    Call #7: ITAM structure and RACI.

    Call #8: ITAM and service management.

    Tools and integrations.

    Call #10: Internal and external audits.

    Call #11: Budgets & documentation

    Call #12: Roadmap, comms plan. Wrap-up.

    Phase 1 Phase 2

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Identify ITAM priorities & goals, maturity, metrics and KPIs
    Identify your approach to support ITAM priorities and goals
    Next Steps and wrap-Up (offsite)
    Activities

    1.1 Define ITAM.

    1.2 Brainstorm ITAM opportunities and challenges.

    Conduct an executive alignment working session:

    1.3 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.

    1.4 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities.

    1.5 Set ITAM priorities.

    2.1 Translate opportunities into ITAM goals and tactics.

    2.2 Identify target and current state ITAM maturity.

    2.3 Create mission and vision statements.

    2.4 Identify key ITAM metrics and KPIs.

    3.1 Define ITAM scope.

    3.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting)

    3.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    3.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    3.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    3.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    4.1 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    4.2 Improve your budget processes.

    4.3 Establish a documentation framework and identify documentation gaps.

    4.4 Create a roadmap and communication plan.

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Deliverables
    1. ITAM opportunities and challenges.
    2. Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities.
    3. Set ITAM priorities.
    1. ITAM goals and tactics.
    2. Current and target ITAM maturity.
    3. Mission and vision statements.
    4. ITAM metrics and KPIs.
    1. Decisions that will shape your ITAM approach, including:
      1. What’s in scope (hardware, software, and cloud services).
      2. Where to centralize, decentralize, or outsource ITAM activities.
      3. Accountability, responsibility, and structure for ITAM activities.
      4. Service management alignment, tooling gaps, audit plans, budget processes, and required documentation.
    2. A roadmap and communication plan.
    1. Your completed ITAM strategy template.
    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Phase 1:

    Establish business-aligned ITAM goals and priorities

    Phase 1

    1.1 Define ITAM and brainstorm opportunities and challenges.

    Executive Alignment Working Session:

    1.2 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities & priorities.

    1.4 Identify business-aligned ITAM goals and target maturity.

    1.5 Write mission and vision statements.

    1.6 Define ITAM metrics and KPIs.

    Phase 2

    2.1 Define ITAM scope.

    2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).

    2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    2.8 Improve your budget processes.

    2.9 Establish a documentation framework.

    2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.

    Phase Outcomes:

    Defined, business-aligned goals, priorities, and KPIs for ITAM. A concise vision and mission statement. The direction you need to establish a practical, right-sized, effective approach to ITAM for your organization.

    Before you get started

    Set yourself up for success with these three steps:
    • This methodology and the related slides are intended to be executed via intensive, collaborative working sessions using the rest of this slide deck.
    • Ensure the working sessions are a success by working through these steps before you start work on your IT asset management strategy.

    1. Identify participants

    Review recommended roles and identify who should participate in the development of your ITAM strategy.

    2. Estimate assets managed today

    Work through an initial assessment to establish ease of access to ITAM data and your level of trust in the data available to you.

    3. Create a working folder

    Create a repository to house your notes and any work in progress, including your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template.

    0.1 Identify participants

    30 minutes

    Output: List of key roles for the strategy exercises outlined in this methodology

    Participants: Project sponsor, Lead facilitator, ITAM manager and SMEs

    This methodology relies on having the right stakeholders in the room to identify ITAM goals, challenges, roles, structure, and more. On each activity slide in this deck, you’ll see an outline of the recommended participants. Use the table below to translate the recommended roles into specific people in your organization. Note that some people may fill multiple roles.

    Role Expectations People
    Project Sponsor Accountable for the overall success of the methodology. Ideally, participates in all exercises in this methodology. May be the asset manager or whoever they report to. Jake Long
    Lead Facilitator Leads, schedules, and manages all working sessions. Guides discussions and ensures activity outputs are completed. Owns and understands the methodology. Has a working knowledge of ITAM. Robert Loblaw
    Asset Manager(s) SME for the ITAM practice. Provides strategic direction to mature ITAM practices in line with organizational goals. Supports the facilitator. Eve Maldonado
    ITAM Team Hands-on ITAM professionals and SMEs. Includes the asset manager. Provide input on tactical ITAM opportunities and challenges. Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent
    IT Leaders & Managers Leaders of key stakeholder groups from across the IT department – the CIO and direct reports. Provide input on what IT needs from ITAM, and the role their teams should play in ITAM activities. May include delegates, particularly those familiar with day-to-day processes relevant to a particular discussion or exercise. Marcelina Hardy, Edmund Broughton
    ITAM Business Partners Non-IT business stakeholders for ITAM. This could include procurement, vendor management, accounting, and others. Zhang Jin, Effie Lamont
    Business Executives Organizational leaders and executives (CFO, COO, CEO, and others) or their delegates. Will participate in a mini-workshop to identify organizational goals and initiatives that can present opportunities for the ITAM practice. Jermaine Mandar, Miranda Kosuth

    0.2 Estimate asset numbers

    1 hour

    Output: Estimates of quantity and spend related to IT assets, Confidence/margin of error on estimates

    Participants: IT asset manager, ITAM team

    What do you know about your current IT environment, and how confident are you in that knowledge?

    This exercise will help you evaluate the size of the challenge ahead in terms of the raw number of assets in your environment, the spend on those assets, and the level of trust your organization has in the ITAM data.

    It is also a baseline snapshot your ability to relay key ITAM metrics quickly and confidently, so you can measure progress (in terms of greater confidence) over time.

    1. Download the estimation tracker below. Add any additional line items that are particularly important to the organization.
    2. Time-box this exercise to an hour. Use your own knowledge and existing data repositories to identify count/spend for each line item, then add a margin of error to your guess. Larger margins of error on larger counts will typically indicate larger risks.
    3. Track any assumptions, data sources used, or SMEs consulted in the comments.

    Download the IT Asset Estimation Tracker

    “Any time there is doubt about the data and it doesn’t get explained or fixed, then a new spreadsheet is born. Data validation and maintenance is critical to avoid the hidden costs of having bad data”

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

    0.3 Create a working folder

    15 minutes

    Output: A repository for templates and work in progress

    Participants: Lead facilitator

    Create a central repository for collaboration – it seems like an obvious step, but it’s one that gets forgotten about
    1. Download a copy of the ITAM Strategy Template.
      1. This will be the repository for all the work you do in the activities listed in this blueprint; take a moment to read it through and familiarize yourself with the contents.
    2. House the template in a shared repository that can house other related work in progress. Share this folder with participants so they can check in on your progress.
    3. You’ll see this callout box: Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template as you work through activities in this blueprint. Copy the output to the appropriate slide in the ITAM Strategy Template.
    Stock image of a computer screen with a tiny person putting likes on things.

    Collect action items as you go

    Don’t wait until the end to write down your good ideas.
    • The last exercise in this methodology is to gather everything you’ve learned and build a roadmap to improve the ITAM practice.
    • The output of the exercises will inform the roadmap, as they will highlight areas with opportunities for improvement.
    • Write them down as you work through the exercises, or you risk forgetting valuable ideas.
    • Keep an “idea space” – a whiteboard with sticky notes or a shared document – to which any of your participants can post an idea for improvement and that you can review and consolidate later.
    • Encourage participants to add their ideas at any time during the exercises.
    Pad of sticky notes, the top of which reads 'Good ideas go here!'

    Step 1.1: Brainstorm ITAM opportunities and challenges

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Rally the working group around a collection of ideas that, when taken together, create a vision for the future ITAM practice.
    • Identify your organization’s current ITAM challenges.

    “ITAM is a cultural shift more than a technology shift.” (Rory Canavan, SAM Charter)

    What is an IT Asset?

    Any piece of technology can be considered an asset, but it doesn’t mean you need to track everything. Image of three people building a computer from the inside.
    Icon of a power button.

    According to the ISO 19770 standard on ITAM, an IT Asset is “[an] item, thing, or entity that can be used to acquire, process, store and distribute digital information and has potential or actual value to an organization.”
    These are all things that IT is expected to support and manage, or that have the potential to directly impact services that IT supports and manages.

    Icon of a half-full battery.

    IT assets are distinct from capital assets. Some IT assets will also be capital assets, but not all will be. And not all capital assets are IT assets, either.

    Icon of a microphone.

    IT assets are typically tracked by IT, not by finance or accounting.
    IT needs more from their IT asset tracking system than the typical finance department can deliver.
    This can include end-user devices, software, IT infrastructure, cloud-based resources, third-party managed IT services, Internet-of-Things devices, embedded electronics, SCADA equipment, “smart” devices, and more.

    Icon of a fingerprint.

    It’s important to track IT assets in a way that enables IT to deliver value to the business – and an important part of this is understanding what not to track. This list should be aligned to the needs of your organization.

    What is IT asset management?

    • IT asset management is the practice of maintaining accurate, accessible, and actionable data on IT hardware, software, and cloud assets from procurement to disposal.
    • Trustworthy data maintained by an IT asset management practice will help your business meet its goals by managing risk, controlling costs, and enabling IT services and products.
    • ITAM tends to focus on the asset itself – its technical, financial, contractual, lifecycle, and ownership attributes – rather than its interactions or connections to other IT assets, which tends to be part of configuration management.

    What IT Asset Management is NOT:

    Configuration Management: Configuration management databases (CMDBs) often draw from the same data pool as ITAM (many configuration items are assets, and vice versa), but they focus on the interaction, interconnection, and interoperation of configuration items within the IT estate.

    In practice, many configuration items will be IT assets (or parts of assets) and vice versa. Configuration and asset teams should work closely together as they develop different but complementary views of the IT environment. Use Info-Tech’s methodology to harness configuration management superpowers.

    Organizational Data Management: Leverage a different Info-Tech methodology to develop a digital and data asset management program within Info-Tech’s DAM framework.

    “Asset management’s job is not to save the organization money, it’s not to push back on software audits.

    It’s to keep the asset database as up-to-date and as trustworthy as possible. That’s it.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant & Author)

    “You can’t make any real decisions on CMDB data that’s only 60% accurate.

    You start extrapolating that out, you’re going to get into big problems.” (Mike Austin, Founder & CEO, MetrixData 360)

    What is an ITAM strategy?

    Our strategy document will outline a coherent, sustainable, business-aligned approach to ITAM.

    No single approach to ITAM fits all organizations. Nor will the same approach fit the same organization at different times. A world-leading research university, a state government, and a global manufacturer all have very different goals and priorities that will be best supported by different approaches to ITAM.

    This methodology will walk you through these critical decisions that will define your approach to ITAM:

    • Business-aligned priorities, opportunities, and goals: What pressing opportunities and challenges do we face as an organization? What opportunities does this create that ITAM can seize?
    • Current and future state maturity, challenges: What is the state of the practice today? Where do we need to improve to meet our goals? What challenges stand in the way of improvement?
    • Responsibility, accountability, sourcing and (de)centralization: Who does what? Who is accountable? Where is there value to outsourcing? What authority will be centralized or decentralized?
    • Tools, policies, and procedures: What technology do we need? What’s our documentation framework?
    • Initiatives, KPIs, communication plan, and roadmap: What do we need to do, in what order, to build the ITAM practice to where we need it to be? How long do we expect this to take? How will we measure success?

    “A good strategy has coherence, coordinating actions, policies, and resources so as to accomplish an important end. Most organizations, most of the time, don’t have this.

    Instead, they have multiple goals and initiatives that symbolize progress, but no coherent approach to accomplish that progress other than ‘spend more and try harder.’” (Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt)

    Enable business value with IT asset management

    If you’ve never experienced a mature ITAM program before, it is almost certainly more rewarding than you’d expect once it’s functioning as intended.

    Each of the below activities can benefit from accessible, actionable, and accurate ITAM data.

    • Which of the activities, practices, and initiatives below have value to your organization?
    • Which could benefit most from ITAM data?
    Manage Risk: Effective ITAM practices provide data and processes that help mitigate the likelihood and impact of potentially damaging IT risks.

    ITAM supports the following practices that help manage organizational risk:

    • Security Controls Development
    • Security Incident Response
    • Security Audit Reports
    • Regulatory Compliance Reports
    • IT Risk Management
    • Technical Debt Management
    • M&A Due Diligence
    Optimize Spend: Asset data is essential to maintaining oversight of IT spend, ensuring that scarce resources are allocated where they can have the most impact.

    ITAM supports these activities that help optimize spend:

    • Vendor Management & Negotiations
    • IT Budget Management & Variance Analysis
    • Asset Utilization Analysis
    • FinOps & Cloud Spend Optimization
    • Showback & Chargeback
    • Software Audit Defense
    • Application Rationalization
    • Contract Consolidation
    • License and Device Reallocation
    Improve IT Services: Asset data can help inform solutions development and can be used by service teams to enhance and improve IT service practices.

    Use ITAM to facilitate these IT services and initiatives:

    • Solution and Enterprise Architecture
    • Service Level Management
    • Technology Procurement
    • Technology Refresh Projects
    • Incident & Problem Management
    • Request Management
    • Change Management
    • Green IT

    1.1 Brainstorm ideas to create a vision for the ITAM practice

    30 minutes

    Input: Stakeholders with a vision of what ITAM could provide, if resourced and funded adequately

    Output: A collection of ideas that, when taken together, create a vision for the future ITAM practice

    Materials: ITAM strategy template, Whiteboard or virtual whiteboard

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    It can be easy to lose sight of long-term goals when you’re stuck in firefighting mode. Let’s get the working group into a forward-looking mindset with this exercise.

    Think about what ITAM could deliver with unlimited time, money, and technology.

    1. Provide three sticky notes to each participant.
    2. Add the headings to a whiteboard, or use a blank slide as a digital whiteboard
    3. On each sticky note, ask participants to outline a single idea as follows:
      1. We could: [idea]
      2. Which would help: [stakeholder]
      3. Because: [outcome]
    4. Ask participants to present their sticky notes and post them to the whiteboard. Ask later participants to group similar ideas together.

    As you hear your peers describe what they hope and expect to achieve with ITAM, a shared vision of what ITAM could be will start to emerge.

    1.1 Identify structural ITAM challenges

    30 minutes

    Input: The list of common challenges on the next slide, Your estimated visibility into IT assets from the previous exercise, The experience and knowledge of your participants

    Output: Identify current ITAM challenges

    Materials: Your working copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    What’s standing in the way today of delivering the ITAM practices you want to achieve?

    Review the list of common challenges on the next slide as a group.

    1. Delete any challenges that don’t apply to your organization.
    2. Modify any challenges as required to reflect your organization.
    3. Add further challenges that aren’t on the list, as required.
    4. Highlight challenges that are particularly painful.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    “The problem – the reason why asset management initiatives keep falling on their face – is that people attack asset management as a problem to solve, instead of a practice and epistemological construct.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant & Author)

    1.1 Identify structural ITAM challenges

    Review and update the list of common challenges below to reflect your own organization.

    • Leadership and executives don’t understand the value of asset management and don’t fund or resource it.
    • Tools aren’t fit for purpose, don’t scale, or are broken.
    • There’s a cultural tendency to focus on tools over processes.
    • ITAM data is fragmented across multiple repositories.
    • ITAM data is widely viewed as untrustworthy.
    • Stakeholders respond to vendor audits before consulting ITAM, which leads to confusion and risks penalties.
    • No time for improvement; we’re always fighting fires.
    • We don’t audit our own ITAM data for accuracy.
    • End-user equipment is shared, re-assigned, or disposed without notifying or involving IT.
    • No dedicated resources.
    • Lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities.
    • Technicians don’t track assets consistently; ITAM is seen as administrative busywork.
    • Many ITAM tasks are manual and prone to error.
    • Inconsistent organizational policies and procedures.
    • We try to manage too many hardware types/software titles.
    • IT is not involved in the procurement process.
    • Request and procurement is seen as slow and excessively bureaucratic.
    • Hardware/software standards don’t exist or aren’t enforced.
    • Extensive rogue purchases/shadow IT are challenging to manage via ITAM tools and processes.
    What Else?

    Copy results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 1.2: Review organizational priorities, strategy, initiatives

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • Business executives or their delegates

    Outcomes

    • Review organizational priorities and strategy.
    • Identify key initiatives.

    Enter the executives

    Deliver on leadership priorities

    • Your business’ major transformative projects and executive priorities might seem far removed from hardware and software tracking. Why would we start with business strategy and executive priorities as we’re setting goals for the ITAM program?
    • While business executives have (likely) no interest in how software and hardware is tracked, they are accountable for the outcomes ITAM can enable. They are the most likely to understand why and how ITAM can deliver value to the organization.
    • ITAM succeeds by enabling its stakeholders to achieve business outcomes. The next three activities are designed to help you identify how you can enable your stakeholders, and what outcomes are most important from their point of view. Specifically:
      • What are the business’ planned transformational initiatives?
      • What are your highest priority goals?
      • What should the priorities of the ITAM practice be?
    • The answers to these questions will shape your approach to ITAM. Direct input from your leadership and executives – or their delegates – will help ensure you’re setting a solid foundation for your ITAM practice.

    “What outcomes does the organization want from IT asset management? Often, senior managers have a clear vision for the organization and where IT needs to go, and the struggle is to communicate that down.” (Kylie Fowler, ITAM Intelligence)

    Stock image of many hands with different puzzle pieces.

    Executive Alignment Session Overview

    ITAM Strategy Working Sessions

    • Discover & Brainstorm
    • Executive Alignment Working Session
      • 1.2 Review organizational strategy, priorities, and key initiatives
      • 1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities, set ITAM priorities
    • ITAM Practice Maturity, Vision & Mission, Metrics & KPIs
    • Scope, Outsourcing, (De)Centralization, RACI
    • Service Management Integration
    • ITAM Tools
    • Audits, Budgets, Documents
    • Roadmap & Comms Plan

    A note to the lead facilitator and project sponsor:
    Consider working through these exercises by yourself ahead of time. As you do so, you’ll develop your own ideas about where these discussions may go, which will help you guide the discussion and provide examples to participants.

    1.2 Review organizational strategy and priorities

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The diagram in the next slide, and/or a whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leadership, Business executives or delegates

    Welcome your group to the working session and outline the next few exercises using the previous slide.

    Ask the most senior leader present to provide a summary of the following:

    1. What is the vision for the organization?
    2. What are our priorities and what must we absolutely get right?
    3. What do we expect the organization to look like in three years?

    The facilitator or a dedicated note-taker should record key points on a whiteboard or flipchart paper.

    1.2 Identify transformational initiatives

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The diagram in the next slide, and/or a whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leadership, Business executives or delegates

    Ask the most senior leader present to provide a summary of the following: What transformative business and IT initiatives are planned? When will they begin and end?

    Using one box per initiative, draw the initiatives in a timeline like the one below.

    Sample timeline for ITAM initiatives.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 1.3: Set business-aligned ITAM priorities

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • Business executives

    Outcomes

    • Connect executive priorities to ITAM opportunities.
    • Set business-aligned priorities for the ITAM practice.

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities

    45 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The diagram in the next slide, and/or a whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leaders and managers, Business executives or delegates

    In this exercise, we’ll use the table on the next slide to identify the top priorities of key business and IT stakeholders and connect them to opportunities for the ITAM practice.

    1. Ask your leadership or executive delegates – what are their goals? What are they trying to accomplish? List roles and related goals in the table.
    2. Brainstorm opportunities for IT asset management to support listed goals:
      1. Can ITAM provide an enhanced level of service, access, or insight?
      2. Can ITAM address an existing issue or mitigate an existing risk?

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities (example)

    ITAM is for the… Who wants to… Which presents these ITAM opportunities
    CEO Deliver transformative business initiatives Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    Establish a data-driven culture of stewardship Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    COO Improve organizational efficiency Increase asset use.
    Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    CFO Accurately forecast spending Track and anticipate IT asset spending.
    Control spending Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    CIO Demonstrate IT value Use data to tell a story about value delivered by IT assets.
    Govern IT use Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    CISO Manage IT security and compliance risks Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    Respond to security incidents Support security incident teams with IT asset data.
    Apps Leader Build, integrate, and support applications Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality.
    Connect applications to relevant licensing and support agreements.
    IT Infra Leader Build and support IT infrastructure. Provide input on opportunities to standardize hardware and software.
    Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.

    1.3 Categorize ITAM opportunities

    10-15 minutes

    Input: The outputs from the previous exercise

    Output: Executive priorities, sorted into the three categories at the right

    Materials: The table in this slide, The outputs from the previous exercise

    Participants: Lead facilitator

    Give your participants a quick break. Quickly sort the identified ITAM opportunities into the three main categories below as best you can.

    We’ll use this table as context for the next exercise.

    Example: Optimize Spend Enhance IT Services Manage Risk
    ITAM Opportunities
    • Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    • Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    • Increase asset utilization.
    • Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality
    • Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    • Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.
    • Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    • Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    • Support security incident teams with IT asset data.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.3 Set ITAM priorities

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: Whiteboard, The template on the next slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leaders and managers, Business executives or delegates

    The objective of this exercise is to prioritize the outcomes your organization wants to achieve from its ITAM practice, given the context from the previous exercises.

    Review the image below. The three points of the triangle are the three core goals of ITAM: Enhance IT Service, Manage Risk, and Optimize Spend. This exercise was first developed by Kylie Fowler of ITAM Intelligence. It is an essential exercise to understand ITAM priorities and the tradeoffs associated with those priorities. These priorities aren’t set in stone and should be revisited periodically as technology and business priorities change.

    Draw the diagram on the next slide on a whiteboard. Have the most senior leader in the room place the dot on the triangle – the closer it is to any one of the goals, the more important that goal is to the organization. Note: The center of the triangle is off limits! It’s very rarely possible to deliver on all three at once.
    Track notes on what’s being prioritized – and why – in the template on the next slide.
    Triangle with the points labelled 'Enhance IT Service', 'Manage Risk', and 'Optimize Spend'.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.3 Set ITAM Priorities

    The priorities of the ITAM practice are to:
    • Optimize Spend
    • Manage Risk
    Why?
    • We believe there is significant opportunity right now to rationalize spend by consolidating key software contracts.
    • Major acquisitions are anticipated in the near future. Effective ITAM processes are expected to mitigate acquisition risk by supporting due diligence and streamlined integration of acquired organizations.
    • Ransomware and supply chain security threats have increased demands for a comprehensive accounting of IT assets to support security controls development and security incident response.
    (Update this section with notes from your discussion.)
    Triangle with the points labelled 'Enhance IT Service', 'Manage Risk', and 'Optimize Spend'. There is a dot close to the 'Optimize Spend' corner, a legend labelling the dot as 'Our Target', and a note reading 'Move this dot to reflect your priorities'.

    Step 1.4: Identify ITAM goals, target maturity

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Connect executive priorities to ITAM opportunities.
    • Set business-aligned priorities for the ITAM practice.

    “ITAM is really no different from the other ITIL practices: to succeed, you’ll need some ratio of time, treasure, and talent… and you can make up for less of one with more of the other two.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant and Author)

    1.4 Identify near- and medium-term goals

    15-30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Narrow down the list of opportunities to identify specific goals for the ITAM practice.

    1. Use one color to highlight opportunities you will seize in the next year.
    2. Use a second color to highlight opportunities you plan to address in the next three years.
    3. Leave blank anything you don’t intend to address in this timeframe.

    The highlighted opportunities are your near- and medium-term objectives.

    Optimize Spend Enhance IT Services Manage Risk
    Priority Critical Normal High
    ITAM Opportunities
    • Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    • Increase asset utilization.
    • Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    • Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality
    • Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    • Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.
    • Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    • Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    • Support security incident teams with IT asset data.

    1.4 Connect ITAM goals to tactics

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Let’s dig down a little deeper. Connect the list of opportunities from earlier to specific ITAM tactics that allow the team to seize those opportunities.

    Add another row to the earlier table for ITAM tactics. Brainstorm tactics with your participants (e.g. sticky notes on a whiteboard) and align them with the priorities they’ll support.

    Optimize SpendEnhance IT ServicesManage Risk
    PriorityCriticalNormalHigh
    ITAM Opportunities
    • Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    • Increase asset utilization.
    • Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    • Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality
    • Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    • Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.
    • Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    • Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    • Support security incident teams with IT asset data.
    ITAM Tactics to Seize Opportunities
    • Review and improve hardware budgeting exercises.
    • Reallocate unused licenses, hardware.
    • Ensure ELP reports are up to date.
    • Validate software usage.
    • Data to support software renewal negotiations.
    • Use info from ITAM for more efficient adds, moves, changes.
    • Integrate asset records with the ticket intake system, so that when someone calls the service desk, the list of their assigned equipment is immediately available.
    • Find and retire abandoned devices or services with access to the organization’s network.
    • Report on lost/stolen devices.
    • Develop reliable disposal processes.
    • Report on unpatched devices/software.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.4 Identify current and target state

    20 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    We’ll use this exercise to identify the current and one-year target state of ITAM using Info-Tech’s ITAM maturity framework.

    1. Review the maturity framework on the next slide as a group.
    2. In one color, highlight statements that reflect your organization today. Summarize your current state. Are you in firefighter mode? Between “firefighter” and “trusted operator”?
    3. In a second color, highlight statements that reflect where you want to be one year from today, taking into consideration the goals and tactics identified in the last exercise.
    4. During a break, copy the highlighted statements to the table on the slide after next, then add this final slide to your working copy of the ITAM Strategy Template.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Establish current and target ITAM maturity

    IT maturity ladder with five color-coded levels. Innovator – Optimized Asset Management
    • All items from Business & Technology Partner, plus:
    • Business and IT stakeholders collaborate regularly with the ITAM team to identify new opportunities to leverage or deploy ITAM practices and data to mitigate risks, optimize spend, and improve service. The ITAM program scales with the business.
    Business & Technology Partner – Proactive Asset Management
    • All items from Trusted Operator, plus:
    • The ITAM data is integral to decisions related to budget, project planning, IT architecture, contract renewal, and vendor management. Software and cloud assets are reviewed as frequently as required to manage costs. ITAM data consumers have self-serve access to ITAM data.
    • Continuous improvement practices strengthen ITAM efficiency and effectiveness.
    • ITAM processes, standards, and related policies are regularly reviewed and updated. ITAM teams work closely with SMEs for key tools/systems integrated with ITAM (e.g. AD, ITSM, monitoring tools) to maximize the value and reliability of integrations.
    Trusted Operator – Controls Assets
    • ITAM data for deployed hardware and software is regularly audited for accuracy.
    • Sufficient staff and skills to support asset tracking, including a dedicated IT asset management role. Teams responsible for ITAM data collection cooperate effectively. Policies and procedures are documented and enforced. Key licenses and contracts are available to the ITAM team. Discovery, tracking, and analysis tools support most important use cases.
    Firefighter – Reactive Asset Tracking
    • Data is often untrustworthy, may be fragmented across multiple repositories, and typically requires significant effort to translate or validate before use.
    • Insufficient staff, fragmented or incomplete policies or documentation. Data tracking processes are extremely highly manual. Effective cooperation for ITAM data collection is challenging.
    • ITAM tools are in place, but additional configuration or tooling is needed.
    Unreliable - Struggles to Support
    • No data, or data is typically unusable.
    • No allocated staff, no cooperation between parties responsible for ITAM data collection.
    • No related policies or documentation.
    • Tools are non-existent or not fit-for-purpose.

    Current and target ITAM maturity

    Today:
    Firefighter
    • Data is often untrustworthy, is fragmented across multiple repositories, and typically requires significant effort to translate or validate before use.
    • Insufficient staff, fragmented or incomplete policies or documentation.
    • Tools are non-existent.
    In One Year:
    Trusted Operator
    • ITAM data for deployed hardware and software is regularly audited for accuracy.
    • Sufficient staff and skills to support asset tracking, including a dedicated IT asset management role.
    • Teams responsible for ITAM data collection cooperate effectively.
    • Discovery, tracking, and analysis tools support most important use cases.
    IT maturity ladder with five color-coded levels.

    Innovator – Optimized Asset Management

    Business & Technology Partner – Proactive Asset Management

    Trusted Operator – Controls Assets

    Firefighter – Reactive Asset Tracking

    Unreliable - Struggles to Support

    Step 1.5: Write mission and vision statements

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Write a mission statement that encapsulates the purpose and intentions of the ITAM practice today.
    • Write a vision statement that describes what the ITAM practice aspires to become and achieve.

    Write vision and mission statements

    Create two statements to summarize the role of the ITAM practice today – and where you want it to be in the future.

    Create two short, compelling statements that encapsulate:
    • The vision for what we want the ITAM practice to be in the future; and
    • The mission – the purpose and intentions – of the ITAM practice today.

    Why bother creating mission and vision statements? After all, isn’t it just rehashing or re-writing all the work we’ve just done? Isn’t that (at best) a waste of time?

    There are a few very important reasons to create mission and vision statements:

    • Create a compass that can guide work today and your roadmap for the future.
    • Focus on the few things you must do, rather than the many things you could do.
    • Concisely communicate a compelling vision for the ITAM practice to a larger audience who (let’s face it) probably won’t read the entire ITAM Strategy deck.

    “Brevity is the soul of wit.” (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)

    “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” (Mark Twain)

    1.5 Write an ITAM vision statement

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: A whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT Leaders and managers

    Your vision statement describes the ITAM practice as it will be in the far future. It is a target to aspire to, beyond your ability to achieve in the near or medium term.

    Examples of ITAM vision statements:

    Develop the single accurate view of IT assets, available to anyone who needs it.

    Indispensable data brokers that support strategic decisions on the IT environment.

    Provide sticky notes to participants. Write out the three questions below on a whiteboard side by side. Have participants write their answers to the questions and post them below the appropriate question. Give everyone 10 minutes to write and post their ideas.

    1. What’s the desired future state of the ITAM practice?
    2. What needs to be done to achieved this desired state?
    3. How do we want ITAM to be perceived in this desired state?

    Review the answers and combine them into one focused vision statement. Use the 20x20 rule: take no more than 20 minutes and use no more than 20 words. If you’re not finished after 20 minutes, the ITAM manager should make any final edits offline.

    Document your vision statement in your ITAM Strategy Template.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.5 Write an ITAM mission statement

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Your ITAM mission statement is an expression of what your IT asset management function brings to your organization today. It should be presented in straightforward language that is compelling, easy to understand, and sharply focused.

    Examples of ITAM mission statements:

    Maintain accurate, actionable, accessible on data on all IT assets.

    Support IT and the business with centralized and integrated asset data.

    Provide sticky notes to participants. Write out the questions below on a whiteboard side by side. Have participants write their answers to the questions and post them below the appropriate question. Give everyone 10 minutes to write and post their ideas.

    1. What is our role as the asset management team?
    2. How do we support the IT and business strategies?
    3. What does our asset management function offer that no one else can?

    Review the answers and combine them into one focused vision statement. Use the 20x20 rule: take no more than 20 minutes and use no more than 20 words. If you’re not finished after 20 minutes, the ITAM manager should make any final edits offline.

    Document your vision statement in your ITAM Strategy Template.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 1.6: Define ITAM metrics and KPIs

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Identify metrics, data, or reports that may be of interest to different consumers of ITAM data.
    • Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) for the ITAM practice, based on the goals and priorities established earlier.

    Navigate a universe of ITAM metrics

    When you have the data, how will you use it?

    • There’s a dizzying array of potential metrics you can develop and track across your ITAM environment.
    • Different stakeholders will need different data feeds, metrics, reports, and dashboards.
    • Different measures will be useful at different times. You will often need to filter or slice the data in different ways (by department, timeframe, equipment type, etc.)
    • We’ll use the next few exercises to identify the types of metrics that may be useful to different stakeholders and the KPIs to measure progress towards ITAM goals and priorities.

    ITAM Metrics

    • Quantity
      e.g. # of devices or licenses
    • Cost
      e.g. average laptop cost
    • Compliance
      e.g. effective license position reports
    • Progress
      e.g. ITAM roadmap items completed
    • Quality
      e.g. ITAM data accuracy rate
    • Time
      e.g. time to procure/ deploy

    Drill down by:

    • Vendor
    • Date
    • Dept.
    • Product
    • Location
    • Cost Center

    Develop different metrics for different teams

    A few examples:

    • CIOs — CIOs need asset data to govern technology use, align to business needs, and demonstrate IT value. What do we need to budget for hardware and software in the next year? Where can we find money to support urgent new initiatives? How many devices and software titles do we manage compared to last year? How has IT helped the business achieve key goals?
    • Asset Managers — Asset managers require data to help them oversee ITAM processes, technology, and staff, and to manage the fleet of IT assets they’re expected to track. What’s the accuracy rate of ITAM data? What’s the state of integrations between ITAM and other systems and processes? How many renewals are coming up in the next 90 days? How many laptops are in stock?
    • IT Leaders — IT managers need data that can support their teams and help them manage the technology within their mandate. What technology needs to be reviewed or retired? What do we actually manage?
    • Technicians — Service desk technicians need real-time access to data on IT assets to support service requests and incident management – for example, easy access to the list of equipment assigned to a particular user or installed in a particular location.
    • Business Managers and Executives — Business managers and executives need concise, readable dashboards to support business decisions about business use of IT assets. What’s our overall asset spend? What’s our forecasted spend? Where could we reallocate spend?

    1.6 Identify useful ITAM metrics and reports

    60 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Use this exercise to identify as many potentially useful ITAM metrics and reports as possible, and narrow them down to a few high-priority metrics. Leverage the list of example metrics on the next slide for your own exercise. If you have more than six participants, consider splitting into two or more groups, and divide the table between groups to minimize overlap.

    1. List potential consumers of ITAM data in the column on the left.
    2. What type of information do we think this role needs? What questions about IT assets do we get on a regular basis from this role or team?
    3. Review and consolidate the list as a group. Discuss and highlight any metrics the group thinks are a particularly high priority for tracking.
    Role Compliance Quality Quantity Cost Time Progress
    IT Asset Manager Owned devices not discovered in last 60 days Discrepancies between discovery data and ITAM DB records # of corporate-owned devices Spend on hardware (recent and future/ planned) Average time, maximum time to deploy end-user devices Number of ITAM roadmap items in progress
    Service Desk

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Examples of ITAM metrics

    Compliance Quality Quantity Cost Time/Duration/Age Progress
    Owned devices not discovered in last 60 days Discrepancies between discovery data and ITAM DB records # of corporate-owned devices Spend on hardware (recent and future/planned) Average time, maximum time to deploy end-user devices Number of ITAM roadmap items in progress or completed
    Disposed devices without certificate of destruction Breakage rates (in and out of warranty) by vendor # of devices running software title X, # of licenses for software title X Spend on software (recent and future/planned) Average time, maximum time to deploy end user software Number of integrations between ITAM DB and other sources
    Discrepancies between licenses and install count, by software title RMAs by vendor, model, equipment type Number of requests by equipment model or software title Spend on cloud (recent and future/planned) Average & total time spent on software audit responses Number of records in ITAM database
    Compliance reports (e.g. tied to regulatory compliance or grant funding) Tickets by equipment type or software title Licenses issued from license pool in the last 30 days Value of licenses issued from license pool in the last 30 days (cost avoidance) Devices by age Software titles with an up-to-date ELP report
    Reports on lost and stolen devices, including last assigned, date reported stolen, actions taken User device satisfaction scores, CSAT scores Number of devices retired or donated in last year Number of IT-managed capital assets Number of hardware/software request tickets beyond time-to-fulfil targets Number of devices audited (by ITAM team via self-audit)
    Number of OS versions, unpatched systems Number of devices due for refresh in the next year Spend saved by harvesting unused software Number of software titles, software vendors managed by ITAM team
    Audit accuracy rate Equipment in stock Cost savings from negotiations
    # of users assigned more than one device Number of non-standard devices or requests Dollars charged during audit or true-up

    Differentiate between metrics and KPIs

    Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics with targets aligned to goals.

    Targets could include one or more of:

    • Target state (e.g. completed)
    • Target magnitude (e.g. number, percent, rate, dollar amount)
    • Target direction (e.g. trending up or down)

    You may track many metrics, but you should have only a few KPIs (typically 2-3 per objective).

    A breached KPI should be a trigger to investigate and remediate the root cause of the problem, to ensure progress towards goals and priorities can continue.

    Which KPIs you track will change over the life of the practice, as ITAM goals and priorities shift. For example, KPIs may initially track progress towards maturing ITAM practices. Once you’ve reached target maturity, KPIs may shift to track whether the key service targets are being met.

    1.6 Identify ITAM KPIs

    20 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Good KPIs are a more objective measure of whether you’re succeeding in meeting the identified priorities for the ITAM practice.

    Identify metrics that can measure progress or success against the priorities and goals set earlier. Aim for around three metrics per goal. Identify targets for the metric you think are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound). Track your work using the example table below.

    Goal Metric Target
    Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts Amount spent on top 10 software contracts Decrease by 10% by next year
    Customer satisfaction scores with enterprise software Satisfaction is equal to or better than last year
    Value of licenses issued from license pool 30% greater than last year
    Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets # of security incidents involving undiscovered assets Zero
    % devices with “Deployed” status in ITAM DB but not discovered for 30+ days ‹1% of all records in ITAM DB
    Provide IT asset data to technicians for service calls Customer satisfaction scores Satisfaction is equal to or better than last year
    % of end-user devices meeting minimum standards 97%

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Phase 2:

    Identify your approach to support ITAM priorities and goals

    Phase 1

    1.1 Define ITAM and brainstorm opportunities and challenges.

    Executive Alignment Working Session:

    1.2 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities & priorities.

    1.4 Identify business-aligned ITAM goals and target maturity.

    1.5 Write mission and vision statements.

    1.6 Define ITAM metrics and KPIs.

    Phase 2

    2.1 Define ITAM scope.

    2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).

    2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    2.8 Improve your budget processes.

    2.9 Establish a documentation framework.

    2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.

    Phase Outcomes:

    Establish an approach to achieving ITAM goals and priorities, including scope, structure, tools, service management integrations, documentation, and more.

    Create a roadmap that enables you to realize your approach.

    Step 2.1: Define ITAM Scope

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Establish what types of equipment and software you’ll track through the ITAM practice.
    • Establish which areas of the business will be in scope of the ITAM practice.

    Determine ITAM Scope

    Focus on what’s most important and then document it so everyone understands where they can provide the most value.

    Not all categories of assets require the same level of tracking, and some equipment and software should be excluded from the ITAM practice entirely.

    In some organizations, portions of the environment won’t be tracked by the asset management team at all. For example, some organizations will choose to delegate tracking multi-function printers (MFPs) or proprietary IoT devices to the department or vendor that manages them.

    Due to resourcing or technical limitations, you may decide that certain equipment or software is out of scope for the moment.

    What do other organizations typically track in detail?
    • Installs and entitlements for major software contracts that represent significant spend and/or are highly critical to business goals.
    • Equipment managed directly by IT that needs to be refreshed on a regular cycle:
      • End-user devices such as laptops, desktops, and tablets.
      • Server, network, and telecoms devices.
    • High value equipment that is not regularly refreshed may also be tracked, but in less detail – for example, you may not refresh large screen TVs, but you may need to track date of purchase, deployed location, vendor, and model for insurance or warranty purposes.

    2.1 Establish scope for ITAM

    45 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: ITAM scope, in terms of types of assets tracked and not tracked

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    Establish the hardware and software that are within the scope of the ITAM program by updating the tables below to reflect your own environment. The “out of scope” category will include asset types that may be of value to track in the future but for which the capability or need don’t exist today.

    Hardware Software Out of Scope
    • End-user devices housing data or with a dollar value of more than $300, which will be replaced through lifecycle refresh.
    • Infrastructure devices, including network, telecom, video conferencing, servers and more
    • End-user software purchased under contract
    • Best efforts on single license purchases
    • Infrastructure software, including solutions used by IT to manage the infrastructure
    • Enterprise applications
    • Cloud (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS)
    • Departmental applications
    • Open-source applications
    • In-house developed applications
    • Freeware & shareware
    • IoT devices

    The following locations will be included in the ITAM program: All North and South America offices and retail locations.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.2: Acquire ITAM Services

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Define the type of work that may be more effectively or efficiently delivered by an outsourcer or contractor.

    “We would like our clients to come to us with an idea of where they want to get to. Why are you doing this? Is it for savings? Because you want to manage your security attack surface? Are there digital initiatives you want to move forward? What is the end goal?” (Mike Austin, MetrixData 360)

    Effectively acquire ITAM services

    Allow your team to focus on strategic, value-add activities by acquiring services that free them from commodity tasks.
    • When determining which asset capabilities and activities are best kept in-house and which ones are better handled by a supplier, it is imperative to keep the value to the business in mind.
    • Activities/capabilities that are challenging to standardize and are critical to enabling business goals are better kept in-house.
    • Activities/capabilities that are (or should be) standardized and automated are ideal candidates for outsourcing.
    • Outsourcing can be effective and successful with a narrow scope of engagement and an alignment to business outcomes.
    • Organizations that heavily weigh cost reduction as a significant driver for outsourcing are far less likely to realize the value they expected to receive.
    Business Enablement
    • Supports business-aligned ITAM opportunities & priorities
    • Highly specialized
    • Offers competitive advantages
    Map with axes 'Business Enablement' and 'Vendor's Performance Advantage' for determining whether or not to outsource.
    Vendor’s Performance Advantage
    • Talent or access to skills
    • Economies of scale
    • Access to technology
    • Does not require deep knowledge of your business

    Decide what to outsource

    It’s rarely all or nothing.

    Ask yourself:
    • How important is this activity or capability to ITAM, IT, and business priorities and goals?
    • Is it a non-commodity IT service that can improve customer satisfaction?
    • Is it a critical service to the business and the specialized knowledge must remain in-house?
    • Does the function require access to talent or skills not currently available in-house, and is cost-prohibitive to obtain?
    • Are there economies of scale that can help us meet growing demand?
    • Does the vendor provide access to best-of-breed tools and solutions that can handle the integration, management, maintenance and support of the complete system?

    You may ultimately choose to engage a single vendor or a combination of multiple vendors who can best meet your ITAM needs.

    Establishing effective vendor management processes, where you can maximize the amount of service you receive while relying on the vendor’s expertise and ability to scale, can help you make your asset management practice a net cost-saver.

    ITAM activities and capabilities
    • Contract review
    • Software audit management
    • Asset tagging
    • Asset disposal and recycling
    • Initial ITAM record creation
    • End-user device imaging
    • End-user device deployment
    • End-user software provisioning
    • End-user image management
    • ITAM database administration
    • ELP report creation
    • ITAM process management
    • ITAM report generation
    ITAM-adjacent activities and capabilities
    • Tier 1 support/service desk
    • Deskside/field support
    • Tier 3 support
    • IT Procurement
    • Device management/managed IT services
    • Budget development
    • Applications development, maintenance
    • Infrastructure hosting (e.g. cloud or colocation)
    • Infrastructure management and support
    • Discovery/monitoring tools management and support

    2.2 Identify outsourcing opportunities

    1-2 hours

    Input: Understanding of current ITAM processes and challenges

    Output: Understanding of potential outsourcing opportunities

    Materials: The table in this slide, and insight in previous slides, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    At a high level, discuss which functions of ITAM are good candidates for outsourcing.

    Start with the previous slide for examples of outsourcing activities or capabilities directly related to or adjacent to the ITAM practice. Categorize these activities as follows:

    Outsource Potentially Outsource Insource
    • Asset disposal/recycling
    • ELP report creation
    • ITAM process management

    Go through the list of activities to potentially or definitely outsource and confirm:

    1. Will outsourcing solve a resourcing need for an existing process, or can you deliver this adequately in-house?
    2. Will outsourcing improve the effectiveness and efficiency of current processes? Will it deliver more effective service channels or improved levels of reliability and performance consistency?
    3. Will outsourcing provide or enable enhanced service capabilities that your IT customers could use, and which you cannot deliver in-house due to lack of scale or capacity?

    Answering “no” to more than one of these questions suggests a need to further review options to ensure the goals are aligned with the potential value of the service offerings available.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.3: Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Outline where the team(s) responsible for ITAM sit across the organization, who they report to, and who they need to work with across IT and the business.

    Align ITAM with IT’s structure

    ITAM’s structure will typically align with the larger business and IT structure. The wrong structure will undermine your ability to meet ITAM goals and lead to frustration, missed work, inefficiency, and loss of value.

    Which of the four archetypes below reflects the structure you need?

    1. Centralized — ITAM is entirely centralized in a single function, which reports into a central IT department.
    2. Decentralized — Local IT groups are responsible and accountable for ITAM. They may coordinate informally but do not report to any central team.
    3. Hybrid-Shared Services — Local IT can opt in to shared services but must follow centrally set ITAM practices to do so, usually with support from a shared ITAM function.
    4. Hybrid-Federated — Local IT departments are free to develop their own approach to ITAM outside of core, centrally set requirements.

    Centralized ITAM

    Total coordination, control, and oversight

    • ITAM accountability, policies, tools, standards, and expertise – in this model, they’re all concentrated in a single, specialized IT asset management practice. Accountability, authority, and oversight are concentrated in the central function as well.
    • A central ITAM team will benefit from knowledge sharing and task specialization opportunities. They are a visible single point of contact for ITAM-related questions
    • The central ITAM team will coordinate ITAM activities across the organization to optimize spend, manage risk, and enhance service. Any local IT teams are supported by and directly answerable to the central ITAM team for ITAM activities.
    • There is a single, centrally managed ITAM database. Wherever possible, this database should be integrated with other tools to support cross-solution automation (e.g. integrate AD to automatically reflect user identity changes in the ITAM database).
    • This model drives cross-organization coordination and oversight, but it may not be responsive to specific and nuanced local requirements.
    Example: Centralized
    Example of a Centralized ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Dotted line. Dotted line working or reporting relationship

    Decentralized ITAM

    Maximize choice

    • ITAM accountability and oversight are entirely devolved to local or regional IT and/or ITAM organizations, which are free to set their own priorities, goals, policies, and standards. This model maximizes the authority of local groups to build practices that meet local requirements.
    • It may be challenging to resource and mature local practices. ITAM maturity will vary from one local organization to the next.
    • It is more likely that ITAM managers are a part-time role, and sometimes even a non-IT role. Local ITAM teams or coordinators may coordinate and share knowledge informally, but specialization can be challenging to build or leverage effectively across the organization.
    • There is likely no central ITAM tool. Local tools may be acquired, implemented, and integrated by local IT departments to suit their own needs, which can make it very difficult to report on assets organization-wide – for example, to establish compliance on an enterprise software contract.
    Example: Decentralized


    Example of a Decentralized ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Dotted line. Dotted line working or reporting relationship

    Blue dotted line. Informal working relationships, knowledge sharing

    Hybrid: Federation

    Centralization with a light touch

    • A middle ground between centralized and decentralized ITAM, this model balances centralized decision making, specialization, and governance with local autonomy.
    • A central team will define organization-wide ITAM goals, develop capabilities, policies, and standards, and monitor compliance by local and central teams. All local teams must comply with centrally defined requirements, but they can also develop further capabilities to meet local goals.
    • For example, there will typically be a central ITAM database that must be used for at least a subset of assets, but other teams may build their own databases for day-to-day operations and export data to the central database as required.
    • There are often overlapping responsibilities in this model. A strong collaborative relationship between central and local ITAM teams is especially important here, particularly after major changes to requirements, processes, tools, or staffing when issues and breakdowns are more likely.
    Example: Federation


    Example of a Federation ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Purple solid line. Oversight/governance

    Dotted line. Dotted line working or reporting relationship

    Hybrid: Shared Services

    Optional centralization

    • A special case of federated ITAM that balances central control and local autonomy, but with more power given to local IT to opt out of centralized shared services that come with centralized ITAM requirements.
    • ITAM requirements set by the shared services team will support management, allocation, and may have showback or chargeback implications. Following the ITAM requirements is a condition of service. If a local organization chooses to stop using shared services, they are (naturally) no longer required to adhere to the shared services ITAM requirements.
    • As with the federated model, local teams may develop further capabilities to meet local goals.
    Example: Shared Services


    Example of a Shared Services ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Dotted line. Dotted line working relationship

    Blue dotted line. Informal working relationships, knowledge sharing

    Structure data collection & analysis

    Consider the implications of structure on data.

    Why centralize?
    • There is a need to build reports that aggregate data on assets organization-wide, rather than just assets within a local environment.
    • Decentralized ITAM tracking isn’t producing accurate or usable data, even for local purposes.
    • Tracking tools have overlapping functionality. There’s an opportunity to rationalize spend, management and support for ITAM tools.
    • Contract centralization can optimize spend and manage risks, but only with the data required to manage those contracts.
    Why decentralize?
    • Tracking and reporting on local assets is sufficient to meet ITAM goals; there is limited or no need to track assets organization-wide.
    • Local teams have the skills to track and maintain asset data; subsidiaries have appropriate budgets and tools to support ITAM tracking.
    • Decentralized ITSM/ITAM tools are in place, populated, and accurate.
    • The effort to consolidate tools and processes may outweigh the benefits to data centralization.
    • Lots of variability in types of assets and the environment is stable.
    Requirements for success:
    • A centralized IT asset management solution is implemented and managed.
    • Local teams must understand the why and how of centralized data tracking and be held accountable for assigned responsibilities.
    • The asset tool should offer both centralized and localized views of the data.
    Requirements for success:
    • Guidelines and expectations for reporting to centralized asset management team will be well defined and supported.
    • Local asset managers will have opportunity to collaborate with others in the role for knowledge transfer and asset trading, where appropriate.

    Structure budget and contract management

    Contract consolidation creates economies of scale for vendor management and license pooling that strengthen your negotiating position with vendors and optimize spend.

    Why centralize?
    • Budgeting, governance, and accountability are already centralized. Centralized ITAM practices can support the existing governance practices.
    • Centralizing contract management and negotiation can optimize spend and/or deliver access to better service.
    • Centralize management for contracts that cover most of the organization, are highly complex, involve large spend and/or higher risk, and will benefit from specialization of asset staff.
    Why decentralize?
    • Budgeting, governance, and accountability rest with local organizations.
    • There may be increased need for high levels of customer responsiveness and support.
    • Decentralize contract management for contracts used only by local groups (e.g. a few divisions, a few specialized functions), and that are smaller, low risk, and come with standard terms and conditions.
    Requirements for success:
    • A centralized IT asset management solution is implemented and managed.
    • Contract terms must be harmonized across the organization.
    • Centralized fulfillment is as streamlined as possible. For example, software contracts should include the right to install at any time and pay through a true-up process.
    Requirements for success:
    • Any expectations for harmonization with the centralized asset management team will be well defined and supported.
    • Local asset managers can collaborate with other local ITAM leads to support knowledge transfer, asset swapping, etc.

    Structure technology management

    Are there opportunities to centralize or decentralize support functions?

    Why centralize?
    • Standard technologies are deployed organization-wide.
    • There are opportunities to improve service and optimize costs by consolidating knowledge, service contracts, and support functions.
    • Centralizing data on product supply allows for easier harvest and redeployment of assets by a central support team.
    • A stable, central support function can better support localized needs during seasonal staffing changes, mergers and acquisitions.
    Why decentralize?
    • Technology is unique to a local subset of users or customers.
    • Minimal opportunity for savings or better support by consolidating knowledge, service contracts, or support functions.
    • Refresh standards are set at a local level; new tech adoption may be impeded by a reliance on older technologies, local budget shortfalls, or other constraints.
    • Hardware may need to be managed locally if shipping costs and times can’t reasonably be met by a distant central support team.
    Requirements for success:
    • Ensure required processes, technologies, skills, and knowledge are in place to enable centralized support.
    • Keep a central calendar of contract renewals, including reminders to start work on the renewal no less than 90 days prior. Prioritize contracts with high dollar value or high risk.
    • The central asset management solution should be configured to provide data that can enable the central support team.
    Requirements for success:
    • Ensure required processes, technologies, skills, and knowledge are in place to enable decentralized support.
    • Decentralized support teams must understand and adhere to ITAM activities that are part of support work (e.g. data entry, data audits).
    • The central asset management solution should be configured to provide data that can enable the central support team, or decentralized asset solutions must be funded, and teams trained on their use.

    2.3 Review ITAM Structure

    1-2 hours

    Input: Understanding of current organizational structure, Understanding of challenges and opportunities related to the current structure

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    Outline the current model for your organization and identify opportunities to centralize or decentralize ITAM-related activities.

    1. What model best describes how ITAM should be structured in your organization? Modify the slide outlining structure as a group to outline your own organization, as required.
    2. In the table below, outline opportunities to centralize or decentralize data tracking, budget and contract management, and technology management activities.
    Centralize Decentralize
    Data collection & analysis
    • Make better use of central ITAM database.
    • Support local IT departments building runbooks for data tracking during lifecycle activities (create templates, examples)
    Budget and contract management
    • Centralize Microsoft contracts.
    • Create a runbook to onboard new companies to MSFT contracts.
    • Create tools and data views to support local department budget exercises.
    Technology management
    • Ensure all end-user devices are visible to centrally managed InTune, ConfigMgr.
    • Enable direct shipping from vendor to local sites.
    • Establish disposal/pickup at local sites.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.4: Create a RACI

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Review the role of the IT asset manager.
    • Identify who’s responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for key ITAM activities.

    Empower your asset manager

    The asset manager is the critical ITAM role. Ensure they’re positioned to succeed.

    There’s too much change in the technology and business environment to expect ITAM to be “a problem to solve.” It is a practice that requires care and feeding through regular iteration to achieve success. At the helm of this practice is your asset manager, whose approach and past experience will have a significant impact on how you approach ITAM.

    The asset manager role requires a variety of skills, knowledge, and abilities including:

    • Operations, process, and practice management.
    • An ability to communicate, influence, negotiate, and facilitate.
    • Organizational knowledge and relationship management.
    • Contract and license agreement analysis, attention to detail.
    • Natural curiosity and a willingness to learn.
    • A strong understanding of technologies in use by the organization, and how they fit into the asset management program.
    Where the asset manager sits in the organization will also have an impact on their focus and priorities. When the asset manager reports into a service team, their focus will often reflect their team’s focus: end-user devices and software, customer satisfaction, request fulfillment. Asset teams that report into a leadership or governance function will be more likely to focus on organization-wide assets, governance, budget management, and compliance.

    “Where your asset manager sits, and what past experience they have, is going to influence how they do asset management.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant & Author)

    “It can be annoying at times, but a good IT asset manager will poke their nose into activities that do not obviously concern them, such as programme and project approval boards and technical design committees. Their aim is to identify and mitigate ITAM risks BEFORE the technology is deployed as well as to ensure that projects and solutions ‘bake in’ the necessary processes and tools that ensure IT assets can be managed effectively throughout their lifecycle.” (Kylie Fowler, ITAM by Design, 2017)

    IT asset managers must have a range of skills and knowledge

    • ITAM Operations, Process, and Practice Management
      The asset manager is typically responsible for managing and improving the ITAM practice and related processes and tools. The asset manager may administer the ITAM tool, develop reports and dashboards, evaluate and implement new technologies or services to improve ITAM maturity, and more.
    • Organizational Knowledge
      An effective IT asset manager has a good understanding of your organization and its strategy, products, stakeholders, and culture.
    • Technology & Product Awareness
      An IT asset manager must learn about new and changing technologies and products adopted by the organization (e.g. IoT, cloud) and develop recommendations on how to track and manage them via the ITAM practice.
    A book surrounded by icons corresponding to the bullet points.
    • People Management
      Asset managers often manage a team directly and have dotted-line reports across IT and the business.
    • Communication
      Important in any role, but particularly critical where learning, listening, negotiation, and persuasion are so critical.
    • Finance & Budgeting
      A foundational knowledge of financial planning and budgeting practices is often helpful, where the asset manager is asked to contribute to these activities.
    • Contract Review & Analysis
      Analyze new and existing contracts to evaluate changes, identify compliance requirements, and optimize spend.

    Assign ITAM responsibilities and accountabilities

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

    R

    Responsible: The person who actually gets the job done.

    Different roles may be responsible for different aspects of the activity relevant to their role.

    A

    Accountable: The one role accountable for the activity (in terms completion, quality, cost, etc.)

    Must have sufficient authority to be held accountable; responsible roles are often accountable to this role.

    C

    Consulted: Must have the opportunity to provide meaningful input at certain points in the activity.

    Typically, subject matter experts or stakeholders. The more people you must consult, the more overhead and time you’ll add to a process.

    I

    Informed: Receives information regarding the task, but has no requirement to provide feedback.

    Information might relate to process execution, changes, or quality.

    2.4 Conduct a RACI Exercise

    1-2 hours

    Input: An understanding of key roles and activities in ITAM practices, An understanding of your organization, High-level structure of your ITAM program

    Output: A RACI diagram for IT asset management

    Materials: The table in the next slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    Let’s face it – RACI exercises can be dry. We’ve found that the approach below is more collaborative, engaging, and effective compared to filling out the table as a large group.

    1. Create a shared working copy of the RACI charts on the following slides (e.g. write it out on a whiteboard or provide a link to this document and work directly in it).
    2. Review the list of template roles and activities as a group. Add, change, or remove roles and activities from the table as needed.
    3. Divide into small groups. Assign each group a set of roles, and have them define whether that role is accountable, responsible, consulted, or informed for each activity in the chart. Refer to the previous slide for context on RACI. Give everyone 15 minutes to update their section of the chart.
    4. Come back together as a large group to review the chart. First, check for accountability – there should generally be just one role accountable for each activity. Then, have each small group walk through their section, and encourage participants to ask questions. Is there at least one role responsible for each task, and what are they responsible for? Does everyone listed as consulted or informed really need to be? Make any necessary adjustments.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Define ITAM governance activities

    RACI Chart for ITAM governance activities. In the first column is a list of governance activities, and the row headers are positions within a company. Fields are marked with an R, A, C, or I.

    Document asset management responsibilities and accountabilities

    RACI Chart for ITAM asset management responsibilities and accountabilities. In the first column is a list of responsibilities and accountabilities, and the row headers are positions within a company. Fields are marked with an R, A, C, or I.

    Step 2.5: Align ITAM with other Service Management Practices

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Establish shared and separate responsibilities for asset and configuration management.
    • Identify how ITAM can support other practices, and how other practices can support ITAM.

    Asset vs. Configuration

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

    Configuration Management Database (CMDB)

    A database of uniquely identified configuration items (CIs). Each CI record may include information on:
    Service Attributes

    Supported Service(s)
    Service Description, Criticality, SLAs
    Service Owners
    Data Criticality/Sensitivity

    CI Relationships

    Physical Connections
    Logical Connections
    Dependencies

    Arrow connector.

    Discovery, Normalization, Dependency Mapping, Business Rules*

    Manual Data Entry

    Arrow connector.
    This shared information could be attached to asset records, CI records, or both, and it should be synchronized between the two databases where it’s tracked in both.
    Hardware Information

    Serial, Model and Specs
    Network Address
    Physical Location

    Software Installations

    Hypervisor & OS
    Middleware & Software
    Software Configurations

    Arrow connector.

    Asset Management Database (AMDB)

    A database of uniquely identified IT assets. Each asset record may include information on:
    Procurement/Purchasing

    Purchase Request/Purchase Order
    Invoice and Cost
    Cost Center
    Vendor
    Contracts and MSAs
    Support/Maintenance/Warranties

    Asset Attributes

    Model, Title, Product Info, License Key
    Assigned User
    Lifecycle Status
    Last ITAM Audit Date
    Certificate of Disposal

    Arrows connecting multiple fields.

    IT Security Systems

    Vulnerability Management
    Threat Management
    SIEM
    Endpoint Protection

    IT Service Management (ITSM) System

    Change Tickets
    Request Tickets
    Incident Tickets
    Problem Tickets
    Project Tickets
    Knowledgebase

    Financial System/ERP

    General Ledger
    Accounts Payable
    Accounts Receivable
    Enterprise Assets
    Enterprise Contract Database

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

    2.5 Integrate ITAM and configuration practices

    45 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of the organization’s configuration management processes

    Output: Define how ITAM and configuration management will support one another

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Configuration manager

    Work through the table below to identify how you will collaborate and synchronize data across ITAM and configuration management practices and tools.

    What are the goals (if any currently exist) for the configuration management practice? Connect configuration items to services to support service management.
    How will configuration and asset management teams collaborate? Weekly status updates. As-needed working sessions.
    Shared visibility on each others’ Kanban tracker.
    Create tickets to raise and track issues that require collaboration or attention from the other team.
    How can config leverage ITAM? Connect CIs to financial, contractual, and ownership data.
    How can ITAM leverage config? Connect assets to services, changes, incidents.
    What key fields will be primarily tracked/managed by ITAM? Serial number, unique ID, user, location, PO number, …
    What key fields will be primarily tracked/managed by configuration management? Supported service(s), dependencies, service description, service criticality, network address…

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    ITAM supports service management

    Decoupling asset management from other service management practices can result in lost value. Establish how asset management can support other service management practices – and how those practices can support ITAM.

    Incident Management

    What broke?
    Was it under warranty?
    Is there a service contract?
    Was it licensed?
    Who was it assigned to?
    Is it end-of-life?

    ITAM
    Practice

    Request Management

    What can this user request or purchase?
    What are standard hardware and software offerings?
    What does the requester already have?
    Are there items in inventory to fulfil the request?
    Did we save money by reissuing equipment?
    Is this a standard request?
    What assets are being requested regularly?

    What IT assets are related to the known issue?
    What models and vendors are related to the issue?
    Are the assets covered by a service contract?
    Are other tickets related to this asset?
    What end-of-life assets have been tied to incidents recently?

    Problem Management

    What assets are related to the change?
    Is the software properly licensed?
    Has old equipment been properly retired and disposed?
    Have software licenses been returned to the pool?
    Is the vendor support on the change part of a service contract?

    Change Enablement

    2.5. Connect with other IT service practices

    45 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of existing organizational IT service management processes

    Output: Define how ITAM will help other service management processes, and how other service management processes will help ITAM

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Service leads

    Complete the table below to establish what ITAM can provide to other service management practices, and what other practices can provide to ITAM.

    Practice ITAM will help Will help ITAM
    Incident Management Provide context on assets involved in an incident (e.g. ownership, service contracts). Track when assets are involved in incidents (via incident tickets).
    Request Management Oversee request & procurement processes. Help develop asset standards. Enter new assets in ITAM database.
    Problem Management Collect information on assets related to known issues. Report back on models/titles that are generating known issues.
    Change Enablement Provide context on assets for change review. Ensure EOL assets are retired and licenses are returned during changes.
    Capacity Management Identify ownership, location for assets at capacity. Identify upcoming refreshes or purchases.
    Availability Management Connect uptime and reliability to assets. Identify assets that are causing availability issues.
    Monitoring and Event Management Provide context to events with asset data. Notify asset of unrecognized software and hardware.
    Financial Management Establish current and predict future spending. Identify upcoming purchases, renewals.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.6: Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Create a list of the ITAM tools currently in use, how they’re used, and their current limitations.
    • Identify new tools that could provide value to the ITAM practice, and what needs to be done to acquire and implement them.

    “Everything is connected. Nothing is also connected.” (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency)

    Establish current strengths and gaps in your ITAM toolset

    ITAM data quality relies on tools and integrations that are managed by individuals or teams who don’t report directly to the ITAM function.

    Without direct line of sight into tools management, the ITAM team must influence rather than direct improvement initiatives that are in some cases critical to the performance of the ITAM function. To more effectively influence improvement efforts, you must explicitly identify what you need, why you need it, from which tools, and from which stakeholders.

    Data Sources
    Procurement Tools
    Discovery Tools
    Active Directory
    Purchase Documents
    Spreadsheets
    Input To Asset System(s) of Record
    ITAM Database
    ITSM Tool
    CMDB
    Output To Asset Data Consumption
    ITFM Tools
    Security Tools
    TEM Tools
    Accounting Tools
    Spreadsheets
    “Active Directory plays a huge role in audit defense and self-assessment, but no-one really goes out there and looks at Active Directory.

    I was talking to one organization that has 1,600,000 AD records for 100,000 employees.” (Mike Austin, Founder, MetrixData 360)

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM existing technologies

    30 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of existing ITAM tools

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Identify the use, limitations, and next steps for existing ITAM tools, including those not directly managed by the ITAM team.

    1. What tools do we have today?
    2. What are they used for? What are their limitations?
    3. Who manages them?
    4. What actions could we take to maximize the value of the tools?
    Existing Tool Use Constraints Owner Proposed Action?
    ITAM Module
    • Track HW/SW
    • Connect assets to incident, request
    • Currently used for end-user devices only
    • Not all divisions have access
    • SAM capabilities are limited
    ITAM Team/Service Management
    • Add license for additional read/write access
    • Start tracking infra in this tool
    Active Directory
    • Store user IDs, organizational data
    Major data quality issues IT Operations
    • Work with AD team to identify issues creating data issues

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    2.6 Identify potential new tools

    30 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of tooling gaps, An understanding of available tools that could remediate gaps

    Output: New tools that can improve ITAM capabilities, including expected value and proposed next steps

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Identify tools that are required to support the identified goals of the ITAM practice.

    1. What types of tools do we need that we don’t have?
    2. What could these tools help us do?
    3. What needs to be done next to investigate or acquire the appropriate tool?
    New Tool Expected Value Proposed Next Steps
    SAM tool
    • Automatically calculate licensing entitlements from contract data.
    • Automatically calculate licensing requirements from discovery data.
    • Support gap analyses.
    • Further develop software requirements.
    • Identify vendors in the space and create a shortlist.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.7: Create a plan for internal and external audits

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Establish your approach to internal data audits.
    • Create a high-level response plan for external audits.

    Validate ITAM data via internal audits

    Data audits provide assurance that the records in the ITAM database are as accurate as possible. Consider these three approaches:

    Compare Tool Records

    Audit your data by comparing records in the ITAM system to other discovery sources.

    • Ideally, use three separate data sources (e.g. ITAM database, discovery tool, security tool). Use a common field, such as the host name, to compare across fields. (To learn more about discovery tool analysis, see Jeremy Boerger’s book, Rethinking IT Asset Management.)
    • Run reports to compare records and identify discrepancies. This could include assets missing from one system or metadata differences such as different users or installed software.
    • Over time, discrepancies between tools should be well understood and accepted; otherwise, they should be addressed and remediated.
    IT-led Audit

    Conduct a hands-on investigation led by ITAM staff and IT technicians.

    • In-person audits require significant effort and resources. Each audit should be scoped and planned ahead of time to focus on known problem areas.
    • Provide the audit team with exact instructions on what needs to be verified and recorded. Depending on the experience and attention to detail of the audit team, you may need to conduct spot checks to ensure you’re catching any issues in the audit process itself.
    • Automation should be used wherever possible (e.g. through barcodes, scanners, and tables for quick access to ITAM records).
    User-led audit

    Have users validate the IT assets assigned to them.

    • Even more than IT-led audits: don’t use this approach too frequently; keep the scope as narrow as possible and the process as simple as possible.
    • Ensure users have all the information and tools they’ll need readily available to complete this task, or the result will be ineffective and will only frustrate your users.
    • Consider a process integrated with your ITSM tool: once a year, when a user logs in to the portal, they will be asked to enter the asset code for their laptop (and provided with instructions on where to find that code). Investigate discrepancies between assignments and ITAM records.

    2.7 Set an approach to internal data audits

    30 minutes

    Input: An understanding of current data audit capabilities and needs

    Output: An outline of how you’ll approach data audits, including frequency, scope, required resources

    Materials: Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team

    Review the three internal data audit approaches outlined on the previous slide, and identify which of the three approaches you’ll use. For each approach, complete the fields in the table below.

    Audit Approach How often? What scope? Who’s involved? Comments
    Compare tool records Monthly Compare ITAM DB, Intune/ConfigMgr, and Vulnerability Scanner Data; focus on end-user devices to start Asset manager will lead at first.
    Work with tool admins to pull data and generate reports.
    IT-led audit Annual End-user devices at a subset of locations Asset manager will work with ITSM admins to generate reports. In-person audit to be conducted by local techs.
    User-led audit Annual Assigned personal devices (start with a pilot group) Asset coordinator to develop procedure with ITSM admin. Run pilot with power users first.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Prepare for and respond to external audits and true-ups

    Are you ready when software vendors come knocking?

    • Vendor audits are expensive.
    • If you’re out of compliance, you will at minimum be required to pay the missing license fees. At their discretion, vendors may choose to add punitive fees and require you to cover the hourly cost of their audit teams. If you choose not to pay, the vendor could secure an injunction to cut off your service, which in many cases will be far more costly than the fines. And this is aside from the intangible costs of the disruption to your business and damaged relationships between IT, ITAM, your business, and other partners.
    • Having a plan to respond to an audit is critical to reducing audit risk. Preparation will help you coordinate your audit response, ensure the audit happens on the most favorable possible terms, and even prevent some audits from happening in the first place.
    • The best defense, as they say, is a good offense. Good ITAM and SAM processes will allow you to track acquisition, allocation, and disposal of software licenses; understand your licensing position; and ensure you remain compliant whenever possible. The vendor has no reason to audit you when there’s nothing to find.
    • Know when and where your audit risk is greatest, so you can focus your resources where they can deliver the most value.
    “If software audits are a big part of your asset operations, you have problems. You can reduce the time spent on audits and eliminate some audits by having a proactive ITAM practice.” (Sandi Conrad, Principal Research Director)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Audit defense starts long before you get audited. For an in-depth review of your audit approach, see Info-Tech’s Prepare and Defend Against a Software Audit.

    Identify areas of higher audit risk

    Watch for these warning signs
    • Your organization is visibly fighting fires. Signs of disorder may signal to vendors that there are opportunities to exploit via an audit. Past audit failures make future audits more likely.
    • You are looking for ways to decrease spend. Vendors may counter attempts to true-down licensing by launching an audit to try to find unlicensed software that provides them leverage to negotiate maintained or even increased spending.
    • Your license/contract terms with the vendor are particularly complex or highly customized. Very complex terms may make it harder to validate your own compliance, which may present opportunities to the vendor in an audit.
    • The vendor has earned a reputation for being particularly aggressive with audits. Some vendors include audits as a standard component of their business model to drive revenue. This may include acquiring smaller vendors or software titles that may not have been audit-driven in the past, and running audits on their new customer base.

    “The reality is, software vendors prey on confusion and complication. Where there’s confusion, there’s opportunity.” (Mike Austin, Founder, MetrixData 360)

    Develop an audit response plan

    You will be on the clock once the vendor sends you an audit request. Have a plan ready to go.
    • Don’t panic: Resist knee-jerk reactions. Follow the plan.
    • Form an audit response team and centralize your response: This team should be led by a member of the ITAM group, and it should include IT leadership, software SMEs, representatives from affected business areas, vendor management, contract management, and legal. You may also need to bring on a contractor with deep expertise with the vendor in question to supplement your internal capabilities. Establish clearly who will be the point of contact with the vendor during the audit.
    • Clarify the scope of the audit: Clearly establish what the audit will cover – what products, subsidiaries, contracts, time periods, geographic regions, etc. Manage the auditors to prevent scope creep.
    • Establish who covers audit costs: Vendors may demand the auditee cover the hourly cost of their audit team if you’re significantly out of compliance. Consider asking the vendor to pay for your team’s time if you’re found to be compliant.
    • Know your contract: Vendors’ contracts change over time, and it’s no guarantee that even your vendor’s licensing experts will be aware of the rights you have in your contract. You must know your entitlements to negotiate effectively.
    1. Bring the audit request received to the attention of ITAM and IT leadership. Assemble the response team.
    2. Acknowledge receipt of audit notice.
    3. Negotiate timing and scope of the audit.
    4. Direct staff not to remove or acquire licenses for software under audit without directly involving the ITAM team first.
    5. Gather installation data and documentation to establish current entitlements, including original contract, current contract, addendums, receipts, invoices.
    6. Compare entitlements to installed software.
    7. Investigate any anomalies (e.g. unexpected or non-compliant software).
    8. Review results with the audit response team.

    2.7 Clarify your vendor audit response plan

    1 hour

    Input: Organizational knowledge on your current audit response procedures

    Output: Audit response team membership, High-level audit checklist, A list of things to start, stop, and continue doing as part of the audit response

    Materials: Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    1. Who’s on the audit response team, and what’s their role? Who will lead the team? Who will be the point of contact with the auditor?
    2. What are the high-level steps in our audit response workflow? Use the example checklist below as a starting point.
    3. What do we need to start, stop, and continue doing in response to audit requests?

    Example Audit Checklist

    • Bring the audit request received to the attention of ITAM and IT leadership. Assemble the response team.
    • Acknowledge receipt of audit notice.
    • Negotiate timing and scope of the audit.
    • Direct staff not to remove or acquire licenses for software under audit without directly involving the ITAM team first.
    • Gather installation data and documentation to establish current entitlements, including original contract, current contract, addendums, receipts, invoices.
    • Compare entitlements to installed software.
    • Investigate any anomalies (e.g. unexpected or non-compliant software).
    • Review results with the audit response team.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.8: Improve budget processes

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Identify what you need to start, stop, and continue to do to support budgeting processes.

    Improve budgeting and forecasting

    Insert ITAM into budgeting processes to deliver significant value.

    Some examples of what ITAM can bring to the budgeting table:
    • Trustworthy data on deployed assets and spending obligations tied to those assets.
    • Projections of hardware due for replacement in terms of quantity and spend.
    • Knowledge of IT hardware and software contract terms and pricing.
    • Lists of unused or underused hardware and software that could be redeployed to avoid spend.
    • Comparisons of spend year-over-year.

    Being part of the budgeting process positions ITAM for success in other ways:

    • Helps demonstrate the strategic value of the ITAM practice.
    • Provides insight into business and IT strategic projects and priorities for the year.
    • Strengthens relationships with key stakeholders, and positions the ITAM team as trusted partners.

    “Knowing what you have [IT assets] is foundational to budgeting, managing, and optimizing IT spend.” (Dave Kish, Info-Tech, Practice Lead, IT Financial Management)

    Stock image of a calculator.

    2.8 Build better budgets

    20 minutes

    Input: Context on IT budgeting processes

    Output: A list of things to start, stop, and continue doing as part of budgeting exercises

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    What should we start, stop, and continue doing to support organizational budgeting exercises?

    Start Stop Continue
    • Creating buckets of spend and allocating assets to those buckets.
    • Zero-based review on IaaS instances quarterly.
    • Develop dashboards plugged into asset data for department heads to view allocated assets and spend.
    • Create value reports to demonstrate hard savings as well as cost avoidance.
    • Waiting for business leaders to come to us for help (start reaching out with reports proactively, three months before budget cycle).
    • % increases on IT budgets without further review.
    • Monthly variance budget analysis.
    • What-if analysis for asset spend based on expected headcount increases.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.9: Establish a documentation framework

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team

    Outcomes

    • Identify key documentation and gaps in your documentation.
    • Establish where documentation should be stored, who should own it, who should have access, and what should trigger a review.

    Create ITAM documentation

    ITAM documentation will typically support governance or operations.

    Long-term planning and governance
    • ITAM policy and/or related policies (procurement policy, security awareness policy, acceptable use policy, etc.)
    • ITAM strategy document
    • ITAM roadmap or burndown list
    • Job descriptions
    • Functional requirements documents for ITAM tools

    Operational documentation

    • ITAM SOPs (hardware, software) and workflows
    • Detailed work instructions/knowledgebase articles
    • ITAM data/records
    • Contracts, purchase orders, invoices, MSAs, SOWs, etc.
    • Effective Licensing Position (ELP) reports
    • Training and communication materials
    • Tool and integration documentation
    • Asset management governance, operations, and tools typically generate a lot of documentation.
    • Don’t create documentation for the sake of documentation. Prioritize building and maintaining documentation that addresses major risks or presents opportunities to improve the consistency and reliability of key processes.
    • Maximize the value of ITAM documentation by ensuring it is as current, accessible, and usable as it needs to be.
    • Clearly identify where documentation is stored and who should have access to it.
    • Identify who is accountable for the creation and maintenance of key documentation, and establish triggers for reviews, updates, and changes.

    Consider ITAM policies

    Create policies that can and will be monitored and enforced.
    • Certain requirements of the ITAM practice may need to be backed up by corporate policies: formal statements of organizational expectations that must be recognized by staff, and which will lead to sanctions/penalties if breached.
    • Some organizations will choose to create one or more ITAM-specific policies. Others will include ITAM-related statements in other existing policies, such as acceptable use policies, security training and awareness policies, procurement policies, configuration policies, e-waste policies, and more.
    • Ensure that you are prepared to monitor compliance with policies and evenly enforce breaches of policy. Failing to consistently enforce your policies exposes you and your organization to claims of negligence or discriminatory conduct.
    • For a template for ITAM-specific policies, see Info-Tech’s policy templates for Hardware Asset Management and Software Asset Management.

    2.9 Establish documentation gaps

    15-30 minutes

    Input: An understanding of existing documentation gaps and risks

    Output: Documentation gaps, Identified owners, repositories, access rights, and review/update protocols

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, Optional: IT managers, ITAM business partners

    Discuss and record the following:

    • What planning/governance, operational, and tooling documentation do we still need to create? Who is accountable for the creation and maintenance of these documents?
    • Where will the documentation be stored? Who can access these documents?
    • What will trigger reviews or changes to the documents?
    Need to Create Owner Stored in Accessible by Trigger for review
    Hardware asset management SOP ITAM manager ITAM SharePoint site › Operating procedures folder
    • All IT staff
    • Annual review
    • As-needed for major tooling changes that require a documentation update

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.10: Create a roadmap and communication plan

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • A timeline of key ITAM initiatives.
    • Improvement ideas aligned to key initiatives.
    • A communication plan tailored to key stakeholders.
    • Your ITAM Strategy document.

    “Understand that this is a journey. This is not a 90-day project. And in some organizations, these journeys could be three or five years long.” (Mike Austin, MetrixData 360)

    2.10 Identify key ITAM initiatives

    30-45 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A roadmap that outlines next steps

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Project sponsor

    1. Identify key initiatives that are critical to improving practice maturity and meeting business goals.
    2. There should only be a handful of really key initiatives. This is the work that will have the greatest impact on your ability to deliver value. Too many initiatives muddy the narrative and can distract from what really matters.
    3. Plot the target start and end dates for each initiative in the business and IT transformation timeline you created in Phase 1.
    4. Review the chart and consider – what new capabilities should the ITAM practice have once the identified initiatives are complete? What transformational initiatives will you be better positioned to support?

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Transformation Timeline

    Example transformation timeline with row headers 'Business Inititiaves', 'IT Initiatives', and 'ITAM Initiatives'. Each initiative is laid out along the timeline appropriately.

    2.10 Align improvement ideas to initiatives

    45 minutes

    Input: Key initiatives, Ideas for ITAM improvement collected over the course of previous exercises

    Output: Concrete action items to support each initiative

    Materials: The table in the next slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Project sponsor

    As you’ve been working through the previous exercises, you have been tracking ideas for improvement – now we’ll align them to your roadmap.

    1. Review the list of ideas for improvement you’ve produced over the working sessions. Consolidate the list – are there any ideas that overlap or complement each other? Record any new ideas. Frame each idea as an action item – something you can actually do.
    2. Connect the action items to initiatives. It may be that not every action item becomes part of a key initiative. (Don’t lose ideas that aren’t part of key initiatives – track them in a separate burndown list or backlog.)
    3. Identify a target completion date and owner for each action item that’s part of an initiative.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Example ITAM initiatives

    Initiative 1: Develop hardware/software standards
    Task Target Completion Owner
    Laptop standards Q1-2023 ITAM manager
    Identify/eliminate contracts for unused software using scan tool Q2-2023 ITAM manager
    Review O365 license levels and standard service Q3-2023 ITAM manager

    Initiative 2: Improve ITAM data quality
    Task Target Completion Owner
    Implement scan agent on all field laptops Q3-2023 Desktop engineer
    Conduct in person audit on identified data discrepancies Q1-2024 ITAM team
    Develop and run user-led audit Q1-2024 Asset manager

    Initiative 3: Acquire & implement a new ITAM tool
    Task Target Completion Owner
    Select an ITAM tool Q3-2023 ITAM manager
    Implement ITAM tool, incl. existing data migration Q1-2024 ITAM manager
    Training on new tool Q1-2024 ITAM manager
    Build KPIs, executive dashboards in new tool Q2-2024 Data analyst
    Develop user-led audit functionality in new tool Q3-2024 ITAM coordinator

    2.10 Create a communication plan

    45 minutes

    Input: Proposed ITAM initiatives, Stakeholder priorities and goals, and an understanding of how ITAM can help them meet those goals

    Output: A high-level communication plan to communicate the benefits and impact of proposed changes to the ITAM program

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: IT asset manager, Project sponsor

    Develop clear, consistent, and targeted messages to key ITAM stakeholders.

    1. Modify the list of stakeholders in the first column.
    2. What benefits should those stakeholders realize from ITAM? What impact may the proposed improvements have on them? Refer back to exercises from Phase 1, where you identified key stakeholders, their priorities, and how ITAM could help them.
    3. Identify communication channels (in-person, email, all-hands meeting, etc.) and timing – when you’ll distribute the message. You may choose to use more than one channel, and you may need to convey the message more than once.
    Group ITAM Benefits Impact Channel(s) Timing
    CFO
    • More accurate IT spend predictions
    • Better equipment utilization and value for money
    • Sponsor integration project between ITAM DB and financial system
    • Support procurement procedures review
    Face-to-face – based on their availability Within the next month
    CIO
    • Better oversight into IT spend
    • Data to help demonstrate IT value
    • Resources required to support tool and ITAM process improvements
    Standing bi-monthly 1:1 meetings Review strategy at next meeting
    IT Managers
    Field Techs

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    2.10 Put the final touches on your ITAM Strategy

    30 minutes

    Input: Proposed ITAM initiatives, Stakeholder priorities and goals, and an understanding of how ITAM can help them meet those goals

    Output: A high-level communication plan to communicate the benefits and impact of proposed changes to the ITAM program

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: IT asset manager, Project sponsor

    You’re almost done! Do a final check of your work before you send a copy to your participants.

    1. Summarize in three points the key findings from the activities you’ve worked through. What have you learned? What are your priorities? What key message do you need to get across? Add these to the appropriate slide near the start of the ITAM Strategy Template.
    2. What are your immediate next steps? Summarize no more than five and add them to the appropriate slide near the start of the ITAM Strategy Template.
      1. Are you asking for something? Approval for ITAM initiatives? Funding? Resources? Clearly identify the ask as part of your next steps.
    3. Are the KPIs identified in Phase 1 still valid? Will they help you monitor for success in the initiatives you’ve identified in Phase 2? Make any adjustments you think are required to the KPIs to reflect the additional completed work.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Kylie Fowler
    Principal Consultant
    ITAM Intelligence

    Kylie is an experienced ITAM/FinOps consultant with a track record of creating superior IT asset management frameworks that enable large companies to optimize IT costs while maintaining governance and control.

    She has operated as an independent consultant since 2009, enabling organizations including Sainsbury's and DirectLine Insurance to leverage the benefits of IT asset management and FinOps to achieve critical business objectives. Recent key projects include defining an end-to-end SAM strategy, target operating model, policies and processes which when implemented provided a 300% ROI.

    She is passionate about supporting businesses of all sizes to drive continuous improvement, reduce risk, and achieve return on investment through the development of creative asset management and FinOps solutions.

    Rory Canavan
    Owner and Principal Consultant
    SAM Charter

    Rory is the founder, owner, and principal consultant of SAM Charter, an internationally recognized consultancy in enterprise-wide Software & IT Asset Management. As an industry leader, SAM Charter is uniquely poised to ensure your IT & SAM systems are aligned to your business requirements.

    With a technical background in business and systems analysis, Rory has a wide range of first-hand experience advising numerous companies and organizations on the best practices and principles pertaining to software asset management. This experience has been gained in both military and civil organizations, including the Royal Navy, Compaq, HP, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST), and several software vendors.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Jeremy Boerger
    Founder, Boerger Consulting
    Author of Rethinking IT Asset Management

    Jeremy started his career in ITAM fighting the Y2K bug at the turn of the 21st century. Since then, he has helped companies in manufacturing, healthcare, banking, and service industries build and rehabilitate hardware and software asset management practices.

    These experiences prompted him to create the Pragmatic ITAM method, which directly addresses and permanently resolves the fundamental flaws in current ITAM and SAM implementations.

    In 2016, he founded Boerger Consulting, LLC to help business leaders and decision makers fully realize the promises a properly functioning ITAM can deliver. In his off time, you will find him in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his wife and family.

    Mike Austin
    Founder and CEO
    MetrixData 360

    Mike Austin leads the delivery team at MetrixData 360. Mike brings more than 15 years of Microsoft licensing experience to his clients’ projects. He assists companies, from Fortune 500 to organizations with as few as 500 employees, with negotiations of Microsoft Enterprise Agreements (EA), Premier Support Contracts, and Select Agreements. In addition to helping negotiate contracts, he helps clients build and implement software asset management processes.

    Previously, Mike was employed by Microsoft for more than 8 years as a member of the global sales team. With Microsoft, Mike successfully negotiated more than a billion dollars in new and renewal EAs. Mike has also negotiated legal terms and conditions for all software agreements, developed Microsoft’s best practices for global account management, and was awarded Microsoft’s Gold Star Award in 2003 and Circle of Excellence in 2008 for his contributions.

    Bibliography

    “Asset Management.” SFIA v8. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Boerger, Jeremy. Rethinking IT Asset Management. Business Expert Press, 2021.

    Canavan, Rory. “C-Suite Cheat Sheet.” SAM Charter, 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fisher, Matt. “Metrics to Measure SAM Success.” Snow Software, 26 May 2015. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Flexera (2021). “State of ITAM Report.” Flexera, 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fowler, Kylie. “ITAM by design.” BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, 2017. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fowler, Kylie. “Ch-ch-ch-changes… Is It Time for an ITAM Transformation?” ITAM Intelligence, 2021. Web. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fowler, Kylie. “Do you really need an ITAM policy?” ITAM Accelerate, 15 Oct. 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Hayes, Chris. “How to establish a successful, long-term ITAM program.” Anglepoint, Sept. 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    ISO/IEC 19770-1-2017. IT Asset Management Systems – Requirements. Third edition. ISO, Dec 2017.

    Joret, Stephane. “IT Asset Management: ITIL® 4 Practice Guide”. Axelos, 2020.

    Jouravlev, Roman. “IT Service Financial Management: ITIL® 4 Practice Guide”. Axelos, 2020.

    Pagnozzi, Maurice, Edwin Davis, Sam Raco. “ITAM Vs. ITSM: Why They Should Be Separate.” KPMG, 2020. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Rumelt, Richard. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. Profile Books, 2013.

    Stone, Michael et al. “NIST SP 1800-5 IT Asset Management.” Sept, 2018. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Demystify the New PMBOK Guide and PMI Certifications

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}446|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • There is lots of confusion with the latest edition of A Guide to The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide).
    • The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is not satisfying the needs of PMOs.
    • There is still a divide on whether the focus should be on the PMP or an Agile-related certification.
    • The PMP certification has lost its sizzle while other emerging certifications have started to penetrate the market. It’s hard to distinguish which certifications still hold weight.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The PMP certification is still valuable and worth your time in 2023.
    • There are still over a million active PMP-certified individuals worldwide.
    • PMP can make you more money.

    Impact and Result

    • Study the market trends for certification options as they emerge and evolve.
    • Go with longstanding, reputable certifications, but be ready to pivot if they are not adding value.
    • Look at the job market as an indicator of certification demands.
    • There are a lot of certification options out there, and every day there seems to be a new one that pops up. Wait and see how the market reacts before investing your time and money in a new certification.

    Demystify the New PMBOK Guide and PMI Certifications Research & Tools

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

    1. Demystify the New PMBOK and PMI Certifications Storyboard – A guide to validate if the PMP is still valuable. It will also provide clarity related to the updated PMBOK 7th edition.

    This publication will validate if the PMP certification is still valuable and worth your time. In addition, you will gain different perspectives related to other PMI and non-PMI certifications. You will gain a better understanding of the evolution of the PMBOK Guide, and the significant changes made from PMBOK 6th edition to the 7th edition.

    • Demystify the New PMBOK and PMI Certifications Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Demystify the New PMBOK Guide and the PMI Certifications

    The PMP certification is still valuable and worth your time in 2023.

    Analyst Perspective

    The PMP (Project Management Professional) certification is still worth your time.

    Long Dam

    I often get asked, “Is the PMP worth it?” I then proceed with a question of my own: “If it gets you an interview or a foot in the door or bolsters your salary, would it be worth it?” Typically, the answer is a resounding “YES!”

    CIO magazine ranked the PMP as the top project management certification in North America because it demonstrates that you have the specific skills employers seek, dedication to excellence, and the capacity to perform at the highest levels.

    Given its popularity and the demand in the marketplace, I strongly believe it is still worth your time and investment. The PMP is a globally recognized certification that has dominated for decades. It is hard to overlook the fact that the Project Management Institute (PMI) has more than 1.2 million PMP certification holders worldwide and is still considered the gold standard for project management.

    Yes, it’s worth it. It gets you interviews, a foot in the door, and bolsters your salary. Oh, and it makes you a more complete project manager.

    Long Dam, PMP, PMI-ACP, PgMP, PfMP

    Principal Research Director, Project Portfolio Management Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • There is lots of confusion with the latest A Guide to The Project Management Body of Knowledge (aka PMBOK Guide).
    • The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is not satisfying the needs of PMOs.
    • There is still a divide on whether the focus should be on the PMP or an Agile-related certification.

    The PMP certification has lost its sizzle while other emerging certifications have started to penetrate the market. It’s hard to distinguish which certification still holds weight.

    Common Obstacles

    • Poor understanding and lack of awareness of other PMI certifications outside of the PMP.
    • There are too many competing certifications out there, and it’s hard to decipher which ones to choose.
    • PMI certifications typically take a lot of effort to obtain and maintain.

    There are other, less intensive certifications available. It’s unclear what will be popular in the future.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Study the market trends for certification options as they emerge and evolve.
    • Go with longstanding reputable certifications, but be ready to pivot if they are not adding value.
    • Look at the job market as an indicator for certification demands.

    There are a lot of certification options out there, and every day there seems to be a new one that pops up. Wait and see how the market reacts before investing your time and money in a new certification.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The PMP certification is still valuable and worthy of your time in 2023.

    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."

    Guide 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 knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of the this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    The PMP dominated the market for decades and got over 1 million people certified

    Total active project management professional holders from December 2021 versus July 2022

    Info-Tech Insight

    The PMI’s flagship PMP certification numbers have not significantly increased from 2021 to 2022. However, PMP substantially outpaces all competitors with over 1.2 million certified PMPs.

    Source: projectmanagement.com

    The PMP penetrated over 200 countries

    PMP is the global project management gold standard.

    • CIO magazine ranked the PMP as the top project management certification because it demonstrates you have the specific skills employers seek, dedication to excellence, and the capacity to perform at the highest levels.
    • It delivers real value in the form of professional credibility, deep knowledge, and increased earning potential. Those benefits have staying power.
    • The PMP now includes predictive, Agile, and hybrid approaches.
    • The PMP demonstrates expertise across the wide array of planning and work management styles.

    Source: PMI, “PMP Certification.” PMI, “Why You Should Get the PMP.”

    The PMP was valuable in the past specifically because it was the standard

    79% of project managers surveyed have the PMP certification out of 30,000 respondents in 40 countries.

    The PMP became table stakes for jobs in project management and PMO’s.

    Work desk with project management written in middle. Arrows point to: Goals, planning, risks, control, teamwork, cost, communication, and problem solving.

    Source: PMI’s Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey—Twelfth Edition (2021)

    The PMP put itself on a collision course with Agile

    • The Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) was introduced in 2012 which initially clashed with the PMP for project management supremacy from the PMI.
    • Then the Disciplined Agile (DA) was introduced in 2019, which further compounded the issue and caused even more confusion with both the PMP and the PMI-ACP certification.
    • Instead of complementing the PMP, these certifications began to inadvertently compete with it head-to-head.

    There is a new PMBOK Guide Seventh Edition in town

    The PMI made its most significant changes between 2017 and 2021.

    Chart showing editions of the PMBOK guide from 1996 to 2021.

    Timeline adapted from Wikipedia, “Project Management Body of Knowledge.”

    Roughly every 3-5 years, the PMI has released a new PMBOK version. It’s unclear if there will be an eighth edition.

    The market got confused by PMBOK Guide – Seventh Edition

    PMBOK guide version 5 considered the gold standard, version 6 first included Agile and version 7 was the most radical change.

    • Die-hard traditional project managers have a hard time grasping why the PMI messed around with the PMBOK Guide. There is sentiment that the PMBOK Guide V7 got diluted.
    • Naysayers do not think that the PMBOK Guide V7 hit the mark and found it to be a concession to Agilists.
    • The PMBOK Guide V7 was significantly trimmed down by almost two-thirds to 274 pages whereas the PMBOK V6 ballooned to 756 pages!
    • Some Agile practitioners found this to be a refreshing, bold move from the PMI. Most, however, ignored or resisted it.
    PMBOK Guide: A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge Seventh Edition.  AND The Standard for Project Management.

    PMBOK Guide – Seventh edition released in 2021

    • The PMBOK Guide – Seventh Edition was released in late 2021. It was the most radical change since 1987. For the first time, the PMI went from a process-based standard to a principles-based standard, and the guide went from knowledge areas to project performance domains. This may have diluted the traditional predictive project management practices. However, it was offset by incorporating more iterative, Agile, and hybrid approaches.
    • The market is confused and is clearly shifting toward Agile and away from the rigor that is typically associated with the PMI.
    • The PMI transitioned most of the process-based standards & ITTO to their new digital PMIStandards+ online platform, which can be found here (access for PMI members only).
    • The PMBOK Guide is not the sole basis of the certification exam; however, it can be used as one of several reference resources. Using the exam content outline (ECO) is the way forward, which can be found here.

    The Agile certification seems to be the focus for the PMI in the coming years

    • The PMI started to get into the Agile game with the introduction of Agile certifications, which is where all the confusion started. Although the PMI-ACP & the DASM have seen a steady uptake recently, it appears to be at the expense of the PMP certification.
    • The PMI acquired the Discipline Agile (DA) in late 2019, which expanded their offerings and capabilities for project managers and teams to choose their “way of working.”
    • This was an important milestone for the PMI to address the new way of working for Agile practitioners with this offering to provide more options and to better support enterprise agility.
    PMI-ACP & the DASM have seen a steady uptake recently.

    Source: projectmanagement.com as of July 2022

    The PMI has lost more certified PMPs than they have gained so far in 2022

    The PMI has lost more certified PMPs than they have gained so far in 2022.

    PMP

    PMP – Project Management Professional

    It is a concerning trend that their bread and butter, the PMP flagship certification, has largely stalled in 2022. We are unsure if this was attributed to them being displaced by competitors such as the Agile Alliance, their own Agile offerings, or the market’s lackluster reaction to PMBOK Guide – Seventh Edition.

    Source: projectmanagement.com as of July 2022

    The PMI’s total memberships have stalled since September 2021

    The PMIs total memberships have stalled since September 2021.

    PMI: Project Management Insitute

    The PMI’s membership appears to have a direct correlation to the PMP numbers. As the PMP number stalls, so do the PMI’s memberships.

    Source: projectmanagement.com as of July 2022

    The PMP and the PMBOK Guide are more focused on project management

    The knowledge and skills were not all that helpful for running programs, portfolios, and PMOs.
    • It became evident that other certifications were more tightly aligned to program and portfolio management for the PMOs. The PMI provides the following:
      • Program Management Professional (PgMP)
      • Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP)
    • Axelos also has certifications for program management and portfolio management, such as:
      • Managing Successful Programmes (MSP)
      • Management of Portfolios (MoP)
      • Portfolio, Programme, and Project Offices (P3O)

    The market didn’t know what to do with the PgMP or the PfMP

    These were relatively unknown certifications for Program and Portfolio Management.

    • The PMI’s story was that you would start as a project manager with the PMP certification and then the natural progression would be toward either Program Management (PgMP) or Portfolio Management (PfMP).
    • The uptake for the PgMP and the PfMP certification has been insignificant and underwhelming. The appetite and the demand for PMO-aligned certifications has been lackluster since their inception.
    PgMP - Program Management Professional and PfMP - Portfolio Management Professioanal Certifications are relatively unkown. PgMP only has 3780 members since 2007, and PfMP has 1266 since 2014.

    Source: projectmanagement.com as of July 2022

    There are other non-PMI certifications to consider

    Depending on your experience level

    List of non-PMI certifications based on specialization. List of non-PMI certifications based on years of experience.  Divided into 3 categories: 0-3 years, 3+ years, and 8+ years of experience.

    Other non-PMI project management certifications

    Non-PMI project management certifications

    PRINCE2 and CSM appear to be the more popular ones in the market.

    In April 2022, CIO.com outlined other popular project management certifications outside of the PMI.

    Source: CIO.com

    Project managers have an image problem among senior leaders

    There is a perception that PMs are just box-checkers and note-takers.

    • Project managers are seen as tactical troubleshooters rather than strategic partners. This suggests a widespread lack of understanding of the value and impact of project management at the C-suite level.
    • Very few C-suite executives associate project managers with "realizing visions," being "essential," or being "changemakers."
    • Strong strategic alignment between the PMO and the C-suite helps to reinforce the value of project management capabilities in achieving wider strategic aims.

    Source: PMI, Narrowing The Talent Gap, 2021

    Hiring practices have yet to change in response to the PMI’s moves

    The PMP is still the standard, even for organizations transitioning to Agile and PMO/portfolio jobs.

    • Savvy business leaders are still unsure about how Agile will impact them in the long term.
    • According to the Narrowing the Talent Gap report, PMI and PwC’s latest global research indicates that talent strategies haven’t changed much. There’s a widespread lack of focus on developing and retaining existing project managers, and a lack of variety and innovation in attracting and recruiting new talent. The core problem is that there isn’t a business case for investment in talent.

    Noteworthy Agile certifications to consider

    AGILE Certified Practioner(PMI-ACP) and Certified ScrumMaster(CSM) certification details.

    Source: PMI, “Agile Certifications,” and ScrumAlliance, “Become a Certified ScrumMaster.”

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is a lot of chatter about which Agile certification is better, and the jury is still out with no consensus. There are pros and cons to both certifications. We believe the PMI-ACP will give you more mileage and flexibility because of its breath of coverage in the Agile practice compared to the CSM.

    The talent shortage is a considerable risk to organizations

    • According to the PMI’s 2021 Talent Gap report1, the talent gap is likely to impact every region. By 2030, at least 13 million project managers are expected to have retired, creating additional challenges for recruitment. To close the gap, 25 million new project professionals are needed by 2030.
    • Young project managers will change the profession. Millennials and Generation Z are bringing fresh perspectives to projects. Learning to work alongside these younger generations isn't optional, as they increasingly dominate the labor force and extend their influence.
    • Millennials have already arrived: According to Pew Research2, this group surpassed Gen X in 2016 and is now the largest generation in the US labor force.

    1. PMI, Talent Gap, 2021.
    2. PM Network, 2019.

    Money talks – the PMP is still your best payoff

    It is a financially rewarding profession!

    The median salary for PMP holders in the US is 25% higher than those without PMP certification.

    On a global level, the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification has been shown to bolster salary levels. Holders of the PMP certification report higher median salaries than those without a PMP certification – 16% higher on average across the 40 countries surveyed.

    Source: PMI, Earning Power, 2021

    Determine which skills and capabilities are needed in the coming years

    • A scan of 2022 PM and PMO postings still shows continued dominance of the PMP certification requirement.
    • People and relationships have become more important than predicting budgets and timelines.
    • The PMI and PwC Global Survey on Transformation and Project Management 2021 identified the top five skills/capabilities for project managers (in order of priority):
      1. Relationship building
      2. Collaborative leadership
      3. Strategic thinking
      4. Creative problem solving
      5. Commercial awareness

    Source: PMI, Narrowing The Talent Gap, 2021.

    Prepare for product delivery by focusing on top digital-age skills

    According to the PMI Megatrends 2022 report, they have identified six areas as the top digital-age skills for product delivery:

    1. Innovative mindset
    2. Legal and regulatory compliance knowledge
    3. Security and privacy knowledge
    4. Data science skills
    5. Ability to make data-driven decisions
    6. Collaborative leadership skills

    Many organizations aren’t considering candidates who don’t have project-related qualifications. Indeed, many more are increasing the requirements for their qualifications than those who are reducing it.

    Source: PMI, Narrowing The Talent Gap, 2021

    Prioritize training and development at the C-suite level

    Currently, there is an imbalance with more emphasis of training on tools, processes, techniques, and methodologies rather than business acumen skills, collaboration, and management skills. With the explosion of remote work, training needs to be revamped and, in some cases, redesigned altogether to accommodate remote employees.

    Train of gears Labeled: Training. Gears from left to right are labeled: Knowledge, coaching, skills, developement, and experience.

    Lack of strategic prioritization is evident in how training and development is being done, with organizations largely not embracing a diversity of learning preferences and opportunities.

    Source: PMI, Narrowing The Talent Gap, 2021

    PM is evolving into a more strategic role

    • Ensure program and portfolio management roles are supported by the most appropriate certifications.
    • For project managers that have evolved beyond the iron triangle of managing projects, there is applicability to the PgMP and the PfMP for program managers, portfolio managers, and those in charge of PMOs.
    • Although these certifications have not been widely adopted due to lack of awareness and engagement at the decision-maker level, they still hold merit and prestige within the project management community.

    Project managers are evolving. No longer creatures of scope, schedule, and budget alone, they are now – enabled by new technology – focusing on influencing outcomes, building relationships, and achieving the strategic goals of their organizations.

    Source: PMI, Narrowing the Talent Gap, 2021

    Overhaul your recruitment practices to align with skills/capabilities

    World map with cartoon profile images, linked in a network.

    Talent managers will need to retool their toolbox to fill the capability gap and to look beyond where the role is geographically based by embracing flexible staffing models.

    They will need to evolve their talent strategies in line with changing business priorities.

    Organizations should be actively working to increase the diversity of candidates and upskilling young people in underrepresented communities as a priority.

    Most organizations are still relying on traditional approaches to recruit talent. Although we are prioritizing power skills and business acumen, we are still searching in the same, shrinking pool of talent.

    Source: PMI, Narrowing the Talent Gap, 2021.

    Bibliography

    “Agile Certifications for Every Step in Your Career.” PMI. Web.

    “Become a Certified ScrumMaster and Help Your Team Thrive.” ScrumAlliance. Web.

    “Become a Project Manager.” PMI. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    Bucero, A. “The Next Evolution: Young Project Managers Will Change the Profession: Here's What Organizations Need to Know.” PM Network, 2019, 33(6), 26–27.

    “Certification Framework.” PMI. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    “Certifications.” PMI. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    DePrisco, Mike. Global Megatrends 2022. “Foreword.” PMI, 2022. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey. 12th ed. PMI, 2021. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    “Global Research From PMI and PwC Reveals Attributes and Strategies of the World’s Leading Project Management Offices.” PMI, 1 Mar. 2022. Press Release. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    Narrowing the Talent Gap. PMI, 2021. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    “PMP Certification.” PMI. Accessed 4 Aug. 2022.

    “Project Management Body of Knowledge.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Aug. 2022.

    “Project Portfolio Management Pulse Survey 2021.” PwC. Accessed 30 Aug. 2022.

    Talent Gap: Ten-Year Employment Trends, Costs, and Global Implications. PMI. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    “The Critical Path.” ProjectManagement.com. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    “True Business Agility Starts Here.” PMI. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    White, Sarah K. and Sharon Florentine. “Top 15 Project Management Certifications.” CIO.com, 22 Apr. 2022. Web.

    “Why You Should Get the PMP.” PMI. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

    Simplify Remote Deployment With Zero-Touch Provisioning

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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-strategy

    Provide better end-user device support to a remote workforce:

    • Remain compliant while purchasing, deploying, supporting, and decommissioning devices.
    • Save time and resources during device deployment while providing a high-quality experience to remote end users.
    • Build a set of capabilities that will let you support different use cases.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Zero-touch is more than just deployment. This is more difficult than turning on a tool and provisioning new devices to end users.
    • Consider the entire user experience and device lifecycle to show value to the organization. Don’t forget that you will eventually need to touch the device.

    Impact and Result

    Approach zero-touch provisioning and patching from the end user’s experience:

    • Align your zero-touch approach with stakeholder priorities and larger IT strategies.
    • Build your zero-touch provisioning and patching plan from both the asset lifecycle and the end-user perspective to take a holistic approach that emphasizes customer service.
    • Tailor deployment plans to more easily scope and resource deployment projects.

    Simplify Remote Deployment With Zero-Touch Provisioning Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should adopt zero-touch provisioning, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Design the zero-touch experience

    Design the user’s experience and build a vision to direct your zero-touch provisioning project. Update your ITAM practices to reflect the new experience.

    • Zero-Touch Provisioning and Support Plan
    • HAM Process Workflows (Visio)
    • HAM Process Workflows (PDF)
    • End-User Device Management Standard Operating Procedure

    2. Update device management, provisioning, and patching

    Leverage new tools to manage remote endpoints, keep those devices patched, and allow users to get the apps they need to work.

    • End-User Device Build Book Template

    3. Build a roadmap and communication plan

    Create a roadmap for migrating to zero-touch provisioning.

    • Roadmap Tool
    • Communication Plan Template
    [infographic]

    Cost-Reduction Planning for IT Vendors

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    • Parent Category Name: Cost & Budget Management
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    • Unprecedented health and economic conditions are putting extreme pressure and controls on expense management.
    • IT needs to implement proactive measures to reduce costs with immediate results.
    • IT must sustain these reductions beyond the near term since no one knows how long the current conditions will last.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Proactively initiating a “War on Waste” (WoW) to reduce the expenses and costs in areas that do not impact operational capabilities of IT is an easy way to reduce IT expenditures.
    • This is accomplished by following the principle “Stop Doing Stupid Stuff” (SDSS), which many organizations deemphasize or overlook during times of growth and prosperity.
    • Initiating a WoW and SDSS program with passion, creativity, and urgency will deliver short-term cost reductions.

    Impact and Result

    • Pinpoint and implement tactical countermeasures and savings opportunities to reduce costs immediately (Reactive: <3 months).
    • Identify and deploy proven practices to capture and sustain expense reduction throughout the mid-term (Proactive: 3-12months).
    • Create a long-term strategy to improve flexibility, make changes more swiftly, and quickly generate cost-cutting opportunities (Strategic: >12 months).
    • Use Info-Tech’s 4 R’s Framework (Required, Removed, Rescheduled, and Reduced) and guiding principles to develop your cost-reduction roadmap.

    Cost-Reduction Planning for IT Vendors Research & Tools

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

    1. Start here – read the Storyboard

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how you can reduce your IT cost in the short term while establishing a foundation for long-term sustainment of IT cost containment.

    • Cost-Reduction Planning for IT Vendors Storyboard
    • Cost-Cutting Classification and Prioritization Tool
    [infographic]

    M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations

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    • member rating average dollars saved: After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.
    • member rating average days saved: Read what our members are saying
    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-organizational-design
    • I&O is often the last to be informed of an impending M&A deal.
    • The business doesn’t understand the necessary requirements or timeline for integration.
    • It’s hard to prioritize when you’re buried under a mountain of work.
    • Documentation may be lacking or nonexistent, and members of the target organization may be uncooperative.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Manage expectations. The business often expects integration in days or weeks, not months or years. You need to set them straight.
    • Open your checkbook and prepare to hire. Integration will require a temporary increase in resources.
    • Tackle organizational and cultural change. People are harder to integrate than technology. Culture change is the hardest part, and the integration plan should address it.

    Impact and Result

    • Tailor your approach based on the business objectives of the merger or acquisition.
    • Separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.
    • Ensure adequate personnel and budget.
    • Plan for the integration into normal operations.

    M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to partner with the business to conquer the challenges in your next merger or acquisition.

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

    1. Establish goals

    Partner with the business to determine goals and establish high-level scope.

    • M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations – Phase 1: Establish Goals
    • I&O M&A Project Napkin

    2. Conduct discovery

    Find out what the target organization’s I&O looks like.

    • M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations – Phase 2: Conduct Discovery
    • I&O M&A Discovery Letter Template
    • I&O M&A Discovery Template
    • I&O M&A Workbook
    • I&O M&A Risk Assessment Tool

    3. Plan short-term integration

    Build a plan to achieve a day 1 MVP.

    • M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations – Phase 3: Plan Short-Term Integration
    • I&O M&A Short-Term Integration Capacity Assessment Tool

    4. Map long-term integration

    Chart a roadmap for long-term integration.

    • M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations – Phase 4: Map Long-Term Integration
    • I&O M&A Long-Term Integration Portfolio Planning Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations

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

    1 High-Level Scope

    The Purpose

    Establish goals and conduct discovery.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Alignment with business goals

    Documentation of target organization’s current state

    Activities

    0.1 Consult with stakeholders.

    0.2 Establish M&A business goals.

    0.3 Conduct target discovery.

    0.4 Document own environment.

    0.5 Clarify goals.

    Outputs

    Stakeholder communication plan

    M&A business goals

    I&O M&A Discovery Template

    Current state of organization

    2 Target Assessment

    The Purpose

    Assess risk and value of target organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Accurate scope of I&O integration

    Risk mitigation plans

    Value realization strategies

    Activities

    1.1 Scope I&O M&A project.

    1.2 Assess risks.

    1.3 Assess value.

    Outputs

    I&O M&A Project Napkin

    Risk assessment

    Value assessment

    3 Day 1 Integration Project Plan

    The Purpose

    Establish day 1 integration project plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Smoother day 1 integration

    Activities

    2.1 Determine Day 1 minimum viable operating model post M&A.

    2.2 Identify gaps.

    2.3 Build day 1 project plan.

    2.4 Estimate required resources.

    Outputs

    Day 1 project plan

    4 Long-Term Project Plan

    The Purpose

    Draw long-term integration roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Improved alignment with M&A goals

    Greater realization of the deal’s value

    Activities

    3.1 Set long-term future state goals.

    3.2 Create a long-term project plan.

    3.3 Consult with business stakeholders on the long-term plan.

    Outputs

    Long-term integration project plan

    5 Change Management and Continual Improvement

    The Purpose

    Prepare for organization and culture change.

    Refine M&A I&O integration process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Smoother change management

    Improved M&A integration process

    Activities

    4.1 Complete a change management plan.

    4.2 Conduct a process post-mortem.

    Outputs

    Change management plan

    Process improvements action items

    Improve Your IT Recruitment Process

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}578|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact: N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Attract & Select
    • Parent Category Link: /attract-and-select

    Business and IT leaders aiming to recruit and select the best talent need to:

    • Get involved in the talent acquisition process at key moments.
    • Market their organization to top talent through an authentic employer brand.
    • Create engaging and accurate job ads.
    • Leverage purposeful sourcing for anticipated talent needs.
    • Effectively assess candidates with a strong interview process.
    • Set up new employees for success.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    To create a great candidate experience, IT departments must be involved in the process at key points, recruitment and selection is not a job for HR alone!

    Impact and Result

    • Use this how-to guide to articulate an authentic (employee value proposition) EVP and employer brand.
    • Perform an analysis of current sourcing methods and build an action plan to get IT involved.
    • Create an effective and engaging job ad to insure the right people are applying.
    • Train hiring managers to effectively deliver interviews that correctly assess candidate suitability.
    • Get links to in-depth Info-Tech resources and tools.

    Improve Your IT Recruitment Process Research & Tools

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

    1. Improve Your IT Recruitment Process – A guide to help you attract and select the best talent.

    Train your IT department to get involved in the recruitment process to attract and select the best talent.

    • Improve Your IT Recruitment Process Capstone Deck

    2. Improve Your IT Recruitment Process Workbook – A tool to document your action plans.

    Use this tool in conjunction with the Improve you IT Recruitment Process to document your action plans

    • Improve Your IT Recruitment Process Workbook

    3. Interview Guide Template – A template to organize interview questions and their rating scales, take notes during the interview, and ensure all interviews follow a similar structure.

    To get useful information from an interview, the interviewer should be focused on what candidates are saying and how they are saying it, not on what the next question will be, what probes to ask, or how they will score the responses. This Interview Guide Template will help interviewers stay focused and collect good information about candidates.

    • Interview Guide Template

    4. IT Behavioral Interview Question Library – A tool that contains a complete list of sample questions aligned with core, leadership, and IT competencies.

    Hiring managers can choose from a comprehensive collection of core, functional, and leadership competency-based behavioral interview questions.

    • IT Behavioral Interview Question Library

    5. Job Ad Template – A template to allow complete documentation of the characteristics, responsibilities, and requirements for a given job posting in IT.

    Use this template to develop a well-written job posting that will attract the star candidates and, in turn, deflect submission of irrelevant applications by those unqualified.

    • Job Ad Template

    6. Idea Catalog – A tool to evaluate virtual TA solutions.

    The most innovative technology isn’t necessarily the right solution. Review talent acquisition (TA) solutions and evaluate the purpose each option serves in addressing critical challenges and replacing critical in-person activities.

    • Idea Catalog: Adapt the Talent Acquisition Process to a Virtual Environment
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Improve Your IT Recruitment Process

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

    1 Employee Value Proposition and Employer Branding

    The Purpose

    Establish the employee value proposition (EVP) and employer brand.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Have a well-defined EVP that you communicate through your employer brand.

    Activities

    1.1 Gather feedback.

    1.2 Build key messages.

    1.3 Assess employer brand.

    Outputs

    Content and themes surrounding the EVP

    Draft EVP and supporting statements

    A clearer understanding of the current employer brand and how it could be improved

    2 Job Ads and Sourcing

    The Purpose

    Develop job postings and build a strong sourcing program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create the framework for an effective job posting and analyze existing sourcing methods.

    Activities

    2.1 Review and update your job ads.

    2.2 Review the effectiveness of existing sourcing programs.

    2.3 Review job ads and sourcing methods for bias.

    Outputs

    Updated job ad

    Low usage sourcing methods identified for development

    Minimize bias present in ads and sourcing methods

    3 Effective Interviewing

    The Purpose

    Create a high-quality interview process to improve candidate assessment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Training on being an effective interviewer.

    Activities

    3.1 Create an ideal candidate scorecard.

    3.2 Map out your interview process.

    3.3 Practice behavioral interviews.

    Outputs

    Ideal candidate persona

    Finalized interview and assessment process

    Practice interviews

    4 Onboarding and Action Plan

    The Purpose

    Drive employee engagement and retention with a robust program that acclimates, guides, and develops new hires.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Evaluation of current onboarding practice.

    Activities

    4.1 Evaluate and redesign the onboarding program.

    Outputs

    Determine new onboarding activities to fill identified gaps.

    Further reading

    Improve Your IT Recruitment Process

    Train your IT department to get involved in the recruitment process to attract and select the best talent.

    Own the IT recruitment process

    Train your IT department to get involved in the recruitment process to attract and select the best talent.

    Follow this blueprint to:

    • Define and communicate the unique benefits of working for your organization to potential candidates through a strong employer brand.
    • Learn best practices around creating effective job postings.
    • Target your job posting efforts on the areas with the greatest ROI.
    • Create and deliver an effective, seamless, and positive interview and offer process for candidates.
    • Acclimate new hires and set them up for success.

    Get involved at key moments of the candidate experience to have the biggest impact


    Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and Employer Brand



    Job Postings and a Strong Sourcing Program

    Effective Interviewing

    Onboarding: Setting up New Hires For Success

    Awareness Research Application Screening Interview and Assessment Follow Up Onboarding

    RECRUIT QUALITY STAFF

    Hiring talent is critical to organizational success

    Talent is a priority for the entire organization:

    Respondents rated “recruitment” as the top issue facing organizations today (McLean & Company 2022 HR Trends Report).

    37% of IT departments are outsourcing roles to fill internal skill shortages (Info-Tech Talent Trends 2022 Survey).

    Yet bad hires are alarmingly common:

    Hiring is one of the least successful business processes, with three-quarters of managers reporting that they have made a bad hire (Robert Half, 2021).

    48% of survey respondents stated improving the quality of hires was the top recruiting priority for 2021 (Jobvite, 2021).

    Workshop overview

    Prework

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Post work

    Current Process and Job Descriptions Documented

    Establish the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and Employer Brand

    Develop Job Postings and Build a Strong Sourcing Program

    Effective Interviewing

    Onboarding and Action Planning

    Putting the Action Plan Into Action!

    Activities

    • Recruitment Process Mapped Out and Stakeholders Identified
    • Prepare a JD and JP for Four Priority Jobs
    • Collect Information on Where Your Best Candidates Are Coming From

    1.1 Introduce the Concept of an EVP

    1.2 Brainstorm Unique Benefits of Working at Your Organization

    1.2 Employer Brand Introduction

    2.1 What Makes an Attractive Job Posting

    2.2 Create the Framework for Job Posting

    2.3 Improve the Sourcing Process

    2.4 Review Process for Bias

    3.1 Creating an Interview Process

    3.2 Selecting Interview Questions

    3.3 Avoiding Bias During Interviews

    3.4 Practice Interviews

    4.1 Why Onboarding Matters

    4.2 Acclimatize New Hires and Set Them Up for Success

    4.3 Action Plan

    5.1 Review Outputs and Select Priorities

    5.2 Consult With HR and Senior Management to Get Buy-In

    5.3 Plan to Avoid Relapse Behaviors

    Deliverables

    1. EVP draft completed
    2. Employer brand action plan
    1. Organization-specific job posting framework
    2. Sourcing Plan Template for four priority jobs
    3. Sourcing action plan
    1. Completed Interview Guide Template
    2. Managers practice a panel interview
    1. Onboarding best practices
    2. Action plan

    Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

    The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions.

    Develop a strong employee value proposition

    What is an employee value proposition?

    And what are the key components?

    The employee value proposition is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

    AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION IS:

    AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION IS NOT:

    • An authentic representation of the employee experience
    • Aligned with organizational culture
    • Fundamental to all stages of the employee lifecycle
    • A guide to help investment in programs and policies
    • Short and succinct
    • What the employee can do for you
    • A list of programs and policies
    • An annual project

    THE FOUR KEY COMPONENTS OF AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION

    Rewards

    Organizational Elements

    Working Conditions

    Day-to-Day Job Elements

    • Compensation
    • Health Benefits
    • Retirement Benefits
    • Vacation
    • Culture
    • Customer Focus
    • Organization Potential
    • Department Relationships
    • Senior Management Relationships
    • Work/Life Balance
    • Working Environment
    • Employee Empowerment
    • Development
    • Rewards & Recognition
    • Co-Worker Relationships
    • Manager Relationships

    Creating a compelling EVP that presents a picture of your employee experience, with a focus on diversity, will attract a wide pool of diverse candidates to your team. This can lead to many internal and external benefits for your organization.

    How to collect information on your EVP

    Existing Employee Value Proposition: If your organization or IT department has an existing employee value proposition, rather than starting from scratch, we recommend leveraging that and moving to the testing phase to see if the EVP still resonates with staff and external parties.

    Employee Engagement Results: If your organization does an employee engagement survey, review the results to identify the areas in which the IT organization is performing well. Identify and document any key comment themes in the report around why employees enjoy working for the organization or what makes your IT department a great place to work.

    Social Media Sites. Prepare for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Social media websites like Glassdoor and Indeed make it easier for employees to share their experiences at an organization honestly and candidly. While postings on these sites won’t relate exclusively to the IT department, they do invite participants to identify their department in the organization. You can search these to identify any positive things people are saying about working for the organization and potentially opportunities for improvement (which you can use as a starting point in the retention section of this report).

    1.1 Gather feedback

    1. Download the Improve Your IT Recruitment Workbook.
    2. On tab 1.1, brainstorm the top five things you value most about working at the organization. Ask yourself what would fall in each category and identify any key themes. Be sure to take note of any specific quotes you have.
    3. Brainstorm limitations that the organization currently has in each of those areas.

    Download the Recruitment Workbook

    Input

    Output
    • Employee opinions
    • Employee responses to four EVP components
    • Content for EVP

    Materials

    Participants

    • Recruitment Workbook
    • Diverse employees
    • Different departments
    • Different role levels

    1.2 Build key messages

    1. Go to tab 1.2 in your workbook
    2. Identify themes from activity 1.1 that would be considered current strengths of you organization.
    3. Identify themes from activity 1.2 that are aspirational elements of your organization.
    4. Identify up to four key statements to focus on for the EVP, ensuring that your EVP speaks to at least one of the five categories above.
    5. Integrate these into one overall statement.

    Examples below.

    Input

    Output
    • Feedback from focus groups
    • EVP and supporting statements

    Materials

    Participants

    • Workbook handout
    • Pen and paper for documenting responses
    • IT leadership team

    Sample EVPs

    Shopify

    “We’re Shopify. Our mission is to make commerce better for everyone – but we’re not the workplace for everyone. We thrive on change, operate on trust, and leverage the diverse perspectives of people on our team in everything we do. We solve problems at a rapid pace. In short, we get shit done.”

    Bettercloud

    “At Bettercloud, we have a smart, ambitious team dedicated to delighting our customers. Our culture of ownership and transparency empowers our team to achieve goals they didn’t think possible. For all those on board, it’s going to be a challenging and rewarding journey – and we’re just getting started.”

    Ellevest

    “As a team member at Ellevest, you can expect to make a difference through your work, to have a direct impact on the achievement of a very meaningful mission, to significantly advance your career trajectory, and to have room for fun and fulfillment in your daily life. We know that achieving a mission as critical as ours requires incredible talent and teamwork, and team is the most important thing to us.”

    Sources: Built In, 2021; Workology, 2022

    Ensure your EVP resonates with employees and prospects

    Test your EVP with internal and external audiences.

    INTERNAL TEST REVOLVES AROUND THE 3A’s

    EXTERNAL TEST REVOLVES AROUND THE 3C’s

    ALIGNED: The EVP is in line with the organization’s purpose, vision, values, and processes. Ensure policies and programs are aligned with the organization’s EVP.

    CLEAR: The EVP is straightforward, simple, and easy to understand. Without a clear message in the market, even the best intentioned EVPs can be lost in confusion.

    ACCURATE: The EVP is clear and compelling, supported by proof points. It captures the true employee experience, which matches the organization’s communication and message in the market.

    COMPELLING: The EVP emphasizes the value created for employees and is a strong motivator to join this organization. A strong EVP will be effective in drawing in external candidates. The message will resonate with them and attract them to your organization.

    ASPIRATIONAL: The EVP inspires both individuals and the IT organization as a whole. Identify and invest in the areas that are sure to generate the highest returns for employees.

    COMPREHENSIVE: The EVP provides enough information for the potential employee to understand the true employee experience and to self-assess whether they are a good fit for your organization. If the EVP lacks depth, the potential employee may have a hard time understanding the benefits and rewards of working for your organization.

    Want to learn more?

    Recruit IT Talent

    • Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

    Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

    • Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

    Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    • Good business, not just good philanthropy.

    Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

    The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions.

    Market your EVP to potential candidates: Employer Brand

    Employer brand includes how you market the EVP internally and externally – consistency is key

    The employer brand is the perception internal and external stakeholders hold of the organization and exists whether it has been curated or not. Curating the employer brand involves marketing the organization and employee experience. Grounding your employer brand in your EVP enables you to communicate and market an accurate portrayal of your organization and employee experience and make you desirable to both current and potential employees.

    The image contains a picture of several shapes. There is a trapezoid that is labelled EVP, and has a an arrow pointing to the text beside it. There is also an arrowing pointing down from it to another trapezoid that is labelled Employer Brand.

    The unique offering an employer provides to employees in return for their effort, motivating them to join or remain at the organization.

    The perception internal and external stakeholders hold of the organization.

    Alignment between the EVP, employer brand, and corporate brand is the ideal branding package. An in-sync marketing strategy ensures stakeholders perceive and experience the brand the same way, creating brand ambassadors.

    The image contains three circles that are connected. The circles are labelled: EVP, Employer Brand, Corporate Brand.

    Ensure your branding material creates a connection

    How you present your employer brand is just as important as the content. Ideally, you want the viewer to connect with and personalize the material for the message to have staying power. Use Marketing’s expertise to help craft impactful promotional materials to engage and excite the viewer.

    Visuals

    Images are often the first thing viewers notice. Use visuals that connect to your employer brand to engage the viewer’s attention and increase the likelihood that your message will resonate. However, if there are too many visuals this may detract from your content – balance is key!

    Language

    Wordsmithing is often the most difficult aspect of marketing. Your message should be accurate, informative, and engaging. Work with Marketing to ensure your wording is clever and succinct – the more concise, the better.

    Composition

    Integrate visuals and language to complete your marketing package. Ensure that the text and images are balanced to draw in the viewer.

    Case Study: Using culture to drive your talent pool

    This case study is happening in real time. Please check back to learn more as Goddard continues to recruit for the position.

    Recruiting at NASA

    Goddard Space Center is the largest of NASA’s space centers with approximately 11,000 employees. It is currently recruiting for a senior technical role for commercial launches. The position requires consulting and working with external partners and vendors.

    NASA is a highly desirable employer due to its strong culture of inclusivity, belonging, teamwork, learning, and growth. Its culture is anchored by a compelling vision, “For the betterment of Humankind,” and amplified by a strong leadership team that actively lives their mission and vision daily.

    Firsthand lists NASA as #1 on the 50 most prestigious internships for 2022.

    Rural location and no flexible work options add to the complexity of recruiting

    The position is in a rural area of Eastern Shore Virginia with a population of approximately 60,000 people, which translates to a small pool of candidates. Any hire from outside the area will be expected to relocate as the senior technician must be onsite to support launches twice a month. Financial relocation support is not offered and the position is a two-year assignment with the option of extension that could eventually become permanent.

    The image contains a picture of Steve Thornton.

    “Looking for a Talent Unicorn: a qualified, experienced candidate with both leadership skills and deep technical expertise that can grow and learn with emerging technologies.”

    Steve Thornton

    Acting Division Chief, Solutions Division, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

    Case Study: Using culture to drive your talent pool

    A good brand overcomes challenges.

    Culture takes the lead in NASA's job postings, which attract a high number of candidates. Postings begin with a link to a short video on working at NASA, its history, and how it lives its vision. The video highlights NASA's diversity of perspectives, career development, and learning opportunities.

    NASA's company brand and employer brand are tightly intertwined, providing a consistent view of the organization.

    The employer vision is presented in the best place to reach NASA's ideal candidate: usajobs.gov, the official website of the United States Government and the “go-to” for government job listings. NASA also extends its postings to other generic job sites as well as LinkedIn and professional associations.

    The image contains a picture of Robert Leahy.

    Interview with Robert Leahy

    Chief Information Officer, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

    2.1 Assess your organization’s employer brand

    1. Go to tab 2.1 in the Improve Your IT Recruitment Workbook.
    2. Put yourself in the shoes of someone on the outside looking in. If they were to look up your organization, what impression would they be given about what is like to work there?
    3. Run a Google search on your organization with key words “jobs,” “culture,” and “working environment” to see what a potential candidate would see when they begin researching your organization.
    4. You can use sites like:

    • Glassdoor
    • Indeed company pages
    • LinkedIn company pages
    • Social media
    • Your own website
  • Identify what your organization is doing well and record that under the “Continue” box in your workbook.
  • Record anything your organization should stop doing under the “Stop” box.
  • Brainstorm some ideas that your organization should think about implementing to improve the employer brand under the “Start” Box.
  • Input Output
    • Existing branding material on the internet
    • A clearer understanding of the current employer brand and how it could be improved
    Materials Participants
    • Workbook handout
    • Senior IT Leaders

    Want to learn more?

    Recruit IT Talent

    • Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

    Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

    • Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

    Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    • Good business, not just good philanthropy.

    Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

    The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions.

    Create engaging job ads to attract talent to the organization

    We have a job description; can I just post that on Indeed?

    A job description is an internal document that includes sections such as general job information, major responsibilities, key relationships, qualifications, and competencies. It communicates job expectations to incumbents and key job data to HR programs.

    A job ad is an externally facing document that advertises a position with the intent of attracting job applicants. It contains key elements from the job description as well as information on the organization and its EVP.

    Write an Effective Job Ad

    • Ensure that your job ad speaks to the audience you are targeting through the language you use.
      • E.g. If you are hiring for a creative role, use creative language and formatting. If you are writing for students, emphasize growth opportunities.
    • Highlight the organization’s EVP.
    • Paint an accurate picture of key aspects of the role but avoid the nitty gritty as it may overwhelm applicants.
    • Link to your organization’s website and social media platforms so applicants can easily find more information.

    A job description informs a job ad, it doesn’t replace it. Don’t be lulled into using a job description as a posting when there’s a time crunch to fill a position. Refer to job postings as job advertisements to reinforce that their purpose is to attract attention and talent.

    An effective job posting contains the following elements:

    Position Title
    • Clearly defined job titles are important for screening applicants as this is one of the first things the candidate will read.
    • Indicating the earnings range that the position pays cuts out time spent on reviewing candidates who may never accept the position and saves them from applying to a job that doesn’t match what they are looking for.
    Company
    • Provide a brief description of the organization including the products or services it offers, the corporate culture, and any training and career development programs.
    Summary Description
    • Describe briefly why the position exists. In other words, what is the position's primary purpose? The statement should include the overall results the job is intended to produce and some of the key means by which the position achieves these results.
    Responsibilities
    • Use bullet points to list the fundamental accountabilities of the position. Candidates want to know what they will be doing on a day-to-day basis.
    • Begin each responsibility or accountability statement with an action word and follow with a brief phrase to describe what is done to accomplish the function.
    Position Characteristics
    • Give examples of key problems and thinking challenges encountered by the position. Describe the type of analysis or creativity required to resolve these problems.
    • Provide examples of final decision-making authority. The examples should reflect the constraints placed on the position by people, policies, and/or procedures.
    Position Requirements
    • List all formal education and certifications required.
    • List all knowledge and experience required.
    • List all personal attributes required.
    Work Conditions
    • List all work conditions that the employee must accommodate. This could include any sensory, physical, or mental requirements of the position or any special conditions of employment, such as hours.
    Process to Apply
    • Include the methods in which the organization wants to receive applications and contact information of who will receive the applications.

    Bottom Line: A truly successful job posting ferrets out those hidden stars that may be over cautious and filters out hundreds of applications from the woefully under qualified.

    The do’s and don’ts of an inclusive job ad

    DON’T overlook the power of words. Avoid phrases like “strong English language skills” as this may deter non-native English speakers from applying and a “clean-shaven” requirement can exclude candidates whose faith requires them to maintain facial hair.

    DON’T post a long requirements list. A study showed that the average jobseeker spends only 49.7 seconds reviewing a listing before deciding it's not a fit.*

    DON’T present a toxic work culture; phrases such as “work hard, play hard” can put off many candidates and play into the “bro- culture” stereotype in tech.

    Position Title: Senior Lorem Ipsum

    Salary Band: $XXX to $XXX

    Diversity is a core value at ACME Inc. We believe that diversity and inclusion is our strength, and we’re passionate about building an environment where all employees are valued and can perform at their best.

    As a … you will …

    Our ideal candidate ….

    Required Education and Experience

    • Bachelor’s degree in …
    • Minimum five (5) years …

    Required Skills

    Preferred Skills

    At ACME Inc. you will find …

    DO promote pay equity by being up front and honest about salary expectations.

    DO emphasize your organization’s commitment to diversity and an inclusive workplace by adding an equity statement.

    DO limit your requirements to “must haves” or at least showcase them first before the “nice-to-haves.”

    DO involve current employees or members of your employee resource groups when creating job descriptions to ensure that they ask for what you really need.

    DO focus on company values and criteria that are important to the job, not just what’s always been done.

    *Source: Ladders, 2013

    Before posting the job ad complete the DEI job posting validation checklist

    Does the job posting highlight your organization’s EVP

    Does the job posting avoid words that might discourage women, people of color, and other members of underrepresented groups from applying?

    Has the position description been carefully reviewed and revised to reflect current and future expectations for the position, rather than expectations informed by the persons who have previously held the job?

    Has the hiring committee eliminated any unnecessary job skills or requirements (college degree, years or type of previous experience, etc.) that might negatively impact recruitment of underrepresented groups?

    Has the hiring committee posted the job in places (job boards, websites, colleges, etc.) where applicants from underrepresented groups will be able to easily view or access it?

    Have members of the hiring committee attended job fairs or other events hosted by underrepresented groups?

    Has the hiring committee asked current employees from underrepresented groups to spread the word about the position?

    Has the hiring committee worked with the marketing team to ensure that people from diverse groups are featured in the organization’s website, publications, and social media?

    es the job description clearly demonstrate the organization’s and leadership’s commitment to DEI?

    *Source: Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    3.1 Review and update your job ads

    1. Download the Job Ad Template.
    2. Look online or ask HR for an example of a current job advertisement you are using.
    • If you don’t have one, you can use a job description as a starting point.
  • Review all the elements of the job ad and make sure they align with the list on the previous slide, adding or changing, as necessary. Your job ad should be no more than two pages long.
  • Using the tools on the previous two slides, review your first draft to ensure the job posting is free of language or elements that will discourage diverse candidates from applying.
  • Review your job advertisement with HR to get feedback or to use as a template going forward.
  • Input Output
    • Existing job ad or job description
    • Updated job ad
    Materials Participants
    • Job ad or job description
    • Job Ad Template
    • Hiring Managers

    Want to learn more?

    Recruit IT Talent

    • Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

    Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

    • Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

    Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    • Good business, not just good philanthropy.

    Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

    Focus on key programs and tactics to improve the effectiveness of your sourcing approach.

    Get involved with sourcing to get your job ad seen

    To meet growing expectations, organizations need to change the way they source

    Social Media

    Social media has trained candidates to expect:

    • Organizations to stay in touch and keep track of them.
    • A personalized candidate experience.
    • To understand organizational culture and a day in the life.

    While the focus on the candidate experience is important throughout the talent acquisition process, social media, technology, and values have made it a critical component of sourcing.

    Technology

    Candidates expect to be able to access job ads from all platforms.

    • Today, close to 90% of candidates use a mobile platform to job hunt (SmartRecruiters, 2022).
    • However, only 36% of organizations are optimizing their job postings for mobile. (The Undercover Recruiter, 2021)

    Job ads must be clear, concise, and easily viewed on a mobile device.

    Candidate Values

    Job candidate’s values are changing.

    • There is a growing focus on work/life balance, purpose, innovation, and career development. Organizations need to understand candidate values and highlight how the EVP aligns with these interests.

    Authenticity remains important.

    • Clearly and accurately represent your organization and its culture.

    Focus on key programs and tactics to improve the effectiveness of your sourcing approach

    Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

    Social Media Program

    Employee Referral Program

    Alumni Program

    Campus Recruiting Program

    Other Sourcing Tactics

    Take advantage of your current talent with an internal talent mobility program

    What is it?

    Positioning the right talent in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons, and supporting them appropriately.

    Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

    Social Media Program

    Employee Referral Program

    Alumni Program

    Campus Recruiting Program

    Other Sourcing Tactics

    ITM program benefits:

    1. Retention
    2. Provide opportunities to develop professionally, whether in the current role or through promotions/lateral moves. Keep strong performers and high-potential employees committed to the organization.

    3. Close Skills Gap
    4. Address rapid change, knowledge drain due to retiring Baby Boomers, and frustration associated with time to hire or time to productivity.

    5. Cost/Time Savings
    6. Reduce spend on talent acquisition, severance, time to productivity, and onboarding.

    7. Employee Engagement
    8. Increase motivation and productivity by providing increased growth and development opportunities.

    9. EVP
    10. Align with the organization’s offering and what is important to the employees from a development perspective.

    11. Employee & Leadership Development
    12. Support and develop employees from all levels and job functions.

    Leverage social media to identify and connect with talent

    Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

    Social Media Program

    Employee Referral Program

    Alumni Program

    Campus Recruiting Program

    Other Sourcing Tactics

    What is it? The widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on common efforts, and build relationships.

    Learning to use social media effectively is key to sourcing the right talent.

    • Today, 92% of organizations leverage social media for talent acquisition.
    • 80% of employers find passive candidates through social media – second only to referrals.
    • 86% percent of job seekers used social media for their most recent job search.
    (Ku, 2021)

    Benefits of social media:

    • Provides access to candidates who may not know the organization.
    • Taps extended networks.
    • Facilitates consistent communication with candidates and talent in pipelines.
    • Personalizes the candidate experience.
    • Provides access to extensive data.

    Challenges of social media:

    With the proliferation of social media and use by most organizations, social media platforms have become overcrowded. As a result:

    • Organizations are directly and very apparently competing for talent with competitors.
    • Users are bombarded with information and are tuning out.

    “It is all about how we can get someone’s attention and get them to respond. People are becoming jaded.”

    – Katrina Collier, Social Recruiting Expert, The Searchologist

    Reap the rewards of an employee referral program

    Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

    Social Media Program

    Employee Referral Program

    Alumni Program

    Campus Recruiting Program

    Other Sourcing Tactics

    What is it? Employees recommend qualified candidates. If the referral is hired, the referring employee typically receives some sort of reward.

    Benefits of an employee referral program:

    1. Lower Recruiting Costs
    2. 55% of organizations report that hiring a referral is less expensive that a non-referred candidate (Clutch, 2020).

    3. Decreased time to fill
    4. The average recruiting lifecycle for an employee referral is 29 days, compared with 55 days for a non referral (Betterup, 2022).

    5. Decreased turnover
    6. 46% percent of employees who were referred stay at their organization for a least one year, compared to 33% of career site hires (Betterup, 2022).

    7. Increased quality of hire
    8. High performers are more likely to refer other high performers to an organization (The University of Chicago Press, 2019).

    Avoid the Like Me Bias: Continually evaluate the diversity of candidates sourced from the employee referral program. Unless your workforce is already diverse, referrals can hinder diversity because employees tend to recommend people like themselves.

    Tap into your network of former employees

    Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

    Social Media Program

    Employee Referral Program

    Alumni Program

    Campus Recruiting Program

    Other Sourcing Tactics

    What is it? An alumni referral program is a formalized way to maintain ongoing relationships with former employees of the organization.

    Successful organizations use an alumni program:

    • 98% of the F500 have some sort of Alumni program (LinkedIn, 2019).

    Benefits of an alumni program:

    1. Branding
    • Alumni are regarded as credible sources of information. They can be a valuable resource for disseminating and promoting the employer brand.
  • Source of talent
    • Boomerang employees are doubly valuable as they understand the organization and also have developed skills and industry experience.
      • Recover some of the cost of turnover and cost per hire with a pool of prequalified candidates who will more quickly reach full productivity.
  • Referral potential
    • Developing a robust alumni network provides access to a larger network through referrals.
    • Alumni already know what is required to be successful in the organization so they can refer more suitable candidates.

    Make use of a campus recruiting program

    Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

    Social Media Program

    Employee Referral Program

    Alumni Program

    Campus Recruiting Program

    Other Sourcing Tactics

    What is it? A formalized means of attracting and hiring individuals who are about to graduate from schools, colleges, or universities.

    Almost 70% of companies are looking to employ new college graduates every year (HR Shelf, 2022).

    Campus recruitment benefits:

    • Increases employer brand awareness among talent entering the workforce.
    • Provides the opportunity to interact with large groups of potential candidates at one time.
    • Presents the opportunity to identify and connect with high-quality talent before they graduate and are actively looking for positions.
    • Offers access to a highly diverse audience.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Target schools that align with your culture and needs. Do not just focus on the most prestigious schools: they are likely more costly, have more intense competition, and may not actually provide the right talent.

    Identify opportunities to integrate non-traditional techniques

    Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

    Social Media Program

    Employee Referral Program

    Alumni Program

    Campus Recruiting Program

    Other Sourcing Tactics

    1. Professional industry associations
    • Tap into candidates who have the necessary competencies.

    5. Not-for-profit intermediaries

    • Partner with not-for-profits to tap into candidates in training or mentorship programs.
    • Example:
      • Year Up (General)
      • Bankwork$ (Banking)
      • Youth Build (Construction)
      • iFoster (Grocery)

    American Expresscreated a boot camp for software engineers in partnership with Year Up and Gateway Community College to increase entry-level IT hires.

    Results:

    • Annually hire 80-100 interns from Year Up.
    • Improved conversion rates: 72% of Year Up interns versus 60% of traditional interns.
    • Increased retention: 44 (Year Up) versus 18 months (traditional).
    (HBR, 2016)

    2. Special interest groups

    • Use for niche role sourcing.
    • Find highly specialized talent.
    • Drive diversity (Women in Project Management).

    6. Gamification

    • Attract curiosity and reaffirm innovation at your organization.
    • Communicate the EVP.
    3. Customers
    • Access those engaged with the organization.
    • Add the employer brand to existing messaging.

    PwC (Hungary) created Multiploy, a two-day game that allows students to virtually experience working in accounting or consulting at the organization.

    Results:

    • 78% of students said they wanted to work for PwC.
    • 92% indicated they had a more positive view of the firm.
    • Increase in the number of job applicants.
    (Zielinski, 2015)

    4. Exit interviews

    • Ask exiting employees “where should we recruit someone to replace you?”
    • Leverage their knowledge to glean insight into where to find talent.

    Partner with other organizational functions to build skills and leverage existing knowledge

    Use knowledge that already exists in the organization to improve talent sourcing capabilities.

    Marketing

    HR

    Marketing knows how to:

    • Build attention-grabbing content.
    • Use social media platforms effectively.
    • Effectively promote a brand.
    • Use creative methods to connect with people.

    HR knows how to:

    • Organize recruitment activities.
    • Identify the capabilities of various technologies available to support sourcing.
    • Solve issues that may arise along the way

    To successfully partner with other departments in your organization:

    • Acknowledge that they are busy. Like IT, they have multiple competing priorities.
    • Present your needs and prioritize them. Create a list of what you are looking for and then be willing to just pick your top need. Work with the other department to decide what needs can and cannot be met.
    • Present the business case. Emphasize how partnering is mutually beneficial. For example, illustrate to Marketing that promoting a strong brand with candidates will improve the organization’s overall reputation because often, candidates are customers.
    • Be reasonable and patient. You are asking for help, so be moderate in your expectations and flexible in working with your partner.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Encourage your team to seek out, and learn from, employees in different divisions. Training sessions with the teams may not always be possible but one-on-one chats can be just as effective and may be better received.

    5.1 Review the effectiveness of existing sourcing programs

    1. As a group review the description of each program as defined on previous slides. Ensure that everyone understands the definitions.
    2. In your workbook, look for the cell Internal Talent Mobility under the title; you will find five rows with the following
    • This program is formally structured and documented.
    • This program is consistently applied across the organization.
    • Talent is sourced this way on an ad hoc basis.
    • Our organization currently does not source talent this way.
    • There are metrics in place to assess the effectiveness of this program.
  • Ask everyone in the group if they agree with the statement for each column; once everyone has had a chance to answer each of the questions, discuss any discrepancies which exist.
  • After coming to a consensus, record the answers.
  • Repeat this process for the other four sourcing programs (social media, employee referral program, alumni network program, and campus recruiting program).
  • InputOutput
    • Existing knowledge on sourcing approach
    • Low usage sourcing methods identified for development
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Workbook
    • Hiring Managers

    Want to learn more?

    Recruit IT Talent

    • Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

    Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

    • Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

    Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    • Good business, not just good philanthropy.

    Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

    Interviews are the most often used yet poorly executed hiring tool.

    Create a high-quality interview process to improve candidate assessment

    Everyone believes they’re a great interviewer; self-assess your techniques, and “get real” to get better

    If you…

    • Believe everything the candidate says.
    • Ask mostly hypothetical questions: "What would you do in a situation where…"
    • Ask gimmicky questions: "If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?"
    • Ask only traditional interview questions: "What are your top three strengths?”
    • Submit to a first impression bias.
    • Have not defined what you are looking for before the interview.
    • Ignore your gut feeling in an attempt to be objective.
    • Find yourself loving a candidate because they are just like you.
    • Use too few or too many interviewers in the process.
    • Do not ask questions to determine the motivational fit of the candidate.
    • Talk more than the interviewee.
    • Only plan and prepare for the interview immediately before it starts.

    …then stop. Use this research!

    Most interviewers are not effective, resulting in many poor hiring decisions, which is costly and counter-productive

    Most interviewers are not effective…

    • 82% of organizations don’t believe they hire highly talented people (Trost, 2022).
    • Approximately 76% of managers and HR representatives that McLean & Company interviewed agreed that the majority of interviewers are not very effective.
    • 66% of hiring managers come to regret their interview-based hiring decisions (DDI, 2021).

    …because, although everyone knows interviewing is a priority, most don’t make it one.

    • Interviewing is often considered an extra task in addition to an employee’s day-to-day responsibilities, and these other responsibilities take precedence.
    • It takes time to effectively design, prepare for, and conduct an interview.
    • Employees would rather spend this time on tasks they consider to be an immediate priority.

    Even those interviewers who are good at interviewing, may not be good enough.

    • Even a good interviewer can be fooled by a great interviewee.
    • Some interviewees talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. They have great interviewing abilities but not the skills required to be successful in the specific position for which they are interviewing.
    • Even if the interviewer is well trained and prepared to conduct a strong interview, they can get caught up with an interviewee that seems very impressive on the surface, and end up making a bad hire.

    Preparing the Perfect Interview

    Step 5: Define decision rights

    Establish decision-making authority and veto power to mitigate post-interview conflicts over who has final say over a candidate’s status.

    Follow these steps to create a positive interview experience for all involved.

    Step 1: Define the ideal candidate profile; determine the attributes of the ideal candidate and their relative importance

    Define the attributes of the ideal candidate…

    Ideal candidate = Ability to do the job + Motivation to do the job + Fit

    Competencies

    • Education
    • Credentials
    • Technical skills
    • Career path
    • Salary expectations
    • Passion
    • Potential
    • Personality
    • Managerial style/preference

    Experiences

    • Years of service
    • Specific projects
    • Industry

    Data for these come from:

    • Interviews
    • Personality tests
    • Gut instinct or intuition

    Data for these come from:

    • Resumes
    • Interviews
    • Exercises and tests
    • References

    Caution: Evaluating for “organizational or cultural fit” can lead to interviewers falling into the trap of the “like me” bias, and excluding diverse candidates.

    …then determine the importance of the attributes.

    Non-negotiable = absolutely required for the job!

    Usually attributes that are hard to train, such as writing skills, or expensive to acquire after hire, such as higher education or specific technical skills.

    An Asset

    Usually attributes that can be trained, such as computer skills. It’s a bonus if the new hire has it.

    Nice-to-have

    Attributes that aren’t necessary for the job but beneficial. These could help in breaking final decision ties.

    Deal Breakers: Also discuss and decide on any deal breakers that would automatically exclude a candidate.

    The job description is not enough; meet with stakeholders to define and come to a consensus on the ideal candidate profile

    Definition of the Ideal Candidate

    • The Hiring Manager has a plan for the new hire and knows the criteria that will best fulfill that mandate.
    • The Executive team may have specific directives for what the ideal candidate should look like, depending on the level and critical nature of the position.
    • Industry standards, which are defined by regulatory bodies, are available for some positions. Use these to identify skills and abilities needed for the job.
    • Competitor information such as job descriptions and job reviews could provide useful data about a similar role in other organizations.
    • Exit interviews can offer insight into the most challenging aspects of the job and identify skills or abilities needed for success.
    • Current employees who hold the same or a similar position can explain the nuances of the day-to-day job and what attributes are most needed on the team.

    “The hardest work is accurately defining what kind of person is going to best perform this job. What are their virtues? If you’ve all that defined, the rest is not so tough.”

    – VP, Financial Services

    Use a scorecard to document the ideal candidate profile and help you select a superstar

    1. Download the Workbook and go to tab 6.1.
    2. Document the desired attributes for each category of assessment: Competencies, Experiences, Fit, and Motivation. You can find an Attribute Library on the next tab.
    3. Rank each attribute by level of priority: Required, Asset, or Nice-to-Have.
    4. Identify deal breakers that would automatically disqualify a candidate from moving forward.
    InputOutput
    • Job description
    • Stakeholder input
    • Ideal candidate persona
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Workbook
    • Hiring Managers

    To identify questions for screening interviews, use the Screening Interview Template

    A screening interview conducted by phone should have a set of common questions to identify qualified candidates for in-person interviews.

    The Screening Interview Template will help you develop a screening interview by providing:

    • Common screening questions that can be modified based on organizational needs and interview length.
    • Establishing an interview team.
    • A questionnaire format so that the same questions are asked of all candidates and responses can be recorded.

    Once completed, this template will help you or HR staff conduct candidate screening interviews with ease and consistency. Always do screening interviews over the phone or via video to save time and money.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Determine the goal of the screening interview – do you want to evaluate technical skills, communication skills, attitude, etc.? – and create questions based on this goal. If evaluating technical skill, have someone with technical competency conduct the interview.

    The image contains screenshots of the Screening Interview Template.

    Step 2: Choose interview types and techniques that best assess the ideal candidate attributes listed on the position scorecard

    There is no best interview type or technique for assessing candidates, but there could be a wrong one depending on the organization and job opening.

    • Understanding common interviewing techniques and types will help inform your own interviewing strategy and interview development.
    • Each interview technique and type has its own strengths and weakness and can be better suited for a particular organizational environment, type of job, or characteristic being assessed.
    The image contains a diagram to demonstrate the similarities and differences of Interview Technique and Interview Type. There is a Venn Diagram, the right circle is labelled: Interview Technique, and the right is: Interview Type. There is a double sided arrow below that has the following text: Unstructure, Semi-Structured, and Structured.

    Unstructured: A traditional method of interviewing that involves no constraints on the questions asked, no requirements for standardization, and a subjective assessment of the candidate. This format is the most prone to bias.

    Semi-Structured: A blend of structured and unstructured, where the interviewer will ask a small list of similar questions to all candidates along with some questions pertaining to the resume.

    Structured: An interview consisting of a standardized set of job-relevant questions and a scoring guide. The goal is to reduce interviewer bias and to help make an objective and valid decision about the best candidate.

    No matter which interview types or techniques you use, aim for it to be as structured as possible to increase its validity

    The validity of the interview increases as the degree of interview structure increases.

    Components of a highly structured interview include:

    1. Interview questions are derived from a job analysis (they are job related).
    2. Interview questions are standardized (all applicants are asked the same questions).
    3. Prompting, follow-up questioning, probing, and/or elaboration on questions are limited. Try to identify all prompts, follow-ups, and probes beforehand and include them in the interview guide so that all candidates get the same level of prompting and probing.
    4. Interview questions focus on behaviors or work samples rather than opinions or self-evaluations.
    5. Interviewer access to ancillary information (e.g. resumes, letters of reference, test scores, transcripts) is controlled. Sometimes limiting access to these documents can limit interviewer biases.
    6. Questions from the candidate are not allowed until after the interview. This allows the interviewer to stay on track and not go off the protocol.
    7. Each answer is rated during the interview using a rating scale tailored to the question (this is preferable to rating dimensions at the end of the interview and certainly preferable to just making an overall rating or ranking at the end).
    8. Rating scales are “anchored” with behavioral examples to illustrate scale points (e.g. examples of a “1,” “3,” or “5” answer).
    9. Total interview score is obtained by summing across scores for each of the questions.

    The more of these components your interview has, the more structured it is, and the more valid it will be.

    Step 3: Prepare interview questions to assess the attributes you are looking for in a candidate

    The purpose of interviewing is to assess, not just listen. Questions are what help you do this.

    Preparing questions in advance allows you to:

    • Match each question to a position requirement (included in your scorecard) to ensure that you assess all required attributes. Everything assessed should be job relevant!
    • Determine each question’s weighting, if applicable.
    • Give each candidate a chance to speak to all their job-relevant attributes.
    • Keep records should an unselected candidate decide to contest the decision.

    If you don’t prepare in advance:

    • You’ll be distracted thinking about what you are going to ask next and not be fully listening.
    • You likely won’t ask the same questions of all candidates, which impacts the ability to compare across candidates and doesn’t provide a fair process for everyone.
    • You likely won’t ask the questions you need to elicit the information needed to make the right decision.
    • You could ask illegal questions (see Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing for a list of questions not to ask in an interview).

    Use the Interview Question Planning Guide tab in the Candidate Interview Strategy and Planning Guide to prepare your interview questions.

    Use these tips to draft interview questions:

    • Use job analysis output, in particular the critical incident technique, to develop structured interview questions.
    • Search online or in books for example interview questions for the target position to inform interview question development. Just remember that candidates access these too, so be sure to ask for specific examples, include probing questions, and adapt or modify questions to change them.
    • Situational questions: The situation should be described in sufficient detail to allow an applicant to visualize it accurately and be followed by “what would you do?” Scoring anchors should reflect effective, typical, and ineffective behaviors.
    • Behavioral questions: Should assess a behavioral dimension (e.g. meeting deadlines) and apply to a variety of situations that share the underlying dimension (e.g. at work or school). Scoring anchors should be applicable to a variety of situations and reflect effective, typical, and ineffective behavior.

    Conduct an effective screening interview by listening to non-verbal cues and probing

    Follow these steps to conduct an effective screening interview:

    Introduce yourself and ask if now is a good time to talk. (Before calling, prepare your sales pitch on the organization and the position.)

    You want to catch candidates off guard so that they don’t have time to prepare scripted answers; however, you must be courteous to their schedule.

    Provide an overview of the position, then start asking pre-set questions. Take a lot of notes.

    It is important to provide candidates with as much information as possible about the position – they are deciding whether they are interested in the role as much as you are deciding whether they are suitable.

    Listen to how the questions are answered. Ask follow-up questions when appropriate and especially if the candidate seems to be holding something back.

    If there are long pauses or the candidate’s voice changes, there may be something they aren’t telling you that you should know.

    Be alert to inconsistencies between the resume and answers to the questions and address them.

    It’s important to get to the bottom of issues before the in-person interview. If dates, titles, responsibilities, etc. seem to be inconsistent, ask more questions.

    Ask candidates about their salary expectations.

    It’s important to ensure alignment of the salary expectations early on. If the expectations are much higher than the range, and the candidate doesn’t seem to be open to the lower range, there is no point interviewing them. This would be a waste of everyone’s time.

    Answer the applicant’s questions and conclude the interview.

    Wait until after the interview to rate the applicant.

    Don’t allow yourself to judge throughout the interview, or it could skew questions. Rate the applicant once the interview is complete.

    When you have a shortlist of candidates to invite to an in-person interview, use the Candidate Communication Template to guide you through proper phone and email communications.

    Don’t just prepare top-level interview questions; also prepare probing questions to probe to gain depth and clarity

    Use probing to drill down on what candidates say as much as possible and go beyond textbook answers.

    Question (traditional): “What would you identify as your greatest strength?”

    Answer: Ability to work on a team.

    Top-level interview questions set the stage for probing.

    Your interview script should contain the top two levels of questions in the pyramid and a few probes that you will likely need to ask. You can then drill down further depending on the candidate’s answers.

    Follow-Up Question:

    “Can you outline a particular example when you were able to exercise your teamwork skills to reach a team goal?”

    Probing questions start with asking what, when, who, why, and how, and gain insight into a candidate’s thought process, experiences, and successes.

    Probing Level 1:

    Probe around the what, how, who, when, and where. “How did you accomplish that?”

    How to develop probes? By anticipating the kinds of responses that candidates from different backgrounds or with different levels of experience are likely to give as a response to an interview question. Probes should provide a clear understanding of the situation, the behavior, and the outcome so that the response can be accurately scored. Common probes include:

    • What did you do? What was the outcome?
    • When did this take place (and how long did it take)?
    • Who was involved?
    • Were you leading or being led?
    • How did you accomplish what you did?
    • Why did you take those steps?

    Tailor probes to the candidate’s answers to evoke meaningful and insightful responses.

    Probing Level 2:

    Allow for some creativity.

    “What would you do differently if you were to do it again?”

    Conduct effective interviews and assessments

    Mitigate inherent biases of assessors by integrating formal assessments with objective anchors and clear criteria to create a more inclusive process.

    Consider leveraging behavioral interview questions in your interview to reduce bias.

    • In the past, companies were pushing the boundaries of the conventional interview, using unconventional questions to find top talent, e.g. “what color is your personality?” The logic was that the best people are the ones who don’t necessarily show perfectly on a resume, and they were intent on finding the best.
    • However, many companies have stopped using these questions after extensive statistical analysis revealed there was no correlation between candidates’ ability to answer them and their future performance on the job.
    • Asking behavioral interview questions based on the competency needs of the role is the best way to uncover if the candidates will be able to execute on the job.

    Assessments are created by people that have biases. This often means that assessments can be biased, especially with preferences towards a Western perspective. Even if the same assessments are administered, the questions will be interpreted differently by candidates with varying cultural backgrounds and lived experiences. If assessments do not account for this, it ultimately leads to favoring the answers of certain demographic groups, often ones similar to those who developed the assessment.

    Creating an interview question scorecard

    Attribute you are evaluating

    Probing questions prepared

    Area to take notes

    The image contains a screenshot of an Interview question scorecard.

    Exact question you will ask

    Place to record score

    Anchored scale with definitions of a poor, ok and great answer

    Step 4: Assemble an interview team

    HR and the direct reporting supervisor should always be part of the interview. Make a good impression with a good interview team.

    The must-haves:

    • The Future Manager should always be involved in the process. They should be comfortable with the new hire’s competencies and fit.
    • Human Resources should always be involved in the process – they maintain consistency, legality, and standardization. It’s their job to know the rules and follow them. HR may coordinate and maintain policy standards and/or join in assessing the candidate.
    • There should always be more than just one interviewer, even if it is not at the same time. This helps keep the process objective, allows for different opinions, and gives the interviewee exposure to multiple individuals in the company. But, try to limit the number of panel members to four or less.

    “At the end of the day, it’s the supervisor that has to live with the person, so any decision that does not involve the supervisor is a very flawed process.” – VP, Financial Services

    The nice-to-haves:

    • Future colleagues can offer benefits to both the interviewee and the colleague by:
      • Giving the candidate some insight into what their day-to-day job would be.
      • Relaxing the candidate; allowing for a less formal, less intimidating conversation.
      • Introducing potential teammates for a position that is highly collaborative.
      • Offering the interviewer an excellent professional development opportunity – a chance to present their understanding of what they do.
    • Executives should take part in interviewing for executive hiring, individuals that will report to an executive, or for positions that are extremely important. Executive time is scarce and expensive, so only use it when absolutely necessary.

    Record the interview team details in the Candidate Interview Strategy and Planning Guide template.

    Assign interviewers roles inside and outside the actual interview

    Define Interview Process Roles

    Who Should… Contact candidates to schedule interviews or communicate decisions?

    Who Should… Be responsible for candidate welcomes, walk-outs, and hand-offs between interviews?

    Who Should… Define and communicate each stakeholder’s role?

    Who Should… Chair the preparation and debrief meetings and play the role of the referee when trying to reach a consensus?

    Define Interview Roles

    • Set a role for each interviewer so they know what to focus on and where they fit into the process (e.g. Interviewer A will assess fit). Don’t ad hoc the process and allow everyone to interview based on their own ideas.
    • Consider interviewer qualifications and the impact of the new employee on each interviewer, when deciding the roles of each interviewer (i.e. who will interview for competency and who will interview for fit).
      • For example, managers may be most impacted by technical competencies and should be the interviewer to evaluate the candidate for technical competency.

    “Unless you’ve got roles within the panel really detailed and agreed upon, for example, who is going to take the lead on what area of questions, you end up with a situation where nobody is in charge or accountable for the final interview assessment." – VP, Financial Services

    Info-Tech Insight

    Try a Two Lens Assessment: One interviewer assesses the candidate as a project leader while another assesses them as a people leader for a question such as “Give me an example of when you exercised your leadership skills with a junior team member.”

    Step 5: Set decision rights in stone and communicate them in advance to manage stakeholder expectations and limit conflict

    All interviewers must understand their decision-making authority prior to the interview. Misunderstandings can lead to resentment and conflict.

    It is typical and acceptable that you, as the direct reporting manager, should have veto power, as do some executives.

    Veto Power

    Direct Supervisor or Manager

    Decision Makers: Must Have Consensus

    Other Stakeholders

    Direct Supervisor’s Boss

    Direct Supervisor

    Contributes Opinion

    HR Representative

    Peer

    After the preliminary interview, HR should not be involved in making the decision unless they have a solid understanding of the position.

    Peers can make an unfair assessment due to perceived competition with a candidate. Additionally, if a peer doesn’t want a candidate to be hired and the direct supervisor does hire the candidate, the peer may hold resentment against that candidate and set the team up for conflict.

    The decision should rest on those who will interact with the candidate on a daily basis and who manage the team or department that the candidate will be joining.

    The decisions being made can include whether or not to move a candidate onto the next phase of the hiring process or a final hiring decision. Deciding decision rights in advance defines accountability for an effective interview process.

    Create your interview team, assessments, and objective anchor scale

    1. Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library as a reference.
    2. On tab 9 of your workbook, document all the members of the team and their respective roles in the interview process. Fill in the decision-making authority section to ensure every team member is held accountable to their assigned tasks and understands how their input will be used.
    3. For each required attribute in the Ideal Candidate Scorecard, chose one to two questions from the library that can properly evaluate that attribute.
    4. Copy and paste the questions and probing questions into the Interview Guide Template.
    5. Create an objective anchor scale and clearly define what a poor, ok, and great answer to each question is.

    Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library

    Input Output
    • List of possible team members
    • Ideal Candidate Scorecard
    • Finalized hiring panel
    • Finalized interview and assessment process
    Materials Participants
    • IT Behavioral Interview Question Library
    • Workbook
    • Interview Guide Template
    • IT leadership team
    • IT staff members

    Conduct an effective, professional, and organized in-person interview

    Give candidates a warm, genuine greeting. Introduce them to other interviewers present. Offer a drink. Make small talk.

    “There are some real advantages to creating a comfortable climate for the candidate; the obvious respect for the individual, but people really let their guard down.”

    – HR Director, Financial Services

    Give the candidate an overview of the process, length, and what to expect of the interview. Indicate to the candidate that notes will be taken during the interview.

    If shorter than an hour, you probably aren’t probing enough or even asking the right questions. It also looks bad to candidates if the interview is over quickly.

    Start with the first question in the interview guide and make notes directly on the interview guide (written or typed) for each question.

    Take lots of notes! You think you’ll remember what was said, but you won’t. It also adds transparency and helps with documentation.

    Ask the questions in the order presented for interview consistency. Probe and clarify as needed (see next slide).

    Keep control of the interview by curtailing any irrelevant or long-winded responses.

    After all interview questions are complete, ask candidates if there was anything about their qualifications that was missed that they want to highlight.

    Lets you know they understand the job and gives them the feeling they’ve put everything on the table.

    Ask if the candidate has any questions. Respond to the questions asked.

    Answer candidate questions honestly because fit works both ways. Ensure candidates leave with a better sense of the job, expectations, and organizational culture.

    Review the compensation structure for the position and provide a realistic preview of the job and organization.

    Provide each candidate with a fair chance by maintaining a consistent interview process.

    Tell interviewees what happens next in the process, the expected time frame, and how they will be informed of the outcome. Escort them out and thank them for the interview.

    The subsequent slides provide additional detail on these eight steps to conducting an effective interview.

    Avoid these common biases and mistakes

    Common Biases

    Like-me effect: An often-unconscious preference for, and unfairly positive evaluation of, a candidate based on shared interests, personalities, and experiences, etc.

    Status effect: Overrating candidates based on the prestige of previously held positions, titles, or schools attended.

    Recency bias: Placing greater emphasis on interviews held closer to the decision-making date.

    Contrast effect: Rating candidates relative to those who precede or follow them during the interview process, rather than against previously determined data.

    Solution

    Assess candidates by using existing competency-based criteria.

    Common Mistakes

    Negative tone: Starting the interview on a negative or stressful note may derail an otherwise promising candidate.

    Poor interview management: Letting the candidate digress may leave some questions unanswered and reduce the interview value.

    Reliance of first impressions: Basing decisions on first impressions undermines the objectivity of competency-based selection.

    Failure to ask probing questions: Accepting general answers without asking follow-up questions reduces the evidentiary value of the interview.

    Solution

    Follow the structured interview process you designed and practiced.

    Ask the questions in the order presented in the interview guide, and probe and clarify as needed

    Do...

    Don’t…

    Take control of the interview by politely interrupting to clarify points or keep the interviewee on topic.

    Use probing to drill down on responses and ask for clarification. Ask who, what, when, why, and how.

    Be cognizant of confidentiality issues. Ask for a sample of work from a past position.

    Focus on knowledge or information gaps from previous interviews that need to be addressed in the interview.

    Ensure each member of a panel interview speaks in turn and the lead is given due respect to moderate.

    Be mean when probing. Intimidation actually works against you and is stressful for candidates. When you’re friendly, candidates will actually open up more.

    Interrupt or undermine other panel members. Their comments and questions are just as valid as yours are, and treating others unprofessionally gives a bad impression to the candidate.

    Ask illegal questions. Questions about things like religion, disability, and marital and family status are off limits.

    When listening to candidate responses, watch for tone, body language, and red flags

    Do...

    While listening to responses, also watch out for red and yellow flags.

    Listen to how candidates talk about their previous bosses – you want it to be mainly positive. If their discussion of past bosses reflects a strong sense of self-entitlement or a consistent theme of victimization, this could be a theme in their behavior and make them hard to work with.

    Red Flag

    A concern about something that would keep you from hiring the person.

    Yellow Flag

    A concern that needs to be addressed, but wouldn’t keep you from hiring the person.

    Pay attention to body language and tone. They can tell you a lot about candidate motivation and interest.

    Listen to what candidates want to improve. It’s an opportunity to talk about development and advancement opportunities in the organization.

    Not all candidates have red flags, but it is important to keep them in mind to identify potential issues with the candidate before they are hired.

    Don’t…

    Talk too much! You are there to listen. Candidates should do about 80% of the talking so you can adequately evaluate them. Be friendly, but ensure to spend the time allotted assessing, not chatting.

    If you talk too much, you may end up hiring a weak candidate because you didn’t perceive weaknesses or not hire a strong candidate because you didn’t identify strengths.

    What if you think you sense a red or yellow flag?

    Following the interview, immediately discuss the situation with others involved in the recruitment process or those familiar with the position, such as HR, another hiring manager, or a current employee in the role. They can help evaluate if it’s truly a matter of concern.

    Increase hiring success: Give candidates a positive perception of the organization in the interview

    Great candidates want to work at great organizations.

    When the interviewer makes a positive impression on a candidate and provides a positive impression of the organization it carries forward after they are hired.

    In addition, better candidates can be referred over the course of time due to higher quality networking.

    As much as choosing the right candidate is important to you, make sure the right candidate wants to choose you and work for your organization.

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate the percent of successful hires relates strongly to interviewers giving candidates a positive perception of the organization.

    Interview advice seems like common sense, but it’s often not heeded, resulting in poor interviews

    Don’t…

    Believe everything candidates say. Most candidates embellish and exaggerate to find the answers they think you want. Use probing to drill down to specifics and take them off their game.

    Ask gimmicky questions like “what color is your soul?” Responses to these questions won’t give you any information about the job. Candidates don’t like them either!

    Focus too much on the resume. If the candidate is smart, they’ve tailored it to match the job posting, so of course the person sounds perfect for the job. Read it in advance, highlight specific things you want to ask, then ignore it.

    Oversell the job or organization. Obviously you want to give candidates a positive impression, but don’t go overboard because this could lead to unhappy hires who don’t receive what you sold them. Candidates need to evaluate fit just as much as you.

    Get distracted by a candidate’s qualifications and focus only on their ability to do the job. Just because they are qualified does not mean they have the attitude or personality to fit the job or culture.

    Show emotion at any physical handicap. You can’t discriminate based on physical disability, so protect the organization by not drawing attention to it. Even if you don’t say anything, your facial expression may.

    Bring a bad day or excess baggage into the interview, or be abrupt, rushed, or uninterested in the interview. This is rude behavior and will leave a negative impression with candidates, which could impact your chances of hiring them.

    Submit to first impression bias because you’ll spend the rest of the interview trying to validate your first impression, wasting your time and the candidate’s. Remain as objective as possible and stick to the interview guide to stay focused on the task at hand.

    “To the candidate, if you are meeting person #3 and you’re hearing questions that person #1 and #2 asked, the company doesn’t look too hot or organized.” – President, Recruiting Firm

    Practice behavioral interviews

    1. In groups of at least three:
    • Assign one person to act as the manager conducting the interview, a second person to act as the candidate, and a third to observe.
    • The observer will provide feedback to the manager at the end of the role play based on the information you just learned.
    • Observers – please give feedback on the probing questions and body language.
  • Managers, select an interview question from the list your group put together during the previous exercise. Take a few minutes to think about potential probing questions you could follow up with to dig for more information.
  • Candidates, try to act like a real candidate. Please don’t make it super easy on the managers – but don’t make it impossible either!
  • Once the question has been asked and answered:
    • How did it go?
    • Were you able to get the candidate to speak in specifics rather than generalities? What tips do you have for others?
    • What didn’t go so well? Any surprises?
    • What would you do differently next time?
    • If this was a real hiring situation, would the information you got from just that one question help you make a hiring decision for the role?
  • Now switch roles and select a new interview question to use for this round. Repeat until everyone has had a chance to practice.
  • Input Output
    • Interview questions and scorecard
    • Practice interviews
    Materials Participants
    • IT Behavioral Interview Question Library
    • Workbook
    • Hiring Manager
    • Interview Panel Members

    Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library

    Record best practices, effective questions, and candidate insights for future use and current strategy

    Results and insights gained from evaluations need to be recorded and assessed to gain value from them going forward.

    • To optimize evaluation, all feedback should be forwarded to a central point so that the information can be shared with all stakeholders. HR can serve in this role.
    • Peer evaluations should be shared shortly after the interview. Immediate feedback that represents all the positive and negative responses is instructional for interviewers to consider right away.
    • HR can take a proactive approach to sharing information and analyzing and improving the interview process in order to collaborate with hiring departments for better talent management.
    • Collecting information about effective and ineffective interview questions will guide future interview revision and development efforts.

    Evaluations Can Inform Strategic Planning and Professional Development

    Strategic Planning

    • Survey data can be used to inform strategic planning initiatives in recruiting.
    • Use the information to build a case to the executive team for training, public relations initiatives, or better candidate management systems.

    Professional Development

    • Survey data from all evaluations should be used to inform future professional development initiatives.
    • Interview areas where all team members show weaknesses should be training priorities.
    • Individual weaknesses should be integrated into each professional development plan.

    Want to learn more?

    Recruit IT Talent

    • Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

    Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

    • Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

    Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    • Good business, not just good philanthropy.

    Develop a Comprehensive Onboarding Plan

    Drive employee engagement and retention with a robust program that acclimates, guides, and develops new hires.

    Onboarding should pick up where candidate experience leaves off

    Do not confuse onboarding with orientation

    Onboarding ≠ Orientation

    Onboarding is more than just orientation. Orientation is typically a few days of completing paperwork, reading manuals, and learning about the company’s history, strategic goals, and culture. By contrast, onboarding is three to twelve months dedicated to welcoming, acclimating, guiding, and developing new employees – with the ideal duration reflecting the time to productivity for the role.

    A traditional orientation approach provides insufficient focus on the organizational identification, socialization, and job clarity that a new hire requires. This is a missed opportunity to build engagement, drive productivity, and increase organizational commitment. This can result in early disengagement and premature departure.

    Effective onboarding positively impacts the organization and bottom line

    Over the long term, effective onboarding has a positive impact on revenue and decreases costs.

    The benefits of onboarding:

    • Save money and frustration
      • Shorten processing time, reduce administrative costs, and improve compliance.
    • Boost revenue
      • Help new employees become productive faster – also reduce the strain on existing employees who would normally be overseeing them or covering a performance shortfall.
    • Drive engagement and reduce turnover
      • Quickly acclimate new hires to your organization’s environment, culture, and values.
    • Reinforce culture and employer brand
      • Ensure that new hires feel a connection to the organization’s culture.

    Onboarding drives new hire engagement from day one

    The image contains a graph to demonstrate the increase in overall engagement in relation to onboarding.

    When building an onboarding program, retain the core aims: acclimate, guide, and develop

    The image contains a picture of a circle with a smaller circle inside it, and a smaller circle inside that one. The smallest circle is labelled Acclimate, the medium sized circle is labelled Guide, and the biggest circle is labelled Develop.

    Help new hires feel connected to the organization by clearly articulating the mission, vision, values, and what the company does. Help them understand the business model, the industry, and who their competitors are. Help them feel connected to their new team members by providing opportunities for socialization and a support network.

    Help put new hires on the path to high performance by clearly outlining their role in the organization and how their performance will be evaluated.

    Help new hires receive the experience and training they require to become high performers by helping them build needed competencies.

    We recommend a three-to-twelve-month onboarding program, with the performance management aspect of onboarding extending out to meet the standard organizational performance management cycle.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The length of the onboarding program should align with the average time to productivity for the role(s). Consider the complexity of the role, the industry, and the level of the new hire when determining program length.

    For example, call center workers who are selling a straight-forward product may only require a three-month onboarding, while senior leaders may require a year-long program.

    Watch for signs that you aren’t effectively acclimating, guiding, and developing new hires

    Our primary and secondary research identified the following as the most commonly stated reasons why employees leave organizations prematurely. These issues will be addressed throughout the next section.

    Acclimate

    Guide

    Develop

    • Onboarding experience is misaligned from the employer’s brand.
    • Socialization and/or integration into the existing culture is left to the employee.
    • Key role expectations or role usefulness is not clearly communicated.
    • Company strategy is unclear.
    • Opportunities for advancement are unclear.
    • Coaching, counseling, and/or support from co-workers and/or management is lacking.
    • The organization fails to demonstrate that it cares about the new employee’s needs.

    “Onboarding is often seen as an entry-level HR function. It needs to rise in importance because it’s the first impression of the organization and can be much more powerful than we sometimes give it credit for. It should be a culture building and branding program.” – Doris Sims, SPHR, The Succession Consultant, and Author, Creative Onboarding Programs

    Use the onboarding tabs in the workbook to evaluate and redesign the onboarding program

    1. On tab 10, brainstorm challenges that face the organization's current onboarding program. Identify if they fall into the "acclimate," "guide," or "develop" category. Next, record the potential impact of this challenge on the overall effectiveness of the onboarding program.
    2. On tab 11, record each existing onboarding activity. Then, identify if that activity will be kept or if it should be retired. Next, document if the activity fell into the "acclimate," "guide," or "develop" category.
    3. On tab 12, document gaps that currently exist in the onboarding program. Modify the timeline along the side of the tab to ensure it reflects the timeline you have identified.
    4. On tab 13, document the activities that will occur in the new onboarding program. This should be a combination of current activities that you want to retain and new activities that will be added to address the gaps noted on tab 12. For each activity, identify if it will fall in the acclimate, guide, or develop section. Add any additional notes. Before moving on, make sure that there are no categories that have no activities (e.g. no guide activities).
    Input Output
    • Existing onboarding activities
    • Determine new onboarding activities
    • Map out onboarding responsibilities
    Materials Participants
    • Workbook
    • Hiring Managers
    • HR

    Review the administrative aspects of onboarding and determine how to address the challenges

    The image contains tabs, three main large tabs are labelled: Acclimate, Guide, and Develop. There are smaller tabs in between that are in relation to the three main ones.

    Sample challenges

    Potential solutions

    Some paperwork cannot be completed digitally (e.g. I-9 form in the US).

    Where possible, complete forms with digital signatures (e.g. DocuSign). Where not possible, begin the process earlier and mail required forms to employees to sign and return, or scan and email for the employee to print and return.

    Required compliance training material is not available virtually.

    Seek online training options where possible. Determine the most-critical training needs and prioritize the replication of materials in audio/video format (e.g. recorded lecture) and distribute virtually.

    Employees may not have access to their equipment immediately due to shipping or supply issues.

    Delay employee start dates until you can set them up with the proper equipment and access needed to do their job.

    New hires can’t get answers to their questions about benefits information and setup.

    Schedule a meeting with an HR representative or benefits vendor to explain how benefits will work and how to navigate employee self-service or other tools and resources related to their benefits.

    Info-Tech Insight

    One of the biggest challenges for remote new hires is the inability to casually ask questions or have conversations without feeling like they’re interrupting. Until they have a chance to get settled, providing formal opportunities for questions can help address this.

    Review how company information is shared during onboarding and how to address the challenges

    The image contains tabs, three main large tabs are labelled: Acclimate, Guide, and Develop. There are smaller tabs in between that are in relation to the three main ones.

    Sample challenges

    Potential solutions

    Key company information such as organizational history, charts, or the vision, mission, and values cannot be clearly learned by employees on their own.

    Have the new hire’s manager call to walk through the important company information to provide a personal touch and allow the new hire to ask questions and get to know their new manager.

    Keeping new hires up to date on crisis communications is important, but too much information may overwhelm them or cause unnecessary stress.

    Sharing the future of the organization is a critical part of the company information stage of onboarding and the ever-changing nature of the COVID-19 crisis is informing many organizations’ future right now. Be honest but avoid over-sharing plans that may change.

    New hires can’t get answers to their questions about benefits information and setup.

    Schedule a meeting with an HR representative or benefits vendor to explain how benefits will work and how to navigate employee self-service or other tools and resources related to their benefits.

    Review the socialization aspects of onboarding and determine how to address the challenges

    The image contains tabs, three main large tabs are labelled: Acclimate, Guide, and Develop. There are smaller tabs in between that are in relation to the three main ones.

    Sample challenges

    Potential solutions

    Team introductions via a team lunch or welcome event are typically done in person.

    Provide managers with a calendar of typical socialization events in the first few weeks of onboarding and provide instructions and ideas for how to schedule replacement events over videoconferencing.

    New hires may not have a point of contact for informal questions or needs if their peers aren’t around them to help.

    If it doesn’t already exist, create a virtual buddy program and provide instructions for managers to select a buddy from the new hire’s team. Explain that their role is to field informal questions about the company, team, and anything else and that they should book weekly meetings with the new hire to stay in touch.

    New hires will not have an opportunity to learn or become a part of the informal decision-making networks at the organization.

    Hiring managers should consider key network connections that new hires will need by going through their own internal network and asking other team members for recommendations.

    New hires will not be able to casually meet people around the office.

    Provide the employee with a list of key contacts for them to reach out to and book informal virtual coffee chats to introduce themselves.

    Adapt the Guide phase of onboarding to a virtual environment

    The image contains tabs, three main large tabs are labelled: Acclimate, Guide, and Develop. There are smaller tabs in between that are in relation to the three main ones.

    Sample challenges

    Potential solutions

    Performance management (PM) processes have been paused given the current crisis.

    Communicate to managers that new hires still need to be onboarded to the organization’s performance management process and that goals and feedback need to be introduced and the review process outlined even if it’s not currently happening.

    Goals and expectations differ or have been reprioritized during the crisis.

    Ask managers to explain the current situation at the organization and any temporary changes to goals and expectations as a result of new hires.

    Remote workers often require more-frequent feedback than is mandated in current PM processes.

    Revamp PM processes to include daily or bi-weekly touchpoints for managers to provide feedback and coaching for new hires for at least their first six months.

    Managers will not be able to monitor new hire work as effectively as usual.

    Ensure there is a formal approach for how employees will keep their managers updated on what they're working on and how it's going, for example, daily scrums or task-tracking software.

    For more information on adapting performance management to a virtual environment, see Info-Tech’s Performance Management for Emergency Work-From-Home research.

    Take an inventory of training and development in the onboarding process and select critical activities

    The image contains tabs, three main large tabs are labelled: Acclimate, Guide, and Develop. There are smaller tabs in between that are in relation to the three main ones.

    Categorize the different types of formal and informal training in the onboarding process into the following three categories. For departmental and individual training, speak to managers to understand what is required on a department and role basis:

    Organizational

    Departmental

    Individual

    For example:

    • Employee self-service overview
    • Health and safety/compliance training
    • Core competencies

    For example:

    • Software training (e.g. Salesforce)
    • Job shadowing to learn how to work equipment or to learn processes

    For example:

    • Mentoring
    • External courses
    • Support to work toward a certification

    In a crisis, not every training can be translated to a virtual environment in the short term. It’s also important to focus on critical learning activities versus the non-critical. Prioritize the training activities by examining the learning outcomes of each and asking:

    • What organizational training does every employee need to be a productive member of the organization?
    • What departmental or individual training do new hires need to be successful in their role?

    Lower priority or non-critical activities can be used to fill gaps in onboarding schedules or as extra activities to be completed if the new hire finds themselves with unexpected downtime to fill.

    Determine how onboarding training will be delivered virtually

    The image contains tabs, three main large tabs are labelled: Acclimate, Guide, and Develop. There are smaller tabs in between that are in relation to the three main ones.

    Who will facilitate virtual training sessions?

    • For large onboarding cohorts, consider live delivery via web conferencing where possible. This will create a more engaging training program and will allow new hires to interact with and ask questions of the presenter.
    • For individual new hires or small cohorts, have senior leaders or key personnel from across the organization record different trainings that are relevant for their role.
      • For example, training sessions about organizational culture can be delivered by the CEO or other senior leader, while sales training could be delivered by a sales executive.

      If there is a lack of resources, expertise, or time, outsource digital training to a content provider or through your LMS.

    What existing or free tools can be leveraged to immediately support digital training?

    • Laptops and PowerPoint to record training sessions that are typically delivered in-person
    • YouTube/Vimeo to host recorded lecture-format training
    • Company intranet to host links and files needed to complete training
    • Web conferencing software to host live training/orientation sessions (e.g. Webex)
    • LMS to host and track completion of learning content

    Want to learn more?

    Recruit IT Talent

    • Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

    Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

    • Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

    Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

    • Good business, not just good philanthropy.

    Adapt Your Onboarding Process to a Virtual Environment

    • Develop short-term solutions with a long-term outlook to quickly bring in new talent.

    Bibliography

    2021 Recruiter Nation Report. Survey Analysis, Jobvite, 2021. Web.

    “5 Global Stats Shaping Recruiting Trends.” The Undercover Recruiter, 2022. Web.

    Barr, Tavis, Raicho Bojilov, and Lalith Munasinghe. "Referrals and Search Efficiency: Who Learns What and When?" The University of Chicago Press, Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 37, no. 4, Oct. 2019. Web.

    “How to grow your team better, faster with an employee referral program.” Betterup, 10 Jan. 2022. Web.

    “Employee Value Proposition: How 25 Companies Define Their EVP.” Built In, 2021. Web.

    Global Leadership Forecast 2021. Survey Report, DDI World, 2021. Web.

    “Connecting Unemployed Youth with Organizations That Need Talent.” Harvard Business Review, 3 November 2016. Web.

    Ku, Daniel. “Social Recruiting: Everything You Need To Know for 2022.” PostBeyond, 26 November 2021. Web.

    Ladders Staff. “Shedding light on the job search.” Ladders, 20 May 2013. Web.

    Merin. “Campus Recruitment – Meaning, Benefits & Challenges.” HR Shelf, 1 February 2022. Web.

    Mobile Recruiting. Smart Recruiters, 2020. Accessed March 2022.

    Roddy, Seamus. “5 Employee Referral Program Strategies to Hire Top Talent.” Clutch, 22 April 2020. Web.

    Sinclair, James. “What The F*dge: That's Your Stranger Recruiting Budget?” LinkedIn, 11 November 2019. Web.

    “Ten Employer Examples of EVPs.” Workology, 2022. Web

    “The Higher Cost of a Bad Hire.” Robert Half, 15 March 2021. Accessed March 2022.

    Trost, Katy. “Hiring with a 90% Success Rate.” Katy Trost, Medium, 8 August 2022. Web.

    “Using Social Media for Talent Acquisition.” SHRM, 20 Sept. 2017. Web.

    The MVP Major Incident Manager

    The time has come to hire a new major incident manager. How do you go about that? How do you choose the right candidate? Major incident managers must have several typically conflicting traits, so how do you pick the right person? Let's dive into that.

    Register to read more …

    Business Process Controls and Internal Audit

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    • Parent Category Name: Security and Risk
    • Parent Category Link: security-and-risk
    Establish an Effective System of Internal IT Controls to Mitigate Risks.

    IT Operations Consulting

    Operations... make sure that the services and products you offer your clients are delivered in the most efficient way possible. IT Operations makes sure that the applications and infrastructure that your delivery depends on is solid.

    Gert Taeymans has over 20 years experience in directing the implementation and management of mission-critical services for businesses in high-volume international markets. Strong track record in risk management, crisis management including disaster recovery, service delivery and change & config management.

    Register to read more …

    IT Metrics and Dashboards During a Pandemic

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    • Parent Category Name: Performance Measurement
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    The ways you measure success as a business are based on the typical business environment, but during a crisis like a pandemic, the business environment is rapidly changing or significantly different.

    • How do you assess the scope of the risk?
    • How do you quickly align your team to manage new risks?
    • How do you remain flexible enough to adapt to a rapidly changing situation?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Measure what you have the data for and focus on managing the impacts to your employees, customers, and suppliers. Be willing to make decisions based on imperfect data. Don’t forget to keep an eye on the long-term objectives and remember that how you act now can reflect on your business for years to come.

    Impact and Result

    Use Info-Tech’s approach to:

    • Quickly assess the risk and identify critical items to manage.
    • Communicate what your decisions are based on so teams can either quickly align or challenge conclusions made from the data.
    • Quickly adjust your measures based on new information or changing circumstances.
    • Use the tools you already have and keep it simple.

    IT Metrics and Dashboards During a Pandemic Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to develop your temporary crisis dashboard.

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

    1. Consider your organizational goals

    Identify the short-term goals for your organization and reconsider your long-term objectives.

    • Crisis Temporary Measures Dashboard Tool

    2. Build a temporary data collection and dashboard method

    Determine your tool for data collection and your data requirements and collect initial data.

    3. Implement a cadence for review and action

    Determine the appropriate cadence for reviewing the dashboard and action planning.

    [infographic]

    Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT

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    • Parent Category Name: Attract & Select
    • Parent Category Link: /attract-and-select
    • Workplace flexibility continues to be top priority for IT employees. Organizations who fail to offer flexibility will have a difficult time attracting, recruiting, and retaining talent.
    • When the benefits of remote work are not available to everyone, this raises fairness and equity concerns.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location flexibility is an option for its employees. But hybrid work is just a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location, so organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent.

    Impact and Result

    • Uncover the needs of unique employee segments to shortlist flexible work options that employees want and will use.
    • Assess the feasibility of various flexible work options and select ones that meet employee needs and are feasible for the organization.
    • Equip leaders with the information and tools needed to implement and sustain a flexible work program.

    Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT Research & Tools

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

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs

    Identify prioritized employee segments, flexibility challenges, and the desired state to inform program goals.

    • Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT – Phases 1-3
    • Talent Metrics Library
    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility

    Review, shortlist, and assess the feasibility of common types of flexible work. Identify implementation issues and cultural barriers.

    • Flexible Work Focus Group Guide
    • Flexible Work Options Catalog

    3. Implement selected option(s)

    Equip managers and employees to adopt flexible work options while addressing implementation issues and cultural barriers and aligning HR programs.

    • Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees
    • Flexible Work Time Policy
    • Flexible Work Time Off Policy
    • Flexible Work Location Policy

    Infographic

    Workshop: Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT

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

    1 Prepare to Assess Flex Work Feasibility

    The Purpose

    Gather information on organizational and employee flexibility needs.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the flexibility needs of the organization and its employees to inform a targeted flex work program.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify employee and organizational needs.

    1.2 Identify employee segments.

    1.3 Establish program goals and metrics.

    1.4 Shortlist flexible work options.

    Outputs

    Organizational context summary

    List of shortlisted flex work options

    2 Assess Flex Work Feasibility

    The Purpose

    Perform a data-driven feasibility analysis on shortlisted work options.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A data-driven feasibility analysis ensures your flex work program meets its goals.

    Activities

    2.1 Conduct employee/manager focus groups to assess feasibility of flex work options.

    Outputs

    Summary of flex work options feasibility per employee segment

    3 Finalize Flex Work Options

    The Purpose

    Select the most impactful flex work options and create a plan for addressing implementation challenge

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A data-driven selection process ensures decisions and exceptions can be communicated with full transparency.

    Activities

    3.1 Finalize list of approved flex work options.

    3.2 Brainstorm solutions to implementation issues.

    3.3 Identify how to overcome cultural barriers.

    Outputs

    Final list of flex work options

    Implementation barriers and solutions summary

    4 Prepare for Implementation

    The Purpose

    Create supporting materials to ensure program implementation proceeds smoothly.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Employee- and manager-facing guides and policies ensure the program is clearly documented and communicated.

    Activities

    4.1 Design employee and manager guide prototype.

    4.2 Align HR programs and policies to support flexible work.

    4.3 Create a communication plan.

    Outputs

    Employee and manager guide to flexible work

    Flex work roadmap and communication plan

    5 Next Steps and Wrap-Up

    The Purpose

    Put everything together and prepare to implement.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Our analysts will support you in synthesizing the workshop’s efforts into a cohesive implementation strategy.

    Activities

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Outputs

    Completed flexible work feasibility workbook

    Flexible work communication plan

    Further reading

    Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT

    Select flexible work options that balance organizational and employee needs to drive engagement and improve attraction and retention.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • IT leaders continue to struggle with workplace flexibility, and it is a top priority for IT employees; as a result, organizations who fail to offer flexibility will have a difficult time attracting, recruiting, and retaining talent.
    • The benefits of remote work are not available to everyone, raising fairness and equity concerns for employees.

    Common Obstacles

    • A one-size-fits-all approach to selecting and implementing flexible work options fails to consider unique employee needs and will not reap the benefits of offering a flexible work program (e.g. higher engagement or enhanced employer brand).
    • Improper structure and implementation of flexible work programs exacerbates existing challenges (e.g. high turnover) or creates new ones.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Uncover the needs of unique employee segments to shortlist flexible work options that employees want and will use.
    • Assess the feasibility of various flexible work options and select ones that meet employee needs and are feasible for the organization.
    • Equip leaders with the information and tools needed to implement and sustain a flexible work program.

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location flexibility is an option for its employees. But hybrid work is just a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location, so organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent.

    Flexible work arrangements are a requirement in today's world of work

    Flexible work continues to gain momentum…

    A 2022 LinkedIn report found that the following occurred between 2019 and 2021:

    +362%

    Increase in LinkedIn members sharing content with the term "flexible work."

    +83%

    Increase in job postings that mention "flexibility."
    (LinkedIn, 2022)

    In 2022, Into-Tech found that hybrid was the most commonly used location work model for IT across all industries.

    ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2022)

    …and employees are demanding more flexibility

    90%

    of employees said they want schedule and location flexibility ("Global Employee Survey," EY, 2021).

    17%

    of resigning IT employees cited lack of flexible work options as a reason ("IT Talent Trends 2022," Info-Tech Research Group, 2022).

    71%

    of executives said they felt "pressure to change working models and adapt workplace policies to allow for greater flexibility" (LinkedIn, 2021).

    Therefore, organizations who fail to offer flexibility will be left behind

    Difficulty attracting and retaining talent

    98% of IT employees say flexible work options are important in choosing an employer ("IT Talent Trends 2022," Info-Tech Research Group, 2022).

    Worsening employee wellbeing and burnout

    Knowledge workers with minimal to no schedule flexibility are 2.2x more likely to experience work-related stress and are 1.4x more likely to suffer from burnout (Slack, 2022; N=10,818).

    Offering workplace flexibility benefits organizations and employees

    Higher performance

    IT departments that offer some degree of location flexibility are more effective at supporting the organization than those who do not.

    35% of service desk functions report improved service since implementing location flexibility.
    ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2023).

    Enhanced employer brand

    Employees are 2.1x more likely to recommend their employer to others when they are satisfied with their organization's flexible work arrangements (LinkedIn, 2021).

    Improved attraction

    41% of IT departments cite an expanded hiring pool as a key benefit of hybrid work.

    Organizations that mention "flexibility" in their job postings have 35% more engagement with their posts (LinkedIn, 2022).

    Increased job satisfaction

    IT employees who have more control over their working arrangement experience a greater sense of contribution and trust in leadership ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2023).

    Better work-life balance

    81% of employees say flexible work will positively impact their work-life balance (FlexJobs, 2021).

    Boosted inclusivity

    • Caregivers regardless of gender, supporting them in balancing responsibilities
    • Individuals with disabilities, enabling them to work from the comfort of their homes
    • Women who may have increased responsibilities
    • Women of color to mitigate the emotional tax experienced at work

    Info-Tech Insight

    Flexible work options are not a concession to lower productivity. Properly implemented, flex work enables employees to be more productive at reaching business goals.

    Despite the popularity of flexible work options, not all employees can participate

    IT organizations differ on how much flexibility different roles can have.

    IT employees were asked what percentage of IT roles were currently in a hybrid or remote work arrangement ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2023).

    However, the benefits of remote work are not available to all, which raises fairness and equity concerns between remote and onsite employees.

    45%

    of employers said, "one of the biggest risks will be their ability to establish fairness and equity among employees when some jobs require a fixed schedule or location, creating a 'have and have not' dynamic based on roles" ("Businesses Suffering," EY, 2021).

    Offering schedule flexibility to employees who need to be fully onsite can be used to close the fairness and equity gap.

    When offered the choice, 54% of employees said they would choose schedule flexibility over location flexibility ("Global Employee Survey," EY, 2021).

    When employees were asked "What choice would you want your employer to provide related to when you have to work?" The top three choices were:

    68%

    Flexibility on when to start and finish work

    38%

    Compressed or four-day work weeks

    33%

    Fixed hours (e.g. 9am to 5pm)

    Disclaimer: "Percentages do not sum to 100%, as each respondent could choose up to three of the [five options provided]" ("Global Employee Survey," EY, 2021).

    Beware of the "all or nothing" approach

    There is no one-size-fits-all approach to workplace flexibility.

    Understanding the needs of various employee segments in the organization is critical to the success of a flexible work program.

    Working parents want more flexibility

    82%

    of working mothers desire flexibility in where they work.

    48%

    of working fathers "want to work remotely 3 to 5 days a week."

    Historically underrepresented groups value more flexibility

    38%

    "Thirty-eight percent of Black male employees and 33% of Black female employees would prefer a fully flexible schedule, compared to 25% of white female employees and 26% of white male employees."
    (Slack, 2022; N=10,818)

    33%

    Workplace flexibility must be customized to the organization to avoid longer working hours and heavy workloads that impact employee wellbeing

    84%

    of remote workers and 61% of onsite workers reported working longer hours post pandemic. Longer working hours were attributed to reasons such as pressure from management and checking emails after working hours (Indeed, 2021).

    2.6x

    Respondents who either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "Generally, I find my workload reasonable" were 2.6x more likely to be engaged compared to those who stated they disagreed or strongly disagreed (McLean & Company Engagement Survey Database;2022; N=5,615 responses).

    Longer hours and unsustainable workloads can contribute to stress and burnout, which is a threat to employee engagement and retention. With careful management (e.g. setting clear expectations and establishing manageable workloads), flexible work arrangement benefits can be preserved.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Employees' lived experiences and needs determine if people use flexible work programs – a flex program that has limited use or excludes people will not benefit the organization.

    Develop a flexible work program that meets employee and organizational needs

    This is an image of a sample flexible work program which meets employee and organizational needs.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight: IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location, time, and time-off flexibility are an option for its employees.

    Introduction

    Step 1 insight

    Step 2 insight

    Step 3 insight

    • Flexible work options are not a concession to lower productivity. Properly implemented, flex work enables employees to be more productive at reaching business goals.
    • Employees' lived experiences and needs determine if people use flexible work programs – a flex program that has limited use or excludes people will not benefit the organization.
    • Flexible work benefits everyone. IT employees experience greater engagement, motivation, and company loyalty. IT organizations realize benefits such as better service coverage, reduced facilities costs, and increased productivity.
    • Hybrid work is a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location to flexible time and time off. Organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent. Provide greater inclusivity to employees by broadening the scope to include flex location, flex time, and flex time off.
    • No two employee segments are the same. To be effective, flexible work options must align with the expectations and working processes of each segment.
    • Every role is eligible for hybrid location work. If onsite work duties prevent an employee group from participating, see if processes can be digitized or automated. Flexible work is an opportunity to go beyond current needs to future proofing your organization.
    • Flexible work options must balance organizational and employee needs. If an option is beneficial to employees but there is little or no benefit to the organization, or if the cost of the option is too high, it will not support the long-term success of the organization.
    • Prioritize flexible work options that employees want. Providing too many options often leads to information overload and results in employees not understanding what is available, lowering adoption of the flexible work program.
    • Leaders' collective support of the flexible program determines the program's successful adoption. Don't sweep cultural barriers under the rug; acknowledge and address them to overcome them.
    • Negative performance of a flexible work option does not necessarily mean failure. Take the time to evaluate whether the option simply needs to be tweaked or whether it truly isn't working for the organization.
    • A set of formal guidelines for IT ensures flexible work is:
      1. Administered fairly across all IT employees.
      2. Defensible and clear.
      3. Scalable to the rest of the organization.

    Case Study

    Expanding hybrid work at Info-Tech

    Challenge

    In 2020, Info-Tech implemented emergency work-from-home for its IT department, along with the rest of the organization. Now in 2023, hybrid work is firmly embedded in Info-Tech's culture, with plans to continue location flexibility for the foreseeable future.

    Adjusting to the change came with lessons learned and future-looking questions.

    Lessons Learned

    Moving into remote work was made easier by certain enablers that had already been put in place. These included issuing laptops instead of desktops to the user base and using an existing cloud-based infrastructure. Much support was already being done remotely, making the transition for the support teams virtually seamless.

    Continuing hybrid work has brought benefits such as reduced commuting costs for employees, higher engagement, and satisfaction among staff that their preferences were heard.

    Looking Forward

    Every flexible work implementation is a work in progress and must be continually revisited to ensure it continues to meet organizational and employee needs. Current questions being explored at Info-Tech are:

    • The concept of the "office as a tool" – how does use of the office change when it is used for specific collaboration-related tasks, rather than everything? How should the physical space change to support this?
    • What does a viable replacement for quick hallway meetings look like in a remote world where communication is much more deliberate? How can managers adjust their practices to ensure the benefits of informal encounters aren't lost?

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Preparation

    Step 1

    Step 2

    Step 3

    Follow-up

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

    Call #2: Assess employee and organizational needs.

    Call #3: Shortlist flex work options and assess feasibility.

    Call #4: Finalize flex work options and create rollout plan.

    Call #5: (Optional) Review rollout progress or evaluate pilot success.

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

    A typical GI is 3 to 5 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Activities

    Prepare to assess flex work feasibility

    Assess flex work feasibility

    Finalize flex work options

    Prepare for implementation

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    1.1 Identify employee and organizational needs.

    1.2 Identify employee segments.

    1.3 Establish program goals and metrics.

    1.4 Shortlist flex work options.

    2.1 Conduct employee/manager focus groups to assess feasibility of flex work options.

    3.1 Finalize list of approved flex work options.

    3.2 Brainstorm solutions to implementation issues.

    3.2 Identify how to overcome cultural barriers.

    4.1 Design employee and manager guide prototype.

    4.2 Align HR programs and policies to support flexible work.

    4.3 Create a communication plan.

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Deliverables

    1. Organizational context summary
    2. List of shortlisted flex work options
    1. Summary of flex work options' feasibility per employee segment
    1. 1.Final list of flex work options
    2. 2.Implementation barriers and solutions summary
    1. Employee and manager guide to flexible work
    2. Flex work roadmap and communication plan
    1. Completed flexible work feasibility workbook
    2. Flexible work communication plan

    Step 1

    Assess employee and organizational needs

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs
    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility
    3. Implement selected option(s)

    After completing this step you will have:

    • Identified key stakeholders and their responsibilities
    • Uncovered the current and desired state of the organization
    • Analyzed feedback to identify flexibility challenges
    • Identified and prioritized employee segments
    • Determined the program goals
    • Identified the degree of flexibility for work location, timing, and deliverables

    Identify key stakeholders

    Organizational flexibility requires collaborative and cross-functional involvement to determine which flexible options will meet the needs of a diverse workforce. HR leads the project to explore flexible work options, while other stakeholders provide feedback during the identification and implementation processes.

    HR

    • Assist with the design, implementation, and maintenance of the program.
    • Provide managers and employees with guidance to establish successful flexible work arrangements.
    • Help develop communications to launch and maintain the program.

    Senior Leaders

    • Champion the project by modeling and promoting flexible work options
    • Help develop and deliver communications; set the tone for flexible work at the organization.
    • Provide input into determining program goals.

    Managers

    • Model flexible work options and encourage direct reports to request and discuss options.
    • Use flexible work program guidelines to work with direct reports to select suitable flexible work options.
    • Develop performance metrics and encourage communication between flexible and non-flexible workers.

    Flexible Workers

    • Indicate preferences of flexible work options to the manager.
    • Identify ways to maintain operational continuity and communication while working flexibly.
    • Flag issues and suggest improvements to the manager.
    • Develop creative ways to work with colleagues who don't work flexibly.

    Non-Flexible Workers

    • Share feedback on issues with flexible arrangements and their impact on operational continuity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Flexible work is a holistic team effort. Leaders, flexible workers, teammates, and HR must clearly understand their roles to ensure that teams are set up for success.

    Uncover the current and desired state of flexibility in the organization

    Current State

    Target State

    Review:

    • Existing policies related to flexibility (e.g. vacation, work from anywhere)
    • Existing flexibility programs (e.g. seasonal hours) and their uptake
    • Productivity of employees
    • Current culture at the organization. Look for:
      • Employee autonomy
      • Reporting structure and performance management processes
      • Trust and psychological safety of employees
      • Leadership behavior (e.g. do leaders model work-life balance, or does the organization have a work 24/7 mentality?)

    Identify what is driving the need for flexible work options. Ask:

    • Why does the organization need flexible options?
      • For example, the introduction of flexibility for some employees has created a "have and have not" dynamic between roles that must be addressed.
    • What does the organization hope to gain from implementing flexible options? For example:
      • Improved retention
      • Increased attraction, remaining competitive for talent
      • Increased work-life balance for employees
      • Reduced burnout
    • What does the organization aspire to be?
      • For example, an organization that creates an environment that values output, not face time.

    These drivers identify goals for the organization to achieve through targeted flexible work options.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Hybrid work is a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location, so organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent. Provide greater inclusivity to employees by broadening the scope to include flex location, flex time, and flex time off.

    Identify employee segments

    Using the data, feedback, and challenges analyzed and uncovered so far, assess the organization and identify employee segments.

    Identify employee segments with common characteristics to assess if they require unique flexible work options. Assess the feasibility options for the segments separately in Step 2.

    • Segments' unique characteristics include:
      • Role responsibilities (e.g. interacting with users, creating reports, development and testing)
      • Work location/schedule (e.g. geographic, remote vs. onsite, 9 to 5)
      • Work processes (e.g. server maintenance, phone support)
      • Group characteristics (e.g. specific teams, new hires)

    Identify employee segments and sort them into groups based on the characteristics above.

    Examples of segments:

    • Functional area (e.g. Service Desk, Security)
    • Job roles (e.g. desktop support, server maintenance)
    • Onsite, remote, or hybrid
    • Full-time or part-time
    • Job level (e.g. managers vs. independent contributors)
    • Employees with dependents

    Prioritize employee segments

    Determine whether the organization needs flexible work options for the entire organization or specific employee segments.
    For specific employee segments:

    • Answer the questions on the right to identify whether an employee segment is high, medium, or low priority. Complete slides 23 to 25 for each high-priority segment, repeating the process for medium-priority segments when resources allow.

    For the entire organization:

    • When identifying an option for the entire organization, consider all segments. The approach must create consistency and inclusion; keep this top of mind when identifying flexibility on slides 23 to 25. For example, the work location flexibility would be low in an organization where some segments can work remotely and others must be onsite due to machinery requirements.

    High priority: The employee segment has the lowest engagement scores or highest turnover within the organization. Segment sentiment is that current flexibility is nonexistent or not sufficiently meeting needs.
    Medium priority: The employee segment has low engagement or high turnover. Segment sentiment is that currently available flexibility is minimal or not sufficiently meeting needs.
    Low priority: The segment does not have the lowest engagement or the highest turnover rate. Segment sentiment is that currently available flexibility is sufficiently meeting needs.

    1. What is the impact on the organization if this segment's challenges aren't addressed (e.g. if low engagement and high turnover are not addressed)?
    2. How critical is flexibility to the segment's needs/engagement?
    3. How time sensitive is it to introduce flexibility to this segment (e.g. is the organization losing employees in this segment at a high rate)?
    4. Will providing flexibility to this segment increase organizational productivity or output

    Identify challenges to address with flexibility

    Uncover the lived experiences and expectations of employees to inform selection of segments and flexible options.

    1. Collect data from existing sources, such as:
      • Engagement surveys
      • New hire/exit surveys
      • Employee experience monitor surveys
      • Employee retention pulse surveys
      • Burnout surveys
      • DEI pulse surveys
    2. Analyze employee feedback on experiences with:
      • Work duties
      • Workload
      • Work-life balance
      • Operating processes and procedures
      • Achieving operational outcomes
      • Collaboration and communication
      • Individual experience and engagement
    3. Evaluate the data and identify challenges

    Example challenges:

    • Engagement: Low average score on work-life balance question; flexible work suggested in open-ended responses.
    • Retention: Exit survey indicating that lack of work-life balance is consistently a reason employees leave. Include the cost of turnover (e.g. recruitment, training, severance).
    • Burnout: Feedback from employees through surveys or HR business partner anecdotes indicating high burnout; high usage of wellness services or employee assistance programs.
    • Absenteeism: High average number of days employees were absent in the past year. Include the cost of lost productivity.
    • Operational continuity: Provide examples of when flexible work would have enabled operational continuity in the case of disaster or extended customer service coverage.
    • Program uptake: If the organization already has a flexible work program, provide data on the low proportion of eligible employees using available options.

    1.1 Prepare to evaluate flexible work options

    1-3 hours

    Follow the guidance on preceding slides to complete the following activities.
    Note: If you are only considering remote or hybrid work, use the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook. Otherwise, proceed with the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook.

    1. Identify key stakeholders. Be sure to record the level of involvement and responsibility expected from each stakeholder. Use the "Stakeholders" tab of the workbook.
    2. Uncover current and desired state. Review and record your current state with respect to culture, productivity, and current flexible work options, if any. Next, record your desired future state, including reasons for implementing flexible work, and goals for the program. Record this in the "Current and Desired State" tab of the workbook.
    3. Identify and prioritize employee segments. Identify and record employee segments. Depending on the size of your department, you may identify a few or many. Be as granular as necessary to fully separate employee groups with different needs. If your resources or needs prevent you from rolling out flexible work to the entire department, record the priority level of each segment so you can focus on the highest priority first.
    4. Identify challenges with flexibility. With each employee segment in mind, analyze your available data to identify and record each segment's main challenges regarding flexible work. These will inform your program goals and metrics.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Download the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • List of departmental roles
    • Data on employee engagement, productivity, sentiment regarding flexible work, etc.

    Output

    • List of stakeholders and responsibilities
    • Flexible work challenges and aims
    • Prioritized list of employee segments

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • IT department head
    • HR business partner
    • Flexible work program committee

    Determine goals and metrics for the flexible work program

    Sample program goals

    Sample metrics

    Increase productivity

    • Employee, team, and department key performance indicators (KPIs) before and after flexible work implementation
    • Absenteeism rate (% of lost working days due to all types of absence)

    Improve business satisfaction and perception of IT value

    Increase retention

    • % of exiting employees who cite lack of flexible work options or poor work-life balance as a reason they left
    • Turnover and retention rates

    Improve the employee value proposition (EVP) and talent attraction

    • # of responses on the new hire survey where flexible work options or work-life balance are cited as a reason for accepting an employment offer
    • # of views of career webpage that mentions flexible work program
    • Time-to-fill rates

    Improve engagement and work-life balance

    • Overall engagement score – deploy Info-Tech's Employee Engagement Diagnostics
    • Score for questions about work-life balance on employee engagement or pulse survey, including:
      • "I am able to maintain a balance between my work and personal life."
      • "I find my stress levels at work manageable."

    Info-Tech Insight

    Implementing flex work without solid performance metrics means you won't have a way of determining whether the program is enabling or hampering your business practices.

    1.2 Determine goals and metrics

    30 minutes

    Use the examples on the preceding slide to identify program goals and metrics:

    1. Brainstorm program goals. Be sure to consider both the business benefits (e.g. productivity, retention) and the employee benefits (work-life balance, engagement). A successful flexible work program benefits both the organization and its employees.
    2. Brainstorm metrics for each goal. Identify metrics that are easy to track accurately. Use Info-Tech's IT and HR metrics libraries for reference. Ideally, the metrics you choose should already exist in your organization so no extra effort will be necessary to implement them. It is also important to have a baseline measure of each one before flexible work is rolled out.
    3. Record your outputs on the "Goals and Metrics" tab of the workbook.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Download the IT Metrics Library

    Download the HR Metrics Library

    Input

    • Organizational and departmental strategy

    Output

    • List of program goals and metrics

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee

    Determine work location flexibility for priority segments

    Work location looks at where a segment can complete all or some of their tasks (e.g. onsite vs. remote). For each prioritized employee segment, evaluate the amount of location flexibility available.

    Work Duties

    Processes

    Operational Outcomes

    High degree of flexibility

    • Low dependence on onsite equipment
    • Work easily shifts to online platforms
    • Low dependence on onsite external interactions (e.g. clients, customers, vendors)
    • Low interdependence of work duties internally (most work is independent)
    • Work processes and expectations are or can be formally documented
    • Remote work processes are sustainable long term

    Most or all operational outcomes can be achieved offsite (e.g. products/service delivery not impacted by WFH)

    • Some dependence on onsite equipment
    • Some work can shift to online platforms
    • Some dependence on onsite external interactions
    • Some interdependence of work duties internally (collaboration is critical)
    • Most work processes and expectations have been or can be formally documented
    • Remote work processes are sustainable (e.g. workarounds can be supported and didn't add work)

    Some operational outcomes can be achieved offsite (e.g. some impact of WFH on product/service delivery)

    Low degree of flexibility

    • High dependence on onsite equipment
    • Work cannot shift to online platforms
    • High dependence on onsite external interactions
    • High interdependence of work duties internally (e.g. line work)
    • Few work processes and expectations can be formally documented
    • Work processes cannot be done remotely, and workarounds for remote work are not sustainable long term

    Operational outcomes cannot be achieved offsite (e.g. significant impairment to product/service delivery)

    Note

    If roles within the segment have differing levels of location flexibility, use the lowest results (e.g. if role A in the segment has a high degree of flexibility for work duties and role B has a low degree of flexibility, use the results for role B).

    Identify work timing for priority segments

    Work timing looks at when work can or needs to be completed (e.g. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).

    Work Duties

    Processes

    Operational Outcomes

    High degree of flexibility

    • No need to be available to internal and/or external customers during standard work hours
    • Equipment is available at any time
    • Does not rely on synchronous (occurring at the same time) work duties internally
    • Work processes and expectations are or can be formally documented
    • Low reliance on collaboration
    • Work is largely asynchronous (does not occur at the same time)

    Most or all operational outcomes are not time sensitive

    • Must be available to internal and/or external customers during some standard work hours
    • Some reliance on synchronous work duties internally (collaboration is critical)
    • Most work processes and expectations have been or can be formally documented
    • Moderate reliance on collaboration
    • Some work is synchronous

    Some operational outcomes are time sensitive and must be conducted within set date or time windows

    Low degree of flexibility

    • Must be available to internal and/or external customers during all standard work hours (e.g. Monday to Friday 9 to 5)
    • High reliance on synchronous work duties internally (e.g. line work)
    • Few work processes and expectations can be formally documented
    • High reliance on collaboration
    • Most work is synchronous

    Most or all operational outcomes are time sensitive and must be conducted within set date or time windows

    Note

    With additional coordination, flex time or flex time off options are still possible for employee segments with a low degree of flexibility. For example, with a four-day work week, the segment can be split into two teams – one that works Monday to Thursday and one that works Tuesday to Friday – so that employees are still available for clients five days a week.

    Examine work deliverables for priority segments

    Work deliverables look at the employee's ability to deliver on their role expectations (e.g. quota or targets) and whether reducing the time spent working would, in all situations, impact the work deliverables (e.g. constrained vs. unconstrained).

    Work Duties

    Operational Outcomes

    High degree of flexibility

    • Few or no work duties rely on equipment or processes that put constraints on output (unconstrained output)
    • Employees have autonomy over which work duties they focus on each day
    • Most or all operational outcomes are unconstrained (e.g. a marketing analyst who builds reports and strategies for clients can produce more reports, produce better reports, or identify new strategies)
    • Work quota or targets are achievable even if working fewer hours
    • Some work duties rely on equipment or processes that put constraints on output
    • Employees have some ability to decide which work duties they focus on each day
    • Some operational outcomes are constrained or moderately unconstrained (e.g. an analyst build reports based on client data; while it's possible to find efficiencies and build reports faster, it's not possible to attain the client data any faster)
    • Work quota or targets may be achievable if working fewer hours

    Low degree of flexibility

    • Most or all work duties rely on equipment or processes that put constraints on output (constrained output)
    • Daily work duties are prescribed (e.g. a telemarketer is expected to call a set number of people per day using a set list of contacts and a defined script)
    • Most or all operational outcomes are constrained (e.g. a machine operator works on a machine that produces 100 parts an hour; neither the machine nor the worker can produce more parts)
    • Work quota or targets cannot be achieved if fewer hours are worked

    Note

    For segments with a low degree of work deliverable flexibility (e.g. very constrained output), flexibility is still an option, but maintaining output would require additional headcount.

    1.3 Determine flexibility needs and constraints

    1-2 hours

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to document the parameters of each work segment.

    1. Determine work location flexibility. Work location looks at where a segment can complete all or some of their tasks (e.g. onsite vs. remote). For each prioritized employee segment, evaluate the amount of location flexibility available.
    2. Identify work timing. Work timing looks at when work can or needs to be completed (e.g. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).
    3. Examine work deliverables. Work deliverables look at the employee's ability to deliver on their role expectations (e.g. quota or targets) and whether reducing the time spent working would, in all situations, impact the work deliverables (e.g. constrained vs. unconstrained).
    4. Record your outputs on the "Current and Desired State" tab of the workbook.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • List of employee segments

    Output

    • Summary of flexibility needs and constraints for each employee segment

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    Step 2

    Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs
    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility
    3. Implement selected option(s)

    After completing this step you will have:

    • Created a shortlist of potential options for each prioritized employee segment
    • Evaluated the feasibility of each potential option
    • Determined the cost and benefit of each potential option
    • Gathered employee sentiment on potential options
    • Finalized options with senior leadership

    Prepare to identify and assess the feasibility of potential flexible work options

    First, review the Flexible Work Solutions Catalog

    Before proceeding to the next slide, review the Flexible Work Options Catalog to identify and shortlist five to seven flexible work options that are best suited to address the challenges faced for each of the priority employee segments identified in Step 1.

    Then, assess the feasibility of implementing selected options using slides 29 to 32

    Assess the feasibility of implementing the shortlisted solutions for the prioritized employee segments against the feasibility factors in this step. Repeat for each employee segment. Use the following slides to consult with and include leaders when appropriate.

    • Document your analysis in tabs 6 to 8 of the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook.
    • Note implementation issues throughout the assessment and record them in the tool. They will be addressed in Step 3: Implement Selected Program(s). Don't rule out an option simply because it presents some challenges; careful implementation can overcome many challenges.
    • At the end of this step, determine the final list of flexible work options and gain approval from senior leaders for implementation.

    Evaluate feasibility by reviewing the option's impact on continued operations and job performance

    Operational coverage

    Synchronous communication

    Time zones

    Face-to-face

    communication

    To what extent are employees needed to deliver products or services?

    • If constant customer service is required, stagger employees' schedules (e.g. one team works Monday-Thursday while another works Tuesday-Friday).

    To what extent do employees need to communicate with each other synchronously?

    • Break the workflow down and identify times when employees do and do not have to work at the same time to communicate with each other.

    To what extent do employees need to coordinate work across time zones?

    • If the organization already operates in different time zones, ensure that the option does not impact operations requiring continuous coverage.
    • When employees are located in different time zones, coordinate schedules based on the other operational factors.

    When do employees need to interact with each other or clients in person?

    • Examine the workflow closely to identify times when face-to-face communication is not required. Schedule "office days" for employees to work together when in-person interaction is needed.
    • When the interaction is only required with clients, determine whether employees are able to meet clients offsite.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every role is eligible for hybrid location work. If onsite work duties prevent an employee group from participating, see if processes can be digitized or automated. Flexible work is an opportunity to go beyond current needs to future-proof your organization.

    Assess the option's alignment with organizational culture

    Symbols

    Values

    Behaviors

    How supportive of flexible work are the visible aspects of the organization's culture?

    • For example, the mission statement, newsletters, or office layout.
    • Note: Visible elements will need to be adapted to ensure they reinforce the value of the flexible work option.

    How supportive are both the stated and lived values of the organization?

    • When the flexible work option includes less direct supervision, assess how empowered employees feel to make decisions.
    • Assess whether all types of employees (e.g. virtual) are included, valued, and supported.

    How supportive are the attitudes and behaviors, especially of leaders?

    • Leaders set the expectations for acceptable behaviors in the organization. Determine how supportive leaders are toward flexible workers by examining their attitudes and perceptions.
    • Identify if employees are open to different ways of doing work.

    Determine the resources required for the option

    People

    Process

    Technology

    Do employees have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to adopt this option?

    • Identify any areas (e.g. process, technology) employees will need to be trained on and assess the associated costs.
    • Determine whether the option will require additional headcount to ensure operational continuity (e.g. two part-time employees in a job-sharing arrangement) and calculate associated costs (e.g. recruitment, training, benefits).

    How much will work processes need to change?

    • Interview organizational leaders with knowledge of the employee segment's core work processes. Determine whether a significant change will be required.
    • If a significant change is required, evaluate whether the benefits of the option outweigh the costs of the process and behavioral change (see the "net benefit" factor on slide 33).

    What new technologies will be required?

    • Identify the technology (e.g. that supports communication, work processes) required to enable the flexible work option.
    • Note whether existing technology can be used or additional technology will be required, and further investigate the viability and costs of these options.

    Examine the option's risks

    Data

    Health & Safety

    Legal

    How will data be kept secure?

    • Determine whether the organization's data policy and technology covers employees working remotely or other flexible work options.
    • If the employee segment handles sensitive data (e.g. personal employee information), consult relevant stakeholders to determine how data can be kept secure and assess any associated costs.

    How will employees' health and safety be impacted?

    • Consult your organization's legal counsel to determine whether the organization will be liable for the employees' health and safety while working from home or other locations.
    • Determine whether the organization's policies and processes will need to be modified.

    What legal risks might be involved?

    • Identify any policies in place or jurisdictional requirements to avoid any legal risks. Consult your organization's legal counsel about the situations below.
      • If the option causes significant changes to the nature of jobs, creating the risk of constructive dismissal.
      • If there are any risks to providing less supervision (e.g. higher chance of harassment).
      • When only some employee segments are eligible for the option, determine whether there is a risk of inequitable access.
      • If the option impacts any unionized employees or collective agreements.

    Determine whether the benefits of the option outweigh the costs

    Include senior leadership in the net benefit process to ensure any unfeasible options are removed from consideration before presenting to employees.

    1. Document the employee and employer benefits of the option from the previous feasibility factors on slides 29 to 32.
    • Include the benefits of reaching program goals identified in Step 1.
    • Quantify the benefits in dollar value where possible.
  • Document the costs and risks of the option, referring to the costs noted from previous feasibility factors.
    • Quantify the costs in dollar value where possible.
  • Compare the benefits and costs.
    • Add an option to your final list if the benefits are greater than the costs.
  • This is an image of a table with the main heading being Net Benefit, with the following subheadings: Benefits to organization; Benefits to employees; Costs.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Flexible work options must balance organizational and employee needs. If an option is beneficial to employees but there is little or no benefit to the organization as a whole, or if the cost of the option is too high, it will not support the long-term success of the organization.

    2.1a Identify and evaluate flexible work options

    30 minutes per employee segment per work option

    If you are only considering hybrid or remote work, skip to activity 2.1b. Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to conduct feasibility assessments.

    1. Shortlist flexible work options. Review the Flexible Work Options Catalog to identify and shortlist five to seven flexible work options that are best suited to address the challenges faced for each of the priority employee segments. Record these on the "Options Shortlist" tab of the workbook. Even if the decision is simple, ensure you record the rationale to help communicate your decision to employees. Transparent communication is the best way to avoid feelings of unfairness if desired work options are not implemented.
    2. Evaluate option feasibility. For each of the shortlisted options, complete one "Feasibility - Option" tab in the workbook. Make as many copies of this tab as needed.
      • When evaluating each option, consider each employee segment individually as you work through the prompts in the workbook. You may find that segments differ greatly in the feasibility of various types of flexible work. You will use this information to inform your overall policy and any exceptions to it.
      • You may need to involve each segment's management team to get an accurate picture of day-to-day responsibilities and flexible work feasibility.
    3. Weigh benefits and costs. At the end of each flexible work option evaluation, record the anticipated costs and benefits. Discuss whether this balance renders the option viable or rules it out.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Download the Flexible Work Options Catalog

    Input

    • List of employee segments

    Output

    • Shortlist of flexible work options
    • Feasibility analysis for each work option

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
    • Flexible Work Options Catalog

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    2.1b Assess hybrid work feasibility

    30 minutes per employee segment

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to conduct a feasibility assessment. This exercise relies on having trialed hybrid or remote work before. If you have never implemented any degree of remote work, consider completing the full feasibility assessment in activity 2.1a.

    1. Evaluate hybrid work feasibility. Review the feasibility prompts on the "Work Unit Remote Work Assessment" tab and record your insight for each employee segment.
      • When evaluating each option, consider each employee segment individually as you work through the prompts in the workbook. You may find that segments differ greatly in their ability to accommodate hybrid work. You will use this information to inform your overall policy and any exceptions to it.
      • You may need to involve each segment's management team to get an accurate picture of day-to-day responsibilities and hybrid work feasibility.

    Download the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • List of employee segments

    Output

    • Feasibility analysis for each work option

    Materials

    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    Ask employees which options they prefer and gather feedback for implementation

    Deliver a survey and/or conduct focus groups with a selection of employees from all prioritized employee segments.

    Share

    • Present your draft list of options to select employees.
    • Communicate that the organization is in the process of assessing the feasibility of flexible work options and would like employee input to ensure flex work meets needs.
    • Be clear that the list is not final or guaranteed.

    Ask

    • Ask which options are preferred more than others.
    • Ask for feedback on each option – how could it be modified to meet employee needs better? Use this information to inform implementation in Step 3.

    Decide

    • Prioritize an option if many employees indicated an interest in it.
    • If employees indicate no interest in an option, consider eliminating it from the list, unless it will be required. There is no value in providing an option if employees won't use it.

    Survey

    • List the options and ask respondents to rate each on a Likert scale from 1 to 5.
    • Ask some open-ended questions with comment boxes for employee suggestions.

    Focus Group

    • Conduct focus groups to gather deeper feedback.
    • See Appendix I for sample focus group questions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Prioritize flexible work options that employees want. Providing too many options often leads to information overload and results in employees not understanding what is available, lowering adoption of the flexible work program.

    Finalize options list with senior leadership

    1. Select one to three final options and outline the details of each. Include:
      • Scope: To what extent will the option be applied? E.g. work-from-home one or two days a week.
      • Eligibility: Which employee segments are eligible?
      • Cost: What investment will be required?
      • Critical implementation issues: Will any of the implementation issues identified for each feasibility factor impact whether the option will be approved?
      • Resources: What additional resources will be required (e.g. technology)?
    2. Present the options to stakeholders for approval. Include:
      • An outline of the finalized options, including what the option is and the scope, eligibility, and critical implementation issues.
      • The feasibility assessment results, including benefits, costs, and employee preferences. Have more detail from the other factors ready if leaders ask about them.
      • The investment (cost) required to implement the option.
    3. Proceed to Step 3 to implement approved options.

    Running an IT pilot of flex work

    • As a technology department, IT typically doesn't own flexible work implementation for the entire organization. However, it is common to trial flexible work options for IT first, before rolling out to the entire organization.
    • During a flex work pilot, ensure you are working closely with HR partners, especially regarding regulatory and compliance issues.
    • Keep the rest of the organizational stakeholders in the loop, especially regarding their agreement on the metrics by which the pilot's success will be evaluated.

    2.2a Finalize flexible work options

    2-3 hours + time to gather employee feedback

    If you are only considering hybrid or remote work, skip to activity 2.2b. Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to gather final feedback and finalize work option selections.

    1. Gather employee feedback. If employee preferences are already known, skip this step. If they are not, gather feedback to ascertain whether any of the shortlisted options are preferred. Remember that a successful flexible work program balances the needs of employees and the business, so employee preference is a key determinant in flexible work program success. Document this on the "Employee Preferences" tab of the workbook.
    2. Finalize flexible work options. Use your notes on the cost-benefit balance for each option, along with employee preferences, to decide whether the move forward with it. Record this decision on the "Options Final List" tab. Include information about eligible employee segments and any implementation challenges that came up during the feasibility assessments. This is the final decision summary that will inform your flexible program parameters and policies.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • Flexible work options shortlist

    Output

    • Final flexible work options list

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee

    2.2b Finalize hybrid work parameters

    2-3 hours + time to gather employee feedback

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to gather final feedback and finalize work option selections.

    1. Summarize feasibility analysis. On the "Program Parameters" tab, record the main insights from your feasibility analysis. Finalize important elements, including eligibility for hybrid/remote work by employee segment. Additionally, record the standard parameters for the program (i.e. those that apply to all employee segments) and variable parameters (i.e. ones that differ by employee segment).

    Download the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • Hybrid work feasibility analysis

    Output

    • Final hybrid work program parameters

    Materials

    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee

    Step 3

    Implement selected option(s)

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs
    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility
    3. Implement selected option(s)

    After completing this step, you will have:

    • Addressed implementation issues and cultural barriers
    • Equipped the organization to adopt flexible work options successfully
    • Piloted the program and assessed its success
    • Developed a plan for program rollout and communication
    • Established a program evaluation plan
    • Aligned HR programs to support the program

    Solve the implementation issues identified in your feasibility assessment

    1. Identify a solution for each implementation issue documented in the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook. Consider the following when identifying solutions:
      • Scope: Determine whether the solution will be applied to one or all employee segments.
      • Stakeholders: Identify stakeholders to consult and develop a solution. If the scope is one employee segment, work with organizational leaders of that segment. When the scope is the entire organization, consult with senior leaders.
      • Implementation: Collaborate with stakeholders to solve implementation issues. Balance the organizational and employee needs, referring to data gathered in Steps 1 and 2.

    Example:

    Issue

    Solution

    Option 1: Hybrid work

    Brainstorming at the beginning of product development benefits from face-to-face collaboration.

    Block off a "brainstorming day" when all team members are required in the office.

    Employee segment: Product innovation team

    One team member needs to meet weekly with the implementation team to conduct product testing.

    Establish a schedule with rotating responsibility for a team member to be at the office for product testing; allow team members to swap days if needed.

    Address cultural barriers by involving leaders

    To shift a culture that is not supportive of flexible work, involve leaders in setting an example for employees to follow.

    Misconceptions

    Tactics to overcome them

    • Flexible workers are less productive.
    • Flexible work disrupts operations.
    • Flexible workers are less committed to the organization.
    • Flexible work only benefits employees, not the organization.
    • Employees are not working if they aren't physically in the office.

    Make the case by highlighting challenges and expected benefits for both the organization and employees (e.g. same or increased productivity). Use data in the introductory section of this blueprint.

    Demonstrate operational feasibility by providing an overview of the feasibility assessment conducted to ensure operational continuity.

    Involve most senior leadership in communication.

    Encourage discovery and exploration by having managers try flexible work options themselves, which will help model it for employees.

    Highlight success stories within the organization or from competitors or similar industries.

    Invite input from managers on how to improve implementation and ownership, which helps to discover hidden options.

    Shift symbols, values, and behaviors

    • Work with senior leaders to identify symbols, values, and behaviors to modify to align with the selected flexible work options.
    • Validate that the final list aligns with your organization's mission, vision, and values.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Leaders' collective support of the flexible program determines the program's successful adoption. Don't sweep cultural barriers under the rug; acknowledge and address them to overcome them.

    Equip the organization for successful implementation

    Info-Tech recommends providing managers and employees with a guide to flexible work, introducing policies, and providing training for managers.

    Provide managers and employees with a guide to flexible work

    Introduce appropriate organization policies

    Equip managers with the necessary tools and training

    Use the guide to:

    • Familiarize employees and managers with the flexible work program.
    • Gain employee and manager buy-in and support for the program.
    • Explain the process and give guidance on selecting flexible work options and working with their colleagues to make it a success.

    Use Info-Tech's customizable policy templates to set guidelines, outline arrangements, and scope the organization's flexible work policies. This is typically done by, or in collaboration with, the HR department.

    Download the Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees

    Download the Flex Location Policy

    Download the Flex Time-Off Policy

    Download the Flex Time Policy

    3.1 Prepare for implementation

    2-3 hours

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to brainstorm solutions to implementation issues and prepare to communicate program rollout to stakeholders.

    1. Solve implementation issues.
      • If you are working with the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook: For each implementation challenge identified on the "Final Options List" tab, brainstorm solutions. If you are working with the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook: Work through the program enablement prompts on the "Program Enablement" tab.
      • You may need to involve relevant stakeholders to help you come up with appropriate solutions for each employee segment.
      • Ensure that any anticipated cultural barriers have been documented and are addressed during this step. Don't underestimate the importance of a supportive organizational culture to the successful rollout of flexible work.
    2. Prepare the employee guide. Modify the Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees template to reflect your final work options list and the processes and expectations employees will need to follow.
    3. Create a communication plan. Use Info-Tech's Communicate Any IT Initiative blueprint and Appendix II to craft your messaging.

    Download the Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • Flexible work options final list

    Output

    • Employee guide to flexible work
    • Flexible work rollout communication plan

    Materials

    • Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees
    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    Run an IT pilot for flexible work

    Prepare for pilot

    Launch Pilot

    Identify the flexible work options that will be piloted.

    • Refer to the final list of selected options for each priority segment to determine which options should be piloted.

    Select pilot participants.

    • If not rolling out to the entire IT department, look for the departments and/or team(s) where there is the greatest need and the biggest interest (e.g. team with lowest engagement scores).
    • Include all employees within the department, or team if the department is too large, in the pilot.
    • Start with a group whose managers are best equipped for the new flexibility options.

    Create an approach to collect feedback and measure the success of the pilot.

    • Feedback can be collected using surveys, focus groups, and/or targeted in-person interviews.

    The length of the pilot will greatly vary based on which flexible work options were selected (e.g. seasonal hours will require a shorter pilot period compared to implementing a compressed work week). Use discretion when deciding on pilot length and be open to extending or shortening the pilot length as needed.

    Launch pilot.

    • Launch the program through a town hall meeting or departmental announcement to build excitement and buy-in.
    • Develop separate communications for employee segments where appropriate. See Appendix II for key messaging to include.

    Gather feedback.

    • The feedback will be used to assess the pilot's success and to determine what modifications will be needed later for a full-scale rollout.
    • When gathering feedback, tailor questions based on the employee segment but keep themes similar. For example:
      • Employees: "How did this help your day-to-day work?"
      • Managers: "How did this improve productivity on your team?"

    Track metrics.

    • The success of the pilot is best communicated using your department's unique KPIs.
    • Metrics are critical for:
      • Accurately determining pilot success.
      • Getting buy-in to expand the pilot beyond IT.
      • Justifying to employees any changes made to the flexible work options.

    Assess the pilot's success and determine next steps

    Review the feedback collected on the previous slide and use this decision tree to decide whether to relaunch a pilot or proceed to a full-scale rollout of the program.

    This is an image of the flow chart used to assess the pilot's success and determine the next steps.  It will help you to determine whether you will Proceed to full-scale rollout on next slide, Major modifications to the option/launch (e.g. change operating time) – adjust and relaunch pilot or select a new employee segment and relaunch pilot, Minor modifications to the option/launch (e.g. introduce additional communications) – adjust and proceed to full scale rollout, or Return to shortlist (Step 2) and select a different option or launch pilot with a different employee segment.

    Prepare for full-scale rollout

    If you have run a team pilot prior to rolling out to all of IT, or run an IT pilot before an organizational rollout, use the following steps to transition from pilot to full rollout.

    1. Determine modifications
      • Review the feedback gathered during the pilot and determine what needs to change for a full-scale implementation.
      • Update HR policies and programs to support flexible work. Work closely with your HR business partner and other organizational leaders to ensure every department's needs are understood and compliance issues are addressed.
    2. Roll out and evaluate
      • Roll out the remainder of the program (e.g. to other employee segments or additional flexible work options) once there is significant uptake of the pilot by the target employee group and issues have been addressed.
      • Determine how feedback will be gathered after implementation, such as during engagement surveys, new hire and exit surveys, stay interviews, etc., and assess whether the program continues to meet employee and organizational needs.

    Rolling out beyond IT

    For a rollout beyond IT, HR will likely take over.

    However, this is your chance to remain at the forefront of your organization's flexible work efforts by continuing to track success and gather feedback within IT.

    Align HR programs and organizational policies to support flexible work

    Talent Management

    Learning & Development

    Talent Acquisition

    Reinforce managers' accountability for the success of flexible work in their teams:

    • Include "managing virtual teams" in the people management leadership competency.
    • Recognize managers who are modeling flexible work.

    Support flexible workers' career progression:

    • Monitor the promotion rates of flexible workers vs. non-flexible workers.
    • Make sure flexible workers are discussed during talent calibration meetings and have access to career development opportunities.

    Equip managers and employees with the knowledge and skills to make flexible work successful.

    • Provide guidance on selecting the right options and maintaining workflow.
    • If moving to a virtual environment, train managers on how to make it a success.

    Incorporate the flexible work program into the organization's employee value proposition to attract top talent who value flexible work options.

    • Highlight the program on the organization's career site and in job postings.

    Organizational policies

    Determine which organizational policies will be impacted as a result of the new flexible work options. For example, the introduction of flex time off can result in existing vacation policies needing to be updated.

    Plan to re-evaluate the program and make improvements

    Collect data

    Collect data

    Act on data

    Uptake

    Gather data on the proportion of employees eligible for each option who are using the option.

    If an option is tracking positively:

    • Maintain or expand the program to more of the organization.
    • Conduct a feasibility assessment (Step 2) for new employee segments.

    Satisfaction

    Survey managers and employees about their satisfaction with the options they are eligible for and provide an open box for suggestions on improvements.

    If an option is tracking negatively:

    • Investigate why. Gather additional data, interview organizational leaders, and/or conduct focus groups to gain deeper insight.
    • Re-assess the feasibility of the option (Step 2). If the costs outweigh the benefits based on new data, determine whether to cancel the option.
    • Take appropriate action based on the outcome of the evaluation, such as modifying or cancelling the option or providing employees with more support.
      • Note: Cancelling an option can impact the engagement of employees using the option. Ensure that the data, reasons for cancelling the option, and potential substitute options are communicated to employees in advance.

    Program goal progress

    Monitor progress against the program goals and metrics identified in Step 1 to evaluate the impact on issues that matter to the organization (e.g. retention, productivity, diversity).

    Career progression

    Evaluate flexible workers' promotion rates and development opportunities to determine if they are developing.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Negative performance of a flexible work option does not necessarily mean failure. Take the time to evaluate whether the option simply needs to be tweaked or whether it truly isn't working for the organization.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight: IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location, time, and time-off flexibility are an option for its employees.

    Introduction

    • Flexible work options are not a concession to lower productivity. Properly implemented, flex work enables employees to be more productive at reaching business goals.
    • Employees' lived experiences and needs determine if people use flexible work programs – a flex program that has limited use or excludes people will not benefit the organization.
    • Flexible work benefits everyone. IT employees experience greater engagement, motivation, and company loyalty. IT organizations realize benefits such as better service coverage, reduced facilities costs, and increased productivity.

    Step 1 insight

    • Hybrid work is a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location to flexible time and time off. Organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent. Provide greater inclusivity to employees by broadening the scope to include flex location, flex time, and flex time off.
    • No two employee segments are the same. To be effective, flexible work options must align with the expectations and working processes of each segment.

    Step 2 insight

    • Every role is eligible for hybrid location work. If onsite work duties prevent an employee group from participating, see if processes can be digitized or automated. Flexible work is an opportunity to go beyond current needs to future proofing your organization.
    • Flexible work options must balance organizational and employee needs. If an option is beneficial to employees but there is little or no benefit to the organization, or if the cost of the option is too high, it will not support the long-term success of the organization.
    • Prioritize flexible work options that employees want. Providing too many options often leads to information overload and results in employees not understanding what is available, lowering adoption of the flexible work program.

    Step 3 insight

    • Leaders' collective support of the flexible program determines the program's successful adoption. Don't sweep cultural barriers under the rug; acknowledge and address them to overcome them.
    • Negative performance of a flexible work option does not necessarily mean failure. Take the time to evaluate whether the option simply needs to be tweaked or whether it truly isn't working for the organization.
    • A set of formal guidelines for IT ensures flexible work is:
      1. Administered fairly across all IT employees.
      2. Defensible and clear.
      3. Scalable to the rest of the organization.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Quinn Ross
    CEO
    The Ross Firm Professional Corporation

    Margaret Yap
    HR Professor
    Ryerson University

    Heather Payne
    CEO
    Juno College

    Lee Nguyen
    HR Specialist
    City of Austin

    Stacey Spruell
    Division HR Director
    Travis County

    Don MacLeod
    Chief Administrative Officer
    Zorra Township

    Stephen Childs
    CHRO
    Panasonic North America

    Shawn Gibson
    Sr. Director
    Info Tech Research Group

    Mari Ryan
    CEO/Founder
    Advancing Wellness

    Sophie Wade
    Founder
    Flexcel Networks

    Kim Velluso
    VP Human Resources
    Siemens Canada

    Lilian De Menezes
    Professor of Decision Sciences
    Cass Business School, University of London

    Judi Casey
    WorkLife Consultant and former Director, Work and Family Researchers Network
    Boston College

    Chris Frame
    Partner – Operations
    LiveCA

    Rose M. Stanley, CCP, CBP, WLCP, CEBS
    People Services Manager
    Sunstate Equipment Co., LLC

    Shari Lava
    Director, Vendor Research
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Carol Cochran
    Director of People & Culture
    FlexJobs

    Kidde Kelly
    OD Practitioner

    Dr. David Chalmers
    Adjunct Professor
    Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University

    Kashmira Nagarwala
    Change Manager
    Siemens Canada

    Dr. Isik U. Zeytinoglu
    Professor of Management and Industrial Relations McMaster University, DeGroote School of Business

    Claire McCartney
    Diversity & Inclusion Advisor
    CIPD

    Teresa Hopke
    SVP of Client Relations
    Life Meets Work – www.lifemeetswork.com

    Mark Tippey
    IT Leader and Experienced Teleworker

    Dr. Kenneth Matos
    Senior Director of Research
    Families and Work Institute

    1 anonymous contributor

    Appendix I: Sample focus group questions

    See Info-Tech's Focus Group Guidefor guidance on setting up and delivering focus groups. Customize the guide with questions specific to flexible work (see sample questions below) to gain deeper insight into employee preferences for the feasibility assessment in Step 2 of this blueprint.

    Document themes in the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook.

    • What do you need to balance/integrate your work with your personal life?
    • What challenges do you face in achieving work-life balance/integration?
    • What about your job is preventing you from achieving work-life balance/integration?
    • How would [flexible work option] help you achieve work-life balance/integration?
    • How well would this option work with the workflow of your team or department? What would need to change?
    • What challenges do you see in adopting [flexible work option]?
    • What else would be helpful for you to achieve work-life balance/integration?
    • How could we customize [flexible work option] to ensure it meets your needs?
    • If this program were to fail, what do you think would be the top reasons and why?

    Appendix II: Communication key messaging

    1. Program purpose

    Start with the name and high-level purpose of the program.

    2. Business reasons for the program

    Share data you gathered in Step 1, illustrating challenges causing the need for the program and the benefits.

    3. Options selection process

    Outline the process followed to select options. Remember to share the involvement of stakeholders and the planning around employees' feedback, needs, and lived experiences.

    4. Options and eligibility

    Provide a brief overview of the options and eligibility. Specify that the organization is piloting these options and will modify them based on feedback.

    5. Approval not guaranteed

    Qualify that employees need to be "flexible about flexible work" – the options are not guaranteed and may sometimes be unavailable for business reasons.

    6. Shared responsibility

    Highlight the importance of everyone (managers, flexible workers, the team) working together to make flexible work achievable.

    7. Next steps

    Share any next steps, such as where employees can find the organization's Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees, how to make flexible work a success, or if managers will be providing further detail in a team meeting.

    8. Ongoing communications

    Normalize the program and embed it in organizational culture by continuing communications through various media, such as the organization's newsletter or announcements in town halls.

    Works Cited

    Baziuk, Jennifer, and Duncan Meadows. "Global Employee Survey - Key findings and implications for ICMIF." EY, June 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    "Businesses suffering 'commitment issues' on flexible working," EY, 21 Sep. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    "IT Talent Trends 2022". Info-Tech Research Group, 2022.
    "Jabra Hybrid Ways of Working: 2021 Global Report." Jabra, Aug. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    LinkedIn Talent Solutions. "2022 Global Talent Trends." LinkedIn, 2022. Accessed May 2022.
    Lobosco, Mark. "The Future of Work is Flexible: 71% of Leaders Feel Pressure to Change Working Models." LinkedIn, 9 Sep. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    Ohm, Joy, et al. "Covid-19: Women, Equity, and Inclusion in the Future of Work." Catalyst, 28 May 2020. Accessed May 2022.
    Pelta, Rachel. "Many Workers Have Quit or Plan to After Employers Revoke Remote Work." FlexJobs, 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    Slack Future Forum. "Inflexible return-to-office policies are hammering employee experience scores." Slack, 19 April 2022. Accessed May 2022.
    "State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report". Info-Tech Research Group, 2023.
    Threlkeld, Kristy. "Employee Burnout Report: COVID-19's Impact and 3 Strategies to Curb It." Indeed, 11 March 2021. Accessed March 2022.

    Take Control of Cloud Costs on AWS

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    • Parent Category Name: Cloud Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /cloud-strategy
    • Traditional IT budgeting and procurement processes don't work for public cloud services.
    • The self-service nature of the cloud means that often the people provisioning cloud resources aren't accountable for the cost of those resources.
    • Without centralized control or oversight, organizations can quickly end up with massive AWS bills that exceed their IT salary cost.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Most engineers care more about speed of feature delivery and reliability of the system than they do about cost.
    • Often there are no consequences for over architecting or overspending on AWS.
    • Many organizations lack sufficient visibility into their AWS spend, making it impossible to establish accountability and controls.

    Impact and Result

    • Define roles and responsibilities.
    • Establish visibility.
    • Develop processes, procedures, and policies.

    Take Control of Cloud Costs on AWS Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should take control of cloud costs, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Build cost accountability framework

    Assess your current state, define your cost allocation model, and define roles and responsibilities.

    • Cloud Cost Management Worksheet
    • Cloud Cost Management Capability Assessment
    • Cloud Cost Management Policy
    • Cloud Cost Glossary of Terms

    2. Establish visibility

    Define dashboards and reports, and document account structure and tagging requirements.

    • Service Cost Cheat Sheet

    3. Define processes and procedures

    Establish governance for tagging and cost control, define processes for right-sizing, and define processes for purchasing commitment discounts.

    • Right-Sizing Workflow (Visio)
    • Right-Sizing Workflow (PDF)
    • Commitment Purchasing Workflow (Visio)
    • Commitment Purchasing Workflow (PDF)

    4. Build implementation plan

    Document process interactions, establish program KPIs, and build implementation roadmap and communication plan.

    • Cloud Cost Management Task List

    Infographic

    Workshop: Take Control of Cloud Costs on AWS

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

    1 Build Cost Accountability Framework

    The Purpose

    Establish clear lines of accountability and document roles and responsibilities to effectively manage cloud costs.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Chargeback/showback model to provide clear accountability for costs.

    Understanding of key areas to focus on to improve cloud cost management capabilities.

    Activities

    1.1 Assess current state

    1.2 Determine cloud cost model

    1.3 Define roles and responsibilities

    Outputs

    Cloud cost management capability assessment

    Cloud cost model

    Roles and responsibilities

    2 Establish Visibility

    The Purpose

    Establish visibility into cloud costs and drivers of those costs.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Better understanding of what is driving costs and how to keep them in check.

    Activities

    2.1 Develop architectural patterns

    2.2 Define dashboards and reports

    2.3 Define account structure

    2.4 Document tagging requirements

    Outputs

    Architectural patterns; service cost cheat sheet

    Dashboards and reports

    Account structure

    Tagging scheme

    3 Define Processes and Procedures

    The Purpose

    Develop processes, procedures, and policies to control cloud costs.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Improved capability of reducing costs.

    Documented processes and procedures for continuous improvement.

    Activities

    3.1 Establish governance for tagging

    3.2 Establish governance for costs

    3.3 Define right-sizing process

    3.4 Define purchasing process

    3.5 Define notification and alerts

    Outputs

    Tagging policy

    Cost control policy

    Right-sizing process

    Commitment purchasing process

    Notifications and Alerts

    4 Build Implementation Plan

    The Purpose

    Document next steps to implement and improve cloud cost management program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Concrete roadmap to stand up and/or improve the cloud cost management program.

    Activities

    4.1 Document process interaction changes

    4.2 Define cloud cost program KPIs

    4.3 Build implementation roadmap

    4.4 Build communication plan

    Outputs

    Changes to process interactions

    Cloud cost program KPIs

    Implementation roadmap

    Communication plan

    Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • Companies are approving more projects than they can deliver. Most organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to.
    • While organizations want to achieve a high throughput of approved projects, many are unable or unwilling to allocate an appropriate level of IT resourcing to adequately match the number of approved initiatives.
    • Portfolio management practices must find a way to accommodate stakeholder needs without sacrificing the portfolio to low-value initiatives that do not align with business goals.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Approve only the right projects that you have capacity to deliver. Failure to align projects with strategic goals and resource capacity are the most common causes of portfolio waste across organizations.
    • More time spent with stakeholders during the ideation phase to help set realistic expectations for stakeholders and enhance visibility into IT’s capacity and processes is key to both project and organizational success.
    • Too much intake red tape will lead to an underground economy of projects that escape portfolio oversight, while too little intake formality will lead to a wild west of approvals that could overwhelm the PMO. Finding the right balance of intake formality for your organization is the key to establishing a PMO that has the ability to focus on the right things.

    Impact and Result

    • Establish an effective scorecard to create transparency into IT’s capacity and processes. This will help set realistic expectations for stakeholders, eliminate “squeaky wheel” prioritization, and give primacy to the highest value requests.
    • Build a centralized process that funnels requests into a single intake channel to eliminate confusion and doubt for stakeholders and staff while also reducing off-the-grid initiatives.
    • Clearly define a series of project approval steps, and communicate requirements for passing them.
    • Develop practices that incorporate the constraint of resource capacity to cap the amount of project approvals to that which is realistic to help improve the throughput of projects through the portfolio.

    Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize project intake, approval, and prioritization process, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Set realistic goals for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process

    Get value early by piloting a scorecard for objectively determining project value, and then examine your current state of project intake to set realistic goals for optimizing the process.

    • Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization – Phase 1: Set Realistic Goals for Optimizing Process
    • Project Value Scorecard Development Tool
    • Project Intake Workflow Template - Visio
    • Project Intake Workflow Template - PDF
    • Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP

    2. Build an optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization process

    Take a deeper dive into each of the three processes – intake, approval, and prioritization – to ensure that the portfolio of projects is best aligned to stakeholder needs, strategic objectives, and resource capacity.

    • Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization – Phase 2: Build New Optimized Processes
    • Light Project Request Form
    • Detailed Project Request Form
    • Project Intake Classification Matrix
    • Benefits Commitment Form Template
    • Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool
    • Fast Track Business Case Template
    • Comprehensive Business Case Template
    • Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    3. Integrate the new optimized processes into practice

    Plan a course of action to pilot, refine, and communicate the new optimized process using Info-Tech’s expertise in organizational change management.

    • Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization – Phase 3: Integrate the New Processes into Practice
    • Intake Process Pilot Plan Template
    • Project Backlog Manager
    • Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

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

    1 Refocus on Project Value to Set Realistic Goals

    The Purpose

    Set the course of action for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization by examining the current state of the process, the team, the stakeholders, and the organization as a whole.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    The overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects. To achieve this goal, one must have a clear way to determine what are “the best” projects.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the criteria with which to determine project value.

    1.2 Envision your target state for your optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization process.

    Outputs

    Draft project valuation criteria

    Examination of current process, definition of process success criteria

    2 Examine, Optimize, and Document the New Process

    The Purpose

    Drill down into, and optimize, each of the project intake, approval, and prioritization process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Info-Tech’s methodology systemically fits the project portfolio into its triple constraint of stakeholder needs, strategic objectives, and resource capacity, to effectively address the challenges of establishing organizational discipline for project intake.

    Activities

    2.1 Conduct retrospectives of each process against Info-Tech’s best practice methodology for project intake, approval, and prioritization process.

    2.2 Pilot and customize a toolbox of deliverables that effectively captures the right amount of data developed for informing the appropriate decision makers for approval.

    Outputs

    Documentation of new project intake, approval, and prioritization process

    Tools and templates to aid the process

    3 Pilot, Plan, and Communicate the New Process

    The Purpose

    Reduce the risks of prematurely implementing an untested process.

    Methodically manage the risks associated with organizational change and maximize the likelihood of adoption for the new process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An “engagement” approach (rather than simply “communication”) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a plan to pilot your intake, approval, and prioritization process to refine it before rollout.

    3.2 Analyze the impact of organizational change through the eyes of PPM stakeholders to gain their buy-in.

    Outputs

    Process pilot plan

    Organizational change communication plan

    Further reading

    Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

    Decide which IT projects to approve and when to start them.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    Capacity-constrained intake is the only sustainable path forward.

    "For years, the goal of project intake was to select the best projects. It makes sense and most people take it on faith without argument. But if you end up with too many projects, it’s a bad strategy. Don’t be afraid to say NO or NOT YET if you don’t have the capacity to deliver. People might give you a hard time in the near term, but you’re not helping by saying YES to things you can’t deliver."

    Barry Cousins,

    Senior Director, PMO Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • PMO Directors who have trouble with project throughput
    • CIOs who want to improve IT’s responsive-ness to changing needs of the business
    • CIOs who want to maximize the overall business value of IT’s project portfolio

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Align project intake and prioritization with resource capacity and strategic objectives
    • Balance proactive and reactive demand
    • Reduce portfolio waste on low-value projects
    • Manage project delivery expectations and satisfaction of business stakeholders
    • Get optimized project intake processes off the ground with low-cost, high-impact tools and templates

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • C-suite executives and steering committee members who want to ensure IT’s successful delivery of projects with high business impact
    • Project sponsors and product owners who seek visibility and transparency toward proposed projects

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Ensure that high-impact projects are approved and delivered in a timely manner
    • Gain clarity and visibility in IT’s project approval process
    • Improve your understanding of IT’s capacity to set more realistic expectations on what gets done

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • As a portfolio manager, you do not have the authority to decline or defer new projects – but you also lack the capacity to realistically say yes to more project work.
    • Stakeholders have unrealistic expectations of what IT can deliver. Too many projects are approved, and it may be unclear why their project is delayed or in a state of suspended animation.

    Complication

    • The cycle of competition is making it increasingly difficult to follow a longer-term strategy during project intake, making it unproductive to approve projects for any horizon longer than one to two years.
    • As project portfolios become more aligned to “transformative” projects, resourcing for smaller, department-level projects becomes increasingly opaque.

    Resolution

    • Establish an effective scorecard to create transparency into IT’s capacity and processes. This will help set realistic expectations for stakeholders, eliminate “squeaky wheel” prioritization, and give primacy to the highest value requests.
    • Build a centralized process that funnels requests into a single intake channel to eliminate confusion and doubt for stakeholders and staff while also reducing off-the-grid initiatives.
    • Clearly define a series of project approval steps, and communicate requirements for passing them.
    • Developing practices that incorporate the constraint of resource capacity to cap the amount of project approvals to that which is realistic will help improve the throughput of projects through the portfolio.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Approve only the right projects… Counterbalance stakeholder needs with strategic objectives of the business and that of IT, in order to maintain the value of your project portfolio at a high level.
    2. …that you have capacity to deliver. Resource capacity-informed project approval process enables you to avoid biting off more than you can chew and, over time, build a track record of fulfilling promises to deliver on projects.

    Most organizations are good at approving projects, but bad at starting them – and even worse at finishing them

    Establishing project intake discipline should be a top priority from a long-term strategy and near-term tactical perspective.

    Most organizations approve more projects than they can finish. In fact, many approve more than they can even start, leading to an ever-growing backlog where project ideas – often good ones – are never heard from again.

    The appetite to approve more runs directly counter to the shortage of resources that plagues most IT departments. This tension of wanting more from less suggests that IT departments need to be more disciplined in choosing what to take on.

    Info-Tech’s data shows that most IT organizations struggle with their project backlog (Source: N=397 organizations, Info-Tech Research Group PPM Current State Scorecard, 2017).

    “There is a minimal list of pending projects”

    A bar graph is depicted. It has 5 bars to show that when it comes to minimal lists of pending projects, 34% strongly disagree, 35% disagree, and 21% are ambivalent. Only 7% agree and 3% strongly agree.

    “Last year we delivered the number of projects we anticipated at the start of the year”

    A bar graph is depicted. It has 5 bars to show that when it comes to the number of projects anticipated at the start of the year, they were delivered. Surveyors strongly disagreed at 24%, disagreed at 31%, and were ambivalent at 30%. Only 13% agreed and 2% strongly agreed.

    The concept of fiduciary duty demonstrates the need for better discipline in choosing what projects to take on

    Unless someone is accountable for making the right investment of resource capacity for the right projects, project intake discipline cannot be established effectively.

    What is fiduciary duty?

    Officers and directors owe their corporation the duty of acting in the corporation’s best interests over their own. They may delegate the responsibility of implementing the actions, but accountability can't be delegated; that is, they have the authority to make choices and are ultimately answerable for them.

    No question is more important to the organization’s bottom line. Projects directly impact the bottom line because they require investment of resource time and money for the purposes of realizing benefits. The scarcity of resources requires that choices be made by those who have the right authority.

    Who approves your projects?

    Historically, the answer would have been the executive layer of the organization. However, in the 1990s management largely abdicated its obligation to control resources and expenditures via “employee empowerment.”

    Controls on approvals became less rigid, and accountability for choosing what to do (and not do) shifted onto the shoulders of the individual worker. This creates a current paradigm where no one is accountable for the malinvestment…

    …of resources that comes from approving too many projects. Instead, it’s up to individual workers to sink or swim as they attempt to reconcile, day after day, seemingly infinite organizational demand with their finite supply of working hours.

    Ad hoc project selection schemes do not work

    Without active management, reconciling the imbalance between demand with available work hours is a struggle that results largely in one of these two scenarios:

    “Squeaky wheel”: Projects with the most vocal stakeholders behind them are worked on first.

    • IT is seen to favor certain lines of business, leading to disenfranchisement of other stakeholders.
    • Everything becomes the highest priority, which reinforces IT’s image as a firefighter, rather than a business value contributor
    • High-value projects without vocal support never get resourced; opportunities are missed.

    “First in, first out”: Projects are approved and executed in the order they are requested.

    • Urgent or important projects for the business languish in the project backlog; opportunities are missed.
    • Low-value projects dominate the project portfolio.
    • Stakeholders leave IT out of the loop and resort to “underground economy” for getting their needs addressed.

    80% of organizations feel that their portfolios are dominated by low-value initiatives that do not deliver value to the business (Source: Cooper).

    Approve the right projects that you have capacity to deliver by actively managing the intake of projects

    Project intake, approval, and prioritization (collectively “project intake”) reconciles the appetite for new projects with available resource capacity and strategic goals.

    Project intake is a key process of project portfolio management (PPM). The Project Management Institute (PMI) describes PPM as:

    "Interrelated organizational processes by which an organization evaluates, selects, prioritizes, and allocates its limited internal resources to best accomplish organizational strategies consistent with its vision, mission, and values."

    (PMI, Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed.)

    Triple Constraint Model of the Project Portfolio

    Project Intake:

    • Stakeholder Need
    • Strategic Objectives
    • Resource Capacity

    All three components are required for the Project Portfolio

    Organizations practicing PPM recognize available resource capacity as a constraint and aim to select projects – and commit the said capacity – to projects that:

    1. Best satisfy the stakeholder needs that constantly change with the market
    2. Best align to the strategic objectives and contribute the most to business
    3. Have sufficient resource capacity available to best ensure consistent project throughput

    92% vs. 74%: 92% of high-performing organizations in PPM report that projects are well aligned to strategic initiatives vs. 74% of low performers (PMI, 2015).

    82% vs. 55%: 82% of high-performing organizations in PPM report that resources are effectively reallocated across projects vs. 55% of low performers (PMI, 2015)

    Info-Tech’s data demonstrates that optimizing project intake can also improve business leaders’ satisfaction of IT

    CEOs today perceive IT to be poorly aligned to business’ strategic goals:

    43% of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT (Source: Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124)).

    60% of CEOs believe that improvement is required around IT’s understanding of business goals (Source: Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124)).

    Business leaders today are generally dissatisfied with IT:

    30% of business stakeholders are supporters of their IT departments (Source: Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Survey (N=21,367)).

    The key to improving business satisfaction with IT is to deliver on projects that help the business achieve its strategic goals:

    A chart is depicted to show a list of reported important projects, and then reordering the projects based on actual importance.
    Source: Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Survey (N=21,367)

    Optimized project intake not only improves the project portfolio’s alignment to business goals, but provides the most effective way to improve relationships with IT’s key stakeholders.

    Benchmark your own current state with overall & industry-specific data using Info-Tech’s Diagnostic Program.

    However, establishing organizational discipline for project intake, approval, and prioritization is difficult

    Capacity awareness

    Many IT departments struggle to realistically estimate available project capacity in a credible way. Stakeholders question the validity of your endeavor to install capacity-constrained intake process, and mistake it for unwillingness to cooperate instead.

    Many moving parts

    Project intake, approval, and prioritization involve the coordination of various departments. Therefore, they require a great deal of buy-in and compliance from multiple stakeholders and senior executives.

    Lack of authority

    Many PMOs and IT departments simply lack the ability to decline or defer new projects.

    Unclear definition of value

    Defining the project value is difficult because there are so many different and conflicting ways that are all valid in their own right. However, without it, it's impossible to fairly compare among projects to select what's "best."

    Establishing intake discipline requires a great degree of cooperation and conformity among stakeholders that can be cultivated through strong processes.

    Info-Tech’s intake, approval, and prioritization methodology systemically fits the project portfolio to its triple constraint

    Info-Tech’s Methodology

    Info-Tech’s Methodology
    Project Intake Project Approval Project Prioritization
    Project requests are submitted, received, triaged, and scoped in preparation for approval and prioritization. Business cases are developed, evaluated, and selected (or declined) for investment, based on estimated value and feasibility. Work is scheduled to begin, based on relative value, urgency, and availability of resources.
    Stakeholder Needs Strategic Objectives Resource Capacity
    Project Portfolio Triple Constraint

    Info-Tech’s methodology for optimizing project intake delivers extraordinary value, fast

    In the first step of the blueprint, you will prototype a set of scorecard criteria for determining project value.

    Our methodology is designed to tackle your hardest challenge first to deliver the highest-value part of the deliverable. Since the overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects, one must define how “the best projects” are determined.

    In nearly all instances…a key challenge for the PPM team is reaching agreement over how projects should rank.

    – Merkhofer

    A Project Value Scorecard will help you:

    • Evolve the discussions on project and portfolio value beyond a theoretical concept
    • Enable apples-to-apples comparisons amongst many different kinds of projects

    The Project Value Scorecard Development Tool is designed to help you develop the project valuation scheme iteratively. Download the pre-filled tool with content that represents a common case, and then, customize it with your data.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    This blueprint provides a clear path to maximizing your chance of success in optimizing project intake

    Info-Tech’s practical, tactical research is accompanied by a suite of tools and templates to accelerate your process optimization efforts.

    Organizational change and stakeholder management are critical elements of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization processes because they require a great degree of cooperation and conformity among stakeholders, and the list of key stakeholders are long and far-reaching.

    This blueprint will provide a clear path to not only optimize the processes themselves, but also for the optimization effort itself. This research is organized into three phases, each requiring a few weeks of work at your team’s own pace – or all in one week, through a workshop facilitated by Info-Tech analysts.

    Set Realistic Goals for Optimizing Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

    Tools and Templates:

    • Project Value Scorecard Development Tool (.xlsx)
    • PPM Assessment Report (Info-Tech Diagnostics)
    • Standard Operating Procedure Template (.docx)

    Build Optimized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Processes

    Tools and Templates:

    • Project Request Forms (.docx)
    • Project Classification Matrix (.xlsx)
    • Benefits Commitment Form (.xlsx)
    • Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool (.xlsx)
    • Business Case Templates (.docx)
    • Intake and Prioritization Tool (.xlsx)

    Integrate the Newly Optimized Processes into Practice

    Tools and Templates:

    • Process Pilot Plan Template (.docx)
    • Impact Assessment and Communication Planning Tool (.xlsx)

    Info-Tech’s approach to PPM is informed by industry best practices and rooted in practical insider research

    Info-Tech uses PMI and ISACA frameworks for areas of this research.

    The logo for PMI is in the picture.

    PMI’s Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed. is the leading industry framework, proving project portfolio management best practices and process guidelines.

    The logo for COBIT 5 is in the picture.

    COBIT 5 is the leading framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT.

    In addition to industry-leading frameworks, our best-practice approach is enhanced by the insights and guidance from our analysts, industry experts, and our clients.

    Info-Tech's logo is shown.

    33,000+

    Our peer network of over 33,000 happy clients proves the effectiveness of our research.

    1,000+

    Our team conducts 1,000+ hours of primary and secondary research to ensure that our approach is enhanced by best practices.

    Deliver measurable project intake success for your organization with this blueprint

    Measure the value of your effort to track your success quantitatively and demonstrate the proposed benefits, as you aim to do so with other projects through improved PPM.

    Optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization processes lead to a high PPM maturity, which will improve the successful delivery and throughput of your projects, resource utilization, business alignment, and stakeholder satisfaction ((Source: BCG/PMI).

    A double bar graph is depicted to show high PPM maturity yields measurable benefits. It covers 4 categories: Management for individual projects, financial performance, strategy implementation, and organizational agility.

    Measure your success through the following metrics:

    • Reduced turnaround time between project requests and initial scoping
    • Number of project proposals with articulated benefits
    • Reduction in “off-the-grid” projects
    • Team satisfaction and workplace engagement
    • PPM stakeholder satisfaction score from business stakeholders: see Info-Tech’s PPM Customer Satisfaction Diagnostics

    $44,700: In the past 12 months, Info-Tech clients have reported an average measured value of $44,700 from undertaking a guided implementation of this research.

    Add your own organization-specific goals, success criteria, and metrics by following the steps in the blueprint.

    Case Study: Financial Services PMO prepares annual planning process with Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Financial Services

    Source: Info-Tech Client

    Challenge

    PMO plays a diverse set of roles, including project management for enterprise projects (i.e. PMI’s “Directive” PMO), standards management for department-level projects (i.e. PMI’s “Supportive” PMO), process governance of strategic projects (i.e. PMI’s “Controlling” PMO), and facilitation / planning / reporting for the corporate business strategy efforts (i.e. Enterprise PMO).

    To facilitate the annual planning process, the PMO needed to develop a more data-driven and objective project intake process that implicitly aligned with the corporate strategy.

    Solution

    Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard tool was incorporated into the strategic planning process.

    Results

    The scorecard provided a simple way to list the competing strategic initiatives, objectively score them, and re-sort the results on demand as the leadership chooses to switch between ranking by overall score, project value, ability to execute, strategic alignment, operational alignment, and feasibility.

    The Project Value Scorecard provided early value with multiple options for prioritized rankings.

    A screenshot of the Project Value Scorecard is shown in the image.

    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

    Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization – project overview

    1. Set Realistic Goals for Optimizing Process 2. Build New Optimized Processes 3. Integrate the New Processes into Practice
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Define the criteria with which to determine project value.


    2.1 Streamline intake to manage stakeholder expectations.

    2.2 Set up steps of project approval to maximize strategic alignment while right-sizing the required effort.

    2.3 Prioritize projects to maximize the value of the project portfolio within the constraint of resource capacity.

    3.1 Pilot your intake, approval, and prioritization process to refine it before rollout.

    3.2 Analyze the impact of organizational change through the eyes of PPM stakeholders to gain their buy-in.

    Guided Implementations
    • Introduce Project Value Scorecard Development Tool and pilot Info-Tech’s example scorecard on your own backlog.
    • Map current project intake, approval, and prioritization process and key stakeholders.
    • Set realistic goals for process optimization.
    • Improve the management of stakeholder expectations with an optimized intake process.
    • Improve the alignment of the project portfolio to strategic objectives with an optimized approval process.
    • Enable resource capacity-constrained greenlighting of projects with an optimized prioritization process.
    • Create a process pilot strategy with supportive stakeholders.
    • Conduct a change impact analysis for your PPM stakeholders to create an effective communication strategy.
    • Roll out the new process and measure success.
    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:

    Refocus on Project Value to Set Realistic Goals for Optimizing Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process

    Module 2:

    Examine, Optimize, and Document the New Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process

    Module 3:

    Pilot, Plan, and Communicate the New Process and Its Required Organizational Changes

    Phase 1 Outcome:
    • Draft project valuation criteria
    • Examination of current process
    • Definition of process success criteria
    Phase 2 Outcome:
    • Documentation of new project intake, approval, and prioritization process
    • Tools and templates to aid the process
    Phase 3 Outcome:
    • Process pilot plan
    • Organizational change communication plan

    Workshop overview

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

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

    Benefits of optimizing project intake and project value definition

    1.1 Complete and review PPM Current State Scorecard Assessment

    1.2 Define project value for the organization

    1.3 Engage key PPM stakeholders to iterate on the scorecard prototype

    Set realistic goals for process optimization

    2.1 Map current intake, approval, and prioritization workflow

    2.2 Enumerate and prioritize process stakeholders

    2.3 Determine the current and target capability levels

    2.4 Define the process success criteria and KPIs

    Optimize project intake and approval processes

    3.1 Conduct focused retrospectives for project intake and approval

    3.2 Define project levels

    3.3 Optimize project intake processes

    3.4 Optimize project approval processes

    3.5 Compose SOP for intake and approval

    3.6 Document the new intake and approval workflow

    Optimize project prioritization process plan for a process pilot

    4.1 Conduct focused retrospective for project prioritization

    4.2 Estimate available resource capacity

    4.3 Pilot Project Intake and Prioritization Tool with your project backlog

    4.4 Compose SOP for prioritization

    4.5 Document the new prioritization workflow

    4.6 Discuss process pilot

    Analyze stakeholder impact and create communication strategy

    5.1 Analyze stakeholder impact and responses to impending organization change

    5.2 Create message canvas for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders

    5.3 Set course of action for communicating change

    Deliverables
    1. PPM Current State Scorecard
    2. Project Value Scorecard prototype
    1. Current intake, approval, and prioritization workflow
    2. Stakeholder register
    3. Intake process success criteria
    1. Project request form
    2. Project level classification matrix
    3. Proposed project deliverables toolkit
    4. Customized intake and approval SOP
    5. Flowchart for the new intake and approval workflow
    1. Estimated resource capacity for projects
    2. Customized Project Intake and Prioritization Tool
    3. Customized prioritization SOP
    4. Flowchart for the new prioritization workflow
    5. Process pilot plan
    1. Completed Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool
    2. Communication strategy and plan

    Phase 1

    Set Realistic Goals for Optimizing Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process

    Phase 1 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 1: Set Realistic Goals for Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process Proposed Time to Completion: 1-2 weeks

    Step 1.1: Define the project valuation criteria

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Discuss how a project value is currently determined
    • Introduce Info-Tech’s scorecard-driven project valuation approach

    Then complete these activities…

    • Create a first-draft version of a project value-driven prioritized list of projects
    • Review and iterate on the scorecard criteria

    With these tools & templates:

    Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    Step 1.2: Envision your process target state

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Introduce Info-Tech’s project intake process maturity model
    • Discuss the use of Info-Tech’s Diagnostic Program for an initial assessment of your current PPM processes

    Then complete these activities…

    • Map your current process workflow
    • Enumerate and prioritize your key stakeholders
    • Define process success criteria

    With these tools & templates:

    Project Intake Workflow Template

    Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template

    Phase 1 Results & Insights:
    • The overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects. To achieve this goal, one must have a clear way to determine what are “the best” projects.

    Get to value early with Step 1.1 of this blueprint

    Define how to determine a project’s value and set the stage for maximizing the value of your project portfolio using Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

    Where traditional models of consulting can take considerable amounts of time before delivering value to clients, Info-Tech’s methodology for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process gets you to value fast.

    The overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects. To achieve this goal, one must have a clear way to determine what are “the best” projects.

    In the first step of this blueprint, you will pilot a multiple-criteria scorecard for determining project value that will help answer that question. Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool is pre-populated with a ready-to-use, real-life example that you can leverage as a starting point for tailoring it to your organization – or adopt as is.

    Introduce objectivity and clarity to your discussion of maximizing the value of your project portfolio with Info-Tech’s practical IT research that drives measurable results.

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

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    Step 1.1: Define the criteria with which to determine project value

    PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

    1.1

    Define project valuation criteria

    1.2

    Envision process target state

    2.1

    Streamline intake

    2.2

    Right-size approval steps

    2.3

    Prioritize projects to fit resource capacity

    3.1

    Pilot your optimized process

    3.2

    Communicate organizational change

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Learn how to use the Project Value Scorecard Development Tool
    • Create a first-draft version of a project value-driven prioritized list of projects

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • CIO (optional)

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understand the importance of devising a consensus criteria for project valuation.
    • Try a project value scorecard-driven prioritization process with your currently proposed.
    • Set the stage for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization processes.

    Intake, Approval, and Prioritization is a core process in Info-Tech’s project portfolio management (PPM) framework

    PPM is an infrastructure around projects that aims to ensure that the best projects are worked on at the right time with the right people.

    PPM’s goal is to maximize the throughput of projects that provide strategic and operational value to the organization. To do this, a PPM strategy must help to:

    Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Process Model
    3. Status & Progress Reporting
    1. Intake, Approval & Prioritization 2. Resource Management 3. Project Management 4. Project Closure 5. Benefits Tracking
    Intake Execution Closure
    1. Select the best projects
    2. Pick the right time and people to execute the projects
    3. Make sure the projects are okay
    4. Make sure the projects get done
    5. Make sure they were worth doing

    If you don’t yet have a PPM strategy in place, or would like to revisit your existing PPM strategy before optimizing your project intake, approval, and prioritization practices, see Info-Tech’s blueprint, Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's blueprint Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy is shown.

    “Too many projects, not enough resources” is the reality of most IT environments

    A profound imbalance between demand (i.e. approved project work and service delivery commitments) and supply (i.e. people’s time) is the top challenge IT departments face today.

    In today’s organizations, the desires of business units for new products and enhancements, and the appetites of senior leadership to approve more and more projects for those products and services, far outstrip IT’s ability to realistically deliver on everything.

    The vast majority of IT departments lack the resourcing to meet project demand – especially given the fact that day-to-day operational demands frequently trump project work.

    As a result, project throughput suffers – and with it, IT’s reputation within the organization.

    An image is depicted that has several projects laid out near a scale filling one side of it and off of it. On the other part of the scale which is higher, has an image of people in it to help show the relationship between resource supply and project demand.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Where does the time go? The portfolio manager (or equivalent) should function as the accounting department for time, showing what’s available in IT’s human resources budget for projects and providing ongoing visibility into how that budget of time is being spent.

    Don’t weigh your portfolio down by starting more than you can finish

    Focus on what will deliver value to the organization and what you can realistically deliver.

    Most of the problems that arise during the lifecycle of a project can be traced back to issues that could have been mitigated during the initiation phase.

    More than simply a means of early problem detection at the project level, optimizing your initiation processes is also the best way to ensure the success of your portfolio. With optimized intake processes you can better guarantee:

    • The projects you are working on are of high value
    • Your project list aligns with available resource capacity
    • Stakeholder needs are addressed, but stakeholders do not determine the direction of the portfolio

    80% of organizations feel their portfolios are dominated by low-value initiatives that do not deliver value to the business (Source: Cooper).

    "(S)uccessful organizations select projects on the basis of desirability and their capability to deliver them, not just desirability" (Source: John Ward, Delivering Value from Information Systems and Technology Investments).

    Establishing project value is the first – and difficult – step for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization

    What is the best way to “deliver value to the organization”?

    Every organization needs to explicitly define how to determine project value that will fairly represent all projects and provide a basis of comparison among them during approval and prioritization. Without it, any discussions on reducing “low-value initiatives” from the previous slide cannot yield any actionable plan.

    However, defining the project value is difficult, because there are so many different and conflicting ways that are all valid in their own right and worth considering. For example:

    • Strategic growth vs. operational stability
    • Important work vs. urgent work
    • Return on investment vs. cost containment
    • Needs of a specific line of business vs. business-wide needs
    • Financial vs. intangible benefits

    This challenge is further complicated by the difficulty of identifying the right criteria for determining project value:

    Managers fail to identify around 50% of the important criteria when making decisions (Source: Transparent Choice).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Sometimes it can be challenging to show the value of IT-centric, operational-type projects that maintain critical infrastructure since they don’t yield net-new benefits. Remember that benefits are only half the equation; you must also consider the costs of not undertaking the said project.

    Find the right mix of criteria for project valuation with Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    Scorecard-driven approach is an easy-to-understand, time-tested solution to a multiple-criteria decision-making problem, such as project valuation.

    This approach is effective for capturing benefits and costs that are not directly quantifiable in financial terms. Projects are evaluated on multiple specific questions, or criteria, that each yield a score on a point scale. The overall score is calculated as a weighted sum of the scores.

    Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard is pre-populated with a best-practice example of eight criteria, two for each category (see box at bottom right). This example helps your effort to develop your own project scorecard by providing a solid starting point:

    60%: On their own, decision makers could only identify around 6 of their 10 most important criteria for making decisions (Source: Transparent Choice).

    Finally, in addition, the overall scores of approved projects can be used as a metric on which success of the process can be measured over time.

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

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    Categories of project valuation criteria

    • Strategic alignment: projects must be aligned with the strategic goals of the business and IT.
    • Operational alignment: projects must be aligned with the operational goals of the business and IT.
    • Feasibility: practical considerations for projects must be taken into account in selecting projects.
    • Financial: projects must realize monetary benefits, in increased revenue or decreased costs, while posing as little risk of cost overrun as possible.

    Review the example criteria and score description in the Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    1.1.1 Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 2: Evaluation Criteria

    This tab lists eight criteria that cover strategic alignment, operational alignment, feasibility, and financial benefits/risks. Each criteria is accompanied by a qualitative score description to standardize the analysis across all projects and analysts. While this tool supports up to 15 different criteria, it’s better to minimize the number of criteria and introduce additional ones as the organization grows in PPM maturity.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 2: Evaluation Criteria

    Type: It is useful to break down projects with similar overall scores by their proposed values versus ease of execution.

    Scale: Five-point scale is not required for this tool. Use more or less granularity of description as appropriate for each criteria.

    Blank Criteria: Rows with blank criteria are greyed out. Enter a new criteria to turn on the row.

    Score projects and search for the right mix of criteria weighting using the scorecard tab

    1.1.1 Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 3: Project Scorecard

    In this tab, you can see how projects are prioritized when they are scored according to the criteria from the previous tab. You can enter the scores of up to 30 projects in the scorecard table (see screenshot to the right).

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 3: Project Scorecard is shown.

    Value (V) or Execution (E) & Relative Weight: Change the relative weights of each criteria and review any changes to the prioritized list of projects change, whose rankings are updated automatically. This helps you iterate on the weights to find the right mix.

    Feasibility: Custom criteria category labels will be automatically updated.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 3: Project Scorecard is shown.

    Overall: Choose the groupings of criteria by which you want to see the prioritized list. Available groupings are:

    • Overall score
    • By value or by execution
    • By category

    Ranks and weighted scores for each project is shown.

    For example, click on the drop-down and choose “Execution.”

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 3: Project Scorecard is shown.

    Project ranks are based only on execution criteria.

    Create a first-draft version of a project value-driven prioritized list of projects

    1.1.1 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Follow the steps below to test Info-Tech’s example Project Value Scorecard and examine the prioritized list of projects.

    1. Using your list of proposed, ongoing, and completed projects, identify a representative sample of projects in your project portfolio, varying in size, scope, and perceived value – about 10-20 of them.
    2. Arrange these projects in the order of priority using any processes or prioritization paradigm currently in place in your organization.
    • In the absence of formal process, use your intuition, as well as knowledge of organizational priorities, and your stakeholders.
  • Use the example criteria and score description in Tab 2 of Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool to score the same list of projects:
    • Avoid spending too much time at this step. Prioritization criteria will be refined in the subsequent parts of the blueprint.
    • If multiple scorers are involved, allow some overlap to benchmark for consistency.
  • Enter the scores in Tab 3 of the tool to obtain the first-draft version of a project value-driven prioritized project list. Compare it with your list from Step 2.
  • INPUT

    • Knowledge of proposed, ongoing, and completed projects in your project portfolio

    OUTPUT

    • Prioritized project lists

    Materials

    • Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • CIO (optional)

    Iterate on the scorecard to set the stage for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization

    1.1.2 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Conduct a retrospective of the previous activity by asking these questions:

    • How smooth was the overall scoring experience (Step 3 of Activity 1.1.1)?
    • Did you experience challenges in interpreting and applying the example project valuation criteria? Why? (e.g. lack of information, absence of formalized business strategic goals, too much room for interpretation in scoring description)
    • Did the prioritized project list agree with your intuition?

    Iterate on the project valuation criteria:

    • Manipulate the relatives weights of valuation criteria to fine-tune them.
    • Revise the scoring descriptions to provide clarity or customize them to better fit your organization’s needs, then update the project scores accordingly.
    • For projects that did not score well, will this cause concern from any stakeholders? Are the concerns legitimate? If so, this may indicate the need for inclusion of new criteria.
    • For projects that score too well, this may indicate a bias toward a specific type of project or group of stakeholders. Try adjusting the relative weights of existing criteria.

    INPUT

    • Activity 1.1.1

    OUTPUT

    • Retrospective on project valuation
    • Review of project valuation criteria

    Materials

    • Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • CIO (optional)

    Next steps: engage key PPM stakeholders to reach a consensus when establishing how to determine project value

    Engage these key players to create the evaluation criteria that all stakeholders will support:

    • Business units: Projects are undertaken to provide value to the business. Senior management from business units must help define how project will be valued.
    • IT: IT must ensure that technical/practical considerations are taken into account when determining project value.
    • Finance: The CFO or designated representative will ensure that estimated project costs and benefits can be used to manage the budget.
    • PMO: PMO is the administrator of the project portfolio. PMO must provide coordination and support to ensure the process operates smoothly and its goals are realized.
    • Business analysts: BAs carry out the evaluation of project value. Therefore, their understanding of the evaluation criteria and the process as a whole are critical to the success of the process.
    • Project sponsors: Project sponsors are accountable for the realization of benefits for which projects are undertaken.

    Optimize the process with the new project value definition to focus your discussion with stakeholders

    This blueprint will help you not only optimize the process, but also help you work with your stakeholders to realize the benefits of the optimized process.

    In this step, you’ve begun improving the definition of project value. Getting it right will require several more iterations and will require a series of discussions with your key stakeholders.

    The optimized intake process built around the new definition of project value will help evolve a conceptual discussion about project value into a more practical one. The new process will paint a picture of what the future state will look like for your stakeholders’ requested projects getting approved and prioritized for execution, so that they can provide feedback that’s concrete and actionable. To help you with that process, you will be taken through a series of activities to analyze the impact of change on your stakeholders and create a communication plan in the last phase of the blueprint.

    For now, in the next step of this blueprint, you will undergo a series of activities to assess your current state to identify the specific areas for process optimization.

    "To find the right intersection of someone’s personal interest with the company’s interest on projects isn’t always easy. I always try to look for the basic premise that you can get everybody to agree on it and build from there… But it’s sometimes hard to make sure that things stick. You may have to go back three or four times to the core agreement."

    -Eric Newcomer

    Step 1.2: Envision your target state for your optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization process

    PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

    1.1

    Define project valuation criteria

    1.2

    Envision process target state

    2.1

    Streamline intake

    2.2

    Right-size approval steps

    2.3

    Prioritize projects to fit resource capacity

    3.1

    Pilot your optimized process

    3.2

    Communicate organizational change

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Map your current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow, and document it in a flowchart
    • Enumerate and prioritize your key process stakeholders
    • Determine your process capability level within Info-Tech’s Framework
    • Establish your current and target states for project intake, approval, and prioritization process

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • PMO Director/Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • Other PPM stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Current project intake, approval, and prioritization process is mapped out and documented in a flowchart
    • Key process stakeholders are enumerated and prioritized to inform future discussion on optimizing processes
    • Current and target organizational process capability levels are determined
    • Success criteria and key performance indicators for process optimization are defined

    Use Info-Tech’s Diagnostic Program for an initial assessment of your current PPM processes

    This step is highly recommended but not required. Call 1-888-670-8889 to inquire about or request the PPM Diagnostics.

    Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Assessmentprovides you with a data-driven view of the current state of your portfolio, including your intake processes. Our PPM Assessment measures and communicates success in terms of Info-Tech’s best practices for PPM.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Assessment blueprint is shown.

    Use the diagnostic program to:

    • Assess resource utilization across the portfolio.
    • Determine project portfolio reporting completeness.
    • Solicit feedback from your customers on the clarity of your portfolio’s business goals.
    • Rate the overall quality of your project management practices and benchmark your rating over time.
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Assessment blueprint is shown.

    Scope your process optimization efforts with Info-Tech’s high-level intake, approval, and prioritization workflow

    Info-Tech recommends the following workflow at a high level for a capacity-constrained intake process that aligns to strategic goals and stakeholder need.

    • Intake (Step 2.1)*
      • Receive project requests
      • Triage project requests and assign a liaison
      • High-level scoping & set stakeholder expectations
    • Approval (Step 2.2)*
      • Concept approval by project sponsor
      • High-level technical solution approval by IT
      • Business case approval by business
      • Resource allocation & greenlight projects
    • Prioritization (Step 2.3)*
      • Update project priority scores & available project capacity
      • Identify high-scoring and “on-the-bubble” projects
      • Recommend projects to greenlight or deliberate

    * Steps denote the place in the blueprint where the steps are discussed in more detail.

    Use this workflow as a baseline to examine your current state of the process in the next slide.

    Map your current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow

    1.2.1 Estimated Time: 60-90 minutes

    Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out the processes currently in place for project intake, approval, and prioritization.

    1. Use white 4”x6” recipe cards / large sticky notes to write out unique steps of a process. Use the high-level process workflow from the previous slides as a guide.
    2. Arrange the steps into chronological order. Benchmark the arrangement through a group discussion.
    3. Use green cards to identify artifacts or deliverables that result from a step.
    4. Use yellow cards to identify who does the work (i.e. responsible parties), and who makes the decisions (i.e. accountable party). Keep in mind that while multiple parties may be responsible, accountability cannot be shared and only a single party can be accountable for a process.
    5. Use red cards to identify issues, problems, or risks. These are opportunities for optimization.

    INPUT

    • Documentation describing the current process (e.g. standard operating procedures)
    • Info-Tech’s high-level intake workflow

    OUTPUT

    • Current process, mapped out

    Materials

    • 4x6” recipe cards
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • Other PPM stakeholders

    Document the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow in a flowchart

    1.2.2 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Document the results of the previous table-top exercise (Activity 1.1.1) into a flow chart. Flowcharts provide a bird’s-eye view of process steps that highlight the decision points and deliverables. In addition, swim lanes can be used to indicate process stages, task ownership, or responsibilities (example below).

    An example is shown for activity 1.2.2

    Review and customize section 1.2, “Overall Process Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    "Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management."

    – Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry

    Browser-based flowchart tool examples

    INPUT

    • Mapped-out project intake process (Activity 1.2.1)

    OUTPUT

    • Flowchart representation of current project intake workflow

    Materials

    • Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Example of a project intake, approval, and prioritization flow chart – without swim lanes

    An example project intake, approval, and prioritization flow chart without swim lanes is shown.

    Example of a project intake, approval, and prioritization flow chart – with swim lanes

    An example project intake, approval, and prioritization flow chart with swim lanes is shown.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake Workflow Template (Visio and PDF)

    Enumerate your key stakeholders for optimizing intake, approval, and prioritization process

    1.2.3 30-45 minutes

    In the previous activity, accountable and responsible stakeholders for each of the steps in the current intake, approval, and prioritization process were identified.

    1. Based on your knowledge and insight of your organization, ensure that all key stakeholders with accountable and responsible stakeholders are accounted for in the mapped-out process. Note any omissions: it may indicate a missing step, or that the stakeholder ought to be, but are not currently, involved.
    2. For each step, identify any stakeholders that are currently consulted or informed. Then, examine the whole map and identify any other stakeholders that ought to be consulted or informed.
    3. Compile a list of stakeholders from steps 1-2, and write each of their names in two sticky notes.
    4. Put both sets of sticky notes on a wall. Use the wisdom-of-the-crowd approach to arrange one set in a descending order of influence. Record their ranked influence from 1 (least) to 10 (most).
    5. Rearrange the other set in a descending order of interest in seeing the project intake process optimized. Record their ranked interest from 1 (least) to 10 (most).

    INPUT

    • Mapped-out project intake process (Activity 1.2.1)
    • Insight on organizational culture

    OUTPUT

    • List of stakeholders in project intake
    • Ranked list in their influence and interest

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Walls

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • Other PPM stakeholders

    Prioritize your stakeholders for project intake, approval, and prioritization process

    There are three dimensions for stakeholder prioritization: influence, interest, and support.

    1. Map your stakeholders in a 2D stakeholder power map (top right) according to their relative influence and interest.
    2. Rate their level of support by asking the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would welcome an improved process for project intake?

    These parameters will inform how to prioritize your stakeholders according to the stakeholder priority heatmap (bottom right). This priority should inform how to focus your attention during the subsequent optimization efforts.

    A flowchart is shown to show the relationship between influence and interest.

    Level of Support
    Stakeholder Category Supporter Evangelist Neutral Blocker
    Engage Critical High High Critical
    High Medium Low Low Medium
    Low High Medium Medium High
    Passive Low Irrelevant Irrelevant Low

    Info-Tech Insight

    There may be too many stakeholders to be able to achieve complete satisfaction. Focus your attention on the stakeholders that matter the most.

    Most organizations have low to medium capabilities around intake, approval, and prioritization

    1.2.4 Estimated Time: 15 minutes

    Use Info-Tech’s Intake Capability Framework to help define your current and target states for intake, approval, and prioritization.

    Capability Level Capability Level Description
    Capability Level 5: Optimized Our department has effective intake processes with right-sized administrative overhead. Work is continuously prioritized to keep up with emerging challenges and opportunities.
    Capability Level 4: Aligned Our department has very strong intake processes. Project approvals are based on business cases and aligned with future resource capacity.
    Capability Level 3: Engaged Our department has processes in place to track project requests and follow up on them. Priorities are periodically re-evaluated, based largely on the best judgment of one or several executives.
    Capability Level 2: Defined Our department has some processes in place but no capacity to say no to new projects. There is a formal backlog, but little or no method for grooming it.
    Capability Level 1: Unmanaged Our department has no formal intake processes in place. Most work is done reactively, with little ability to prioritize proactive project work.

    Refer to the subsequent slides for more detail on these capability levels.

    Level 1: Unmanaged

    Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

    Intake Projects are requested through personal conversations and emails, with minimal documentation and oversight.
    Approval Projects are approved by default and rarely (if ever) declined. There is no definitive list of projects in the pipeline or backlog.
    Prioritization Most work is done reactively, with little ability to prioritize proactive project work.

    Symptoms

    • Poorly defined – or a complete absence of – PPM processes.
    • No formal approval committee.
    • No processes in place to balance proactive and reactive demands.

    Long Term

    PMOs at this level should work to have all requests funneled through a proper request form within six months. Decision rights for approval should be defined, and a scorecard should be in place within the year.

    Quick Win

    To get a handle on your backlog, start tracking all project requests using the “Project Data” tab in Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool.

    Level 2: Defined

    Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

    Intake Requests are formally documented in a request form before they’re assigned, elaborated, and executed as projects.
    Approval Projects are approved by default and rarely (if ever) declined. There is a formal backlog, but little or no method for grooming it.
    Prioritization There is a list of priorities but no process for updating it more than annually or quarterly.

    Symptoms

    • Organization does not have clear concept of project capacity.
    • There is a lack of discipline enforced on stakeholders.
    • Immature PPM processes in general.

    Long Term

    PMOs at this level should strive for greater visibility into the portfolio to help make the case for declining (or at least deferring) requests. Within the year, have a formal PPM strategy up and running.

    Quick Win

    Something PMOs at this level can accomplish quickly without any formal approval is to spend more time with stakeholders during the ideation phase to better define scope and requirements.

    Level 3: Engaged

    Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

    Intake Processes and skills are in place to follow up on requests to clarify project scope before going forward with approval and prioritization.
    Approval Projects are occasionally declined based on exceptionally low feasibility or value.
    Prioritization Priorities are periodically re-evaluated based largely on the best judgment of one or several executives.

    Challenges

    • Senior executives’ “best judgement” is frequently fallible or influenced. Pet projects still enter the portfolio and deplete resources.
    • While approval processes “occasionally” filter out some low-value projects, many still get approved.

    Long Term

    PMOs at this level should advocate for a more formal cadence for prioritization and, within the year, establish a formal steering committee that will be responsible for prioritizing and re-prioritizing quarterly or monthly.

    Quick Win

    At the PMO level, employ Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool to start re-evaluating projects in the backlog. Make this data available to senior executives when prioritization occurs.

    Level 4: Aligned

    Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

    Intake Occurs through a centralized process. Processes and skills are in place for follow-up.
    Approval Project approvals are based on business cases and aligned with future resource capacity.
    Prioritization Project prioritization is visibly aligned with business goals.

    Challenges

    • The process of developing business cases can be too cumbersome, distracting resources from actual project work.
    • “Future” resource capacity predictions are unreliable. Reactive support work and other factors frequently change actual resource availability.

    Long Term

    PMOs at this level can strive for more accurate and frequent resource forecasting, establishing a more accurate picture of project vs. non-project work within the year.

    Quick Win

    PMOs at this level can start using Info-Tech’s Business Case Template (Comprehensive or Fast Track) to help simplify the business case process.

    Level 5: Optimizing

    Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

    Intake Occurs through a centralized portal. Processes and skills are in place for thorough follow-up.
    Approval Project approvals are based on business cases and aligned with future resource capacity.
    Prioritization Work is continuously prioritized to keep up with emerging challenges and opportunities.

    Challenges

    • Establishing a reliable forecast for resource capacity remains a concern at this level as well.
    • Organizations at this level may experience an increasing clash between Agile practices and traditional Waterfall methodologies.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Manage an Agile Portfolio Blueprint

    PMOs at this level should look at Info-Tech’s Manage an Agile Portfolio for comprehensive tools and guidance on maintaining greater visibility at the portfolio level into work in progress and committed work.

    Establish your current and target states for process intake, approval, and prioritization

    1.2.5 Estimated Time: 20 minutes

    • Having reviewed the intake capability framework, you should be able to quickly identify where you currently reside in the model. Document this in the “Current State” box below.
    • Next, spend some time as a group discussing your target state. Make sure to set a realistic target as well as a realistic timeframe for meeting this target. Level 1s will not be able to become Level 5s overnight and certainly not without passing through the other levels on the way.
      • A realistic goal for a Level 1 to become a Level 2 is within six to eight months.
    Current State:
    Target State:
    Timeline for meeting target

    INPUT

    • Intake, approval, and prioritization capability framework (Activity 1.2.4)

    OUTPUT

    • Current and target state, with stated time goals

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Align your intake success with the strategic expectations of overall project portfolio management

    A successful project intake, approval, and prioritization process puts your leadership in a position to best steer the portfolio, like a conductor of an orchestra.

    To frame the discussion on deciding what intake success will look like, review Info-Tech’s PPM strategic expectations:

    • Project Throughput: Maximize throughput of the best projects.
    • Portfolio Visibility: Ensure visibility of current and pending projects.
    • Portfolio Responsiveness: Make the portfolio responsive to executive steering when new projects and changing priorities need rapid action.
    • Resource Utilization: Minimize resource waste and optimize the alignment of skills to assignments.
    • Benefits Realization: Clarify accountability for post-project benefits attainment for each project, and facilitate the process of tracking/reporting those benefits.
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy blueprint.

    For a more detailed discussion and insight on PPM strategic expectations see Info-Tech’s blueprint, Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy.

    Decide what successful project intake, approval, prioritization process will look like

    1.2.6 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    While assessing your current state, it is important to discuss and determine as a team how success will be defined.

    • During this process, it is important to consider tentative timelines for success milestones and to ask the question: what will success look like and when should it occur by?
    • Use the below table to help document success factors and timeliness. Follow the lead of our example in row 1.
    Optimization Benefit Objective Timeline Success Factor
    Facilitate project intake, prioritization, and communication with stakeholders to maximize time spent on the most valuable or critical projects. Look at pipeline as part of project intake approach and adjust priorities as required. July 1st Consistently updated portfolio data. Dashboards to show back capacity to customers. SharePoint development resources.

    Review and customize section 1.5, “Process Success Criteria” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Establish realistic short-term goals. Even with optimized intake procedures, you may not be able to eliminate underground project economies immediately. Make your initial goals realistic, leaving room for those walk-up requests that may still appear via informal channels.

    Prepare to optimize project intake and capture the results in the Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP

    Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is the reference document to get all PPM stakeholders on the same page with the new optimized process.

    The current state explored and documented in this step will serve as a starting point for each step of the next phase of the blueprint. The next phase will take a deeper dive into each of the three components of Info-Tech’s project intake methodology, so that they can achieve the success criteria you’ve defined in the previous activity.

    Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template is intended to capture the outcome of your process optimization efforts. This blueprint guides you through numerous activities designed for your core project portfolio management team to customize each section.

    To maximize the chances of success, it is important that the team makes a concerted effort to participate. Schedule a series of working sessions over the course of several weeks for your team to work through it – or get through it in one week, with onsite Info-Tech analyst-facilitated workshops.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP.

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

    Case study: PMO develops mature intake and prioritization processes by slowly evolving its capability level

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Not-for-Profit

    Source: Info-Tech Interview

    Challenge

    • A PMO for a large not-for-profit benefits provider had relatively high project management maturity, but the enterprise had low PPM maturity.
    • There were strong intake processes in place for following up on requests. For small projects, project managers would assist as liaisons to help control scope. For corporate initiates, PMs were assigned to work with a sponsor to define scope and write a charter.

    Solution

    Prioritization was a challenge. Initially, the organization had ad hoc prioritization practices, but they had developed a scoring criteria to give more formality and direction to the portfolio. However, the activity of formally prioritizing proved to be too time consuming.

    Off-the-grid projects were a common problem, with initiatives consuming resources with no portfolio oversight.

    Results

    After trying “heavy” prioritization, the PMO loosened up the process. PMO staff now go through and quickly rank projects, with two senior managers making the final decisions. They re-prioritize quarterly to have discussions around resource availability and to make sure stakeholders are in tune to what IT is doing on a daily basis. IT has a monthly meeting to go over projects consuming resources and to catch anything that has fallen between the cracks.

    "Everything isn't a number one, which is what we were dealing with initially. We went through a formal prioritization period, where we painstakingly scored everything. Now we have evolved: a couple of senior managers have stepped up to make decisions, which was a natural evolution from us being able to assign a formal ranking. Now we are able to prioritize more easily and effectively without having to painstakingly score everything."

    – PMO Director, Benefits Provider

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    A photo of an Info-Tech analyst is shown.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1.1-2

    A screenshot of activities 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 are shown.

    Pilot Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard-driven prioritization method

    Use Info-Tech’s example to prioritize your current project backlog to pilot a project value-driven prioritization, which will be used to guide the entire optimization process.

    1.2.1-3

    A screenshot of activities 1.2.1 and 1.2.3 are shown.

    Map out and document current project intake, approval, and prioritization process, and the involved key stakeholders

    A table-top planning exercise helps you visualize the current process in place and identify opportunities for optimization.

    Phase 2

    Build an Optimized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process

    Phase 2 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 2: Build an Optimized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process Proposed Time to Completion: 3-6 weeks

    Step 2.1: Streamline Intake

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Challenges of project intake
    • Opportunities for improving the management of stakeholder expectations by optimizing intake

    Then complete these activities…

    • Perform a process retrospective
    • Optimize your process to receive, triage, and follow up on project requests

    With these tools & templates:

    • Project Request Form.
    • Project Intake Classification Matrix

    Step 2.2: Right-Size Approval

    Start with an analyst call:

    • Challenges of project approval
    • Opportunities for improving strategic alignment of the project portfolio by optimizing project approval

    Then complete these activities…

    • Perform a process retrospective
    • Clarify accountability at each step
    • Decide on deliverables to support decision makers at each step

    With these tools & templates:

    • Benefits Commitment Form
    • Technology Assessment Tool
    • Business Case Templates

    Step 3.3: Prioritize Realistically

    Start with an analyst call:

    • Challenges in project prioritization
  • Opportunities for installing a resource capacity-constrained intake by optimizing prioritization
  • Then complete these activities…

    • Perform a process retrospective
    • Pilot the Intake and Prioritization Tool for prioritization within estimated resource capacity

    With these tools & templates:

    • Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    Phase 2 Results & Insights:

    • Info-Tech’s methodology systemically fits the project portfolio into its triple constraint of stakeholder needs, strategic objectives, and resource capacity, to effectively address the challenges of establishing organizational discipline for project intake.

    Step 2.1: Streamline intake to manage stakeholder expectations

    PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

    1.1

    Define project valuation criteria

    1.2

    Envision process target state

    2.1

    Streamline intake

    2.2

    Right-size approval steps

    2.3

    Prioritize projects to fit resource capacity

    3.1

    Pilot your optimized process

    3.2

    Communicate organizational change

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Perform a deeper retrospective on current project intake process
    • Optimize your process to receive project requests
    • Revisit the definition of a project for triaging requests
    • Optimize your process to triage project requests
    • Optimize your process to follow up on project requests

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Administrative Staff

    Outcomes of this Step

    • Retrospective of the current project intake process: to continue doing, to start doing, and to stop doing
    • A streamlined, single-funnel intake channel with the right procedural friction to receive project requests
    • A refined definition of what constitutes a project, and project levels that will determine the necessary standard of rigor with which project requests should be scoped and developed into a proposal throughout the process
    • An optimized process for triaging and following up on project requests to prepare them for the steps of project approval
    • Documentation of the optimized process in the SOP document

    Understand the risks of poor intake practices

    Too much red tape could result in your portfolio falling victim to underground economies. Too little intake formality could lead to the Wild West.

    Off-the-grid projects, i.e. projects that circumvent formal intake processes, lead to underground economies that can deplete resource capacity and hijack your portfolio.

    These underground economies are typically the result of too much intake red tape. When the request process is made too complex or cumbersome, project sponsors may unsurprisingly seek alternative means to get their projects done.

    While the most obvious line of defence against the appearance of underground economies is an easy-to-use and access request form, one must be cautious. Too little intake formality could lead to a Wild West of project intake where everyone gets their initiatives approved regardless of their business merit and feasibility.

    Benefits of optimized intake Risks of poor intake
    Alignment of portfolio with business goals Portfolio overrun by off-the-grid projects
    Resources assigned to high-value projects Resources assigned to low-value projects
    Better throughput of projects in the portfolio Ever-growing project backlog
    Strong stakeholder relations Stakeholders lose faith in value of PMO

    Info-Tech Insight

    Intake is intimately bound to stakeholder management. Finding the right balance of friction for your team is the key to successfully walking the line between asking for too much and not asking for enough. If your intake process is strong, stakeholders will no longer have any reason to circumvent formal process.

    An excess number of intake channels is the telltale sign of a low capability level for intake

    Excess intake channels are also a symptom of a portfolio in turmoil.

    If you relate to the graphic below in any way, your first priority needs to be limiting the means by which projects get requested. A single, centralized channel with review and approval done in batches is the goal. Otherwise, with IT’s limited capacity, most requests will simply get added to the backlog.

    A graphic is shown to demonstrate how one may receive project requests. The following icons are in a circle: Phone, Intranet Request Form, In person, anywhere, anytime, SharePoint Request Form, Weekly Scrum, Document, and Email.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The PMO needs to have the authority – and needs to exercise the authority – to enforce discipline on stakeholders. Organizations that solicit in verbal requests (by phone, in person, or during scrum) lack the orderliness required for PPM success. In these cases, it needs to be the mission of the PMO to demand proper documentation and accountability from stakeholders before proceeding with requests.

    "The golden rule for the project documentation is that if anything during the project life cycle is not documented, it is the same as if it does not exist or never happened…since management or clients will never remember their undocumented requests or their consent to do something."

    – Dan Epstein, “Project Initiation Process: Part Two”

    Develop an intake workflow

    Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for managing intake.

    1. Requestor fills out form and submits the request.

    Project Request Form Templates

    2. Requests are triaged into the proper queue.

    1. Divert non-project request
    2. Quickly assess value and urgency
    3. Assign specialist to follow up on request
    4. Inform the requestor

    Project Intake Classification Matrix

    3. BA or PM prepares to develop requests into a project proposal.

    1. Follow up with requestor and SMEs to refine project scope, benefits, and risks
    2. Estimate size of project and determine the required level of detail for proposal
    3. Prepare for concept approval

    Benefits Commitment Form Template

    4. Requestor is given realistic expectations for approval process.

    Perform a start-stop-continue exercise to help determine what is working and what is not working

    2.1.1 Estimated Time: 45 minutes

    Optimizing project intake may not require a complete overhaul of your existing processes. You may only need to tweak certain templates or policies. Perhaps you started out with a strong process and simply lost resolve over time – in which case you will need to focus on establishing motivation and discipline, rather than rework your entire process.

    Perform a start-stop-continue exercise with your team to help determine what should be salvaged, what should be abandoned, and what should be introduced:

    1. On a whiteboard or equivalent, write “Start,” “Stop,” and “Continue” in three separate columns. 3. As a group, discuss the responses and come to an agreement as to which are most valid.
    2. Equip your team with sticky notes or markers and have them populate the columns with ideas and suggestions surrounding your current processes. 4. Document the responses to help structure your game plan for intake optimization.
    Start Stop Continue
    • Explicitly manage follow-up expectations with project requestor
    • Receiving informal project requests
    • Take too long in proposal development
    • Quarterly approval meetings
    • Approve resources for proposal development

    INPUT

    • Current project intake workflow (Activity 1.2.2)
    • Project intake success criteria (Activity 1.2.6)

    OUTPUT

    • Retrospective review of current intake process

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes/markers

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Streamline project requests into a single funnel

    It is important to identify all of the ways through which projects currently get requested and initiated, especially if you have various streams of intake competing with each other for resources and a place in the portfolio. Directing multiple channels into a single, centralized funnel is step number one in optimizing intake.

    To help you identify project sources within your organization, we’ve broken project requests into three archetypes: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

    1. The Good – Proper Requests: written formal requests that come in through one appropriate channel.

    The Bad – Walk-Ups: requests that do not follow the appropriate intake channel(s), but nevertheless make an effort to get into the proper queue. The most common instance of this is a portfolio manager or CIO filling out the proper project request form on behalf of, and under direction from, a senior executive.

    The Ugly – Guerilla Tactics: initiatives that make their way into the portfolio through informal methods or that consume portfolio resources without formal approval, authority, or oversight. This typically involves a key resource getting ambushed to work on a stakeholder’s “side project” without any formal approval from, or knowledge of, the PMO.

    Funnel requests through a single portal to streamline intake

    Decide how you would funnel project requests on a single portal for submitting project requests. Determining the right portal for your organization will depend on your current infrastructure options, as well as your current and target state capability levels.

    Below are examples of a platform for your project request portal.

    Platform Template document, saved in a repository or shared drive Email-based form (Outlook forms) Intranet form (SharePoint, internal CMS) Dedicated intake solution (PPM tool, idea/innovation tool)
    Pros Can be deployed very easily Consolidates requests into a single receiver Users have one place to go from any device All-in-one solution that includes scoring and prioritization
    Cons Manual submission and intake process consumes extra effort Can pose problems in managing requests across multiple people and platforms Requires existing intranet infrastructure and some development effort Solution is costly; requires adoption across all lines of business

    Increasing intake capability and infrastructure availability

    Introduce the right amount of friction into your intake process

    The key to an effective intake process is determining the right amount of friction to include for your organization. In this context, friction comes from the level of granularity within your project request form and the demands or level of accountability your intake processes place on requestors. You will want to have more or less friction on your intake form, depending on your current intake pain points.

    If you are inundated with a high volume of requests:

    • Make your intake form more detailed to deter “half-baked” requests.
    • Have more managerial oversight into the process. Require approval for each request.

    If you want to encourage the use of a formal channel:

    • Make your intake form more concise and lightweight.
    • Have less managerial oversight into the process. Inform managers of each request rather than requiring approval.

    Download Info-Tech’s Detailed Project Request Form.

    Download Info-Tech’s Light Project Request Form.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Request Form is shown.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Optimizing a process should not automatically mean reducing friction. Blindly reducing friction could generate a tidal wave of poorly thought-out requests, which only drives up unrealistic expectations. Mitigate the risk of unrealistic stakeholder expectations by carefully managing the message: optimize friction.

    Document your process to receive project requests

    2.1.2 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    Review and customize section 2.2, “Receive project requests” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    The goal of optimizing this process is to consolidate multiple intake channels into a single funnel with the right amount of friction to improve visibility and manageability of incoming project requests.

    The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. What data will be collected, and from whom? For example, Info-Tech’s Light Project Request Form Template will be used to collect project requests from everyone.
    2. How will requests be collected, and from where? For example, the template will be available as a fillable form on a SharePoint site.
    3. Who will be informed of the requests? For example, the PMO Director and the BA team will be notified with a hyperlink to the completed request form.
    4. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

    INPUT

    • Retrospective of current process (Activity 2.1.1)

    OUTPUT

    • Customized Project Request Form
    • Method of implementation

    Materials

    • Project Request Form Templates

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Business Analysts

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Whatever method of request collection you choose, ensure there is no doubt about how requesters can access the intake form.

    Establish a triage process to improve portfolio success

    Once a request has been submitted, it will need to be triaged. Triage begins as soon as the request is received. The end goal of the triage process is to set appropriate expectations for stakeholders and to ensure that all requests going forward for approval are valid requests.

    PPM Triage Process

    1. Divert non-project requests by validating that what is described on the request form qualifies as a “project.” Make sure requests are in the appropriate queue – for example, service desk request queue, change and release management queue, etc.
    2. Quickly assess value and urgency to determine whether the request requires fast-tracking or any other special consideration.
    3. Assign a specialist to follow up on the request. Match the request to the most suitable BA, PM, or equivalent. This person will become the Request Liaison (“RL”) for the request and will work with the requestor to define preliminary requirements.
    4. Inform the requestor that the request has been received and provide clear direction on what will happen with the request next, such as who will follow up on it and when. See the next slide for some examples of this follow-up.

    The PMO Triage Team

    • Portfolio Manager, or equivalent
    • Request Liaisons (business analysts, project managers, or equivalent)

    “Request Liaison” Role

    The BAs and PMs who follow up on requests play an especially important role in the triage process. They serve as the main point of contact to the requestor as the request evolves into a business case. In this capacity they perform a valuable stakeholder management function, helping to increase confidence and enhance trust in IT.

    To properly triage project requests, define exactly what a project is

    Bring color to the grey area that can exist in IT between those initiatives that fall somewhere in between “clearly a service ticket” and “clearly a project.”

    What constitutes a project?

    Another way of asking this question that gets more to the point for this blueprint – for what types of initiatives is project intake, approval, and prioritization rigor required?

    This is especially true in IT where, for some smaller initiatives, there can be uncertainty in many organizations during the intake and initiation phase about what should be included on the formal project list and what should go to help desk’s queue.

    As the definitions in the table below show, formal project management frameworks each have similar definitions of “a project.”

    Source Definition
    PMI A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.” (553)
    COBIT A structured set of activities concerned with delivering a defined capability (that is necessary but not sufficient to achieve a required business outcome) to the enterprise based on an agreed‐on schedule and budget.” (74)
    PRINCE2 A temporary organization that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed business case.

    For each, a project is a temporary endeavor planned around producing a specific organizational/business outcome. The challenge of those small initiatives in IT is knowing when those endeavors require a business case, formal resource tracking, and project management rigor, and when they don’t.

    Separating small projects from non-projects requires a consideration of approval rights

    While conventional wisdom says to base your project definition on an estimation of cost, risk, etc., you also need to ask, “does this initiative require formal approval?”

    In the next step, we will define a suggested minimum threshold for a small “level 1” project. While these level thresholds are good and necessary for a number of reasons – including triaging your project requests – you may still often need to exercise some critical judgment in separating the tickets from the projects. In addition to the level criteria that we will develop in this step, use the checklist below to help with your differentiating.

    Service Desk Ticket Small Project
    • Approval seems implicit given the scope of the task.
    • No expectations of needing to report on status.
    • No indications that management will require visibility during execution.
    • The scope of the task suggests formal approval may be required.
    • You may have to report on status.
    • Possibility that management may require visibility during execution.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Guard the value of the portfolio. Because tickets carry with them an implicit approval, you need to be wary at the portfolio level of those that might possess a larger scope than their status of ticket implies. Sponsors that, for whatever reason, resist the formal intake process may use the ticketing process to sneak projects in through the backdoor. When assessing tickets and small projects at the portfolio level, you need to ask: is it possible that someone at an executive level might want to get updates on this because of its duration, scope, risk, cost, etc.? Could someone at the management level get upset that the initiative came in as a ticket and is burning up time and driving costs without any visibility?

    Sample Project/Non-Project Separation Criteria

    Non-Project Small Project
    e.g. Time required e.g. < 40 hours e.g. 40 > hours
    e.g. Complexity e.g. Very low e.g. Moderate – Low Difficulty: Does not require highly developed or specialized skill sets
    e.g. Collaboration e.g. None required e.g. Limited coordination and collaboration between resources and departments
    e.g. Repeatability of work e.g. Fully repeatable e.g. Less predictable
    e.g. Frequency of request type e.g. Hourly to daily e.g. Weekly to monthly

    "If you worked for the help desk, over time you would begin to master your job since there is a certain rhythm and pattern to the work…On the other hand, projects are unique. This characteristic makes them hard to estimate and hard to manage. Even if the project is similar to one you have done before, new events and circumstances will occur. Each project typically holds its own challenges and opportunities"

    – Jeffrey and Thomas Mochal

    Define the minimum-threshold criteria for small projects

    2.1.3 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    Follow the steps below to define the specifics of a “level 1” project for your organization.

    1. Using your project list and/or ticketing system, identify a handful of small projects, large service desk tickets, and especially those items that fall somewhere in the grey area in between (anywhere between 10 to 20 of each). Then, determine the organizationally appropriate considerations for defining your project levels. Options include:
    • Duration
    • Budget/Cost
    • Technology requirements
    • Customer involvement
    • Integration
    • Organizational impact
    • Complexity
    • Number of cross-functional workgroups and teams involved
  • Using the list of projects established in the previous step, determine the organizationally appropriate considerations for defining your project levels –anywhere from four to six considerations is a good number.
  • Using these criteria and your list of small projects, define the minimum threshold for your level one projects across each of these categories. Record these thresholds in the table on the next slide.
  • INPUT

    • Data concerning small projects and service desk tickets, including size, duration, etc.

    OUTPUT

    • Clarity around how to define your level 1 projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Remove room for stakeholder doubt and confusion by informing requests forward in a timely manner

    During triaging, requestors should be notified as quickly as possible (a) that their request has been received and (b) what to expect next for the request. Make this forum as productive and informative as possible, providing clear direction and structure for the future of the request. Be sure to include the following:

    • A request ID or ticket number.
    • Some direction on who will be following up on the request –provide an individual’s name when possible.
    • An estimated timeframe of when they can expect to hear from the individual following up.

    The logistic of this follow-up will depend on a number of different factors.

    • The number of requests you receive.
    • Your ability to automate the responses.
    • The amount of detail you would like to, or need to, provide stakeholders with.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Assign an official request number or project ID to all requests during this initial response. An official request number anchors the request to a specific and traceable dataset that will accompany the project throughout its lifecycle.

    Sample “request received” emails

    If you receive a high volume of requests or need a quick win for improving stakeholder relations:

    Sample #1: Less detailed, automatic response

    Hello Emma,

    Thank you. Your project request has been received. Requests are reviewed and assigned every Monday. A business analyst will follow up with you in the next 5-10 business days. Should you have any questions in the meantime, please reply to this email.

    Best regards,

    Information Technology Services

    If stakeholder management is a priority, and you want to emphasize the customer-facing focus:

    Sample #2: More detailed, tailored response

    Hi Darren,

    Your project request has been received and reviewed. Your project ID number is #556. Business analyst Alpertti Attar has been assigned to follow up on your request. You can expect to hear from him in the next 5-10 business days to set up a meeting for preliminary requirements gathering.

    If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact Alpertti at aattar@projectco.com. Please include the Project ID provided in this email in all future correspondences regarding this request.

    Thank you for your request. We look forward to helping you bring this initiative to fruition.

    Sincerely,

    Jim Fraser

    PMO Director, Information Technology Services

    Info-Tech Insight

    A simple request response will go a long way in terms of stakeholder management. It will not only help assure stakeholders that their requests are in progress but the request confirmation will also help to set expectations and take some of the mystery out of IT’s processes.

    Document your process to triage project requests

    2.1.4 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    Review and customize section 2.3, “Triage project requests” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    The goal of optimizing this process is to divert non-project requests and set an appropriate initial set of stakeholder expectations for next steps. The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. What defines a project? Record the outcomes of Activities 2.1.3 into the SOP.
    2. Who triages the requests and assign request liaisons? Who are they? For example, a lead BA can assign a set roster of BAs to project requests.
    3. What are the steps to follow for sending the initial response? See the previous slides on automated responses vs. detailed, tailored responses.
    4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? For example, impose a maximum of four hours per week per analyst, and track the hours worked for each request to establish a pattern for capacity consumption.
    5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

    INPUT

    • Results of activity 2.1.3

    OUTPUT

    • SOP for triaging project requests

    Materials

    • SOP Template

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Business Analysts

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Whatever method of request collection you choose, ensure there is no doubt about how requesters can access the intake form.

    Follow up on requests to define project scope and set realistic expectations

    The purpose of this follow-up is to foster communication among the requestor, IT, and the sponsor to scope the project at a high level. The follow-up should:

    • Clarify the goals and value of the request.
    • Begin to manage expectations based on initial assessment of feasibility.
    • Ensure the right information is available for evaluating project proposals downstream. Every project should have the below key pieces of scope defined before any further commitments are made.

    Focus on Defining Key Pieces of Scope

    • Budget (funding, source)
    • Business outcome
    • Completion criteria
    • Timeframes (start date and duration)
    • Milestones/deliverables

    Structure the Follow-Up Process to Enhance Alignment Between IT and the Business

    Once a Request Liaison (RL) has been assigned to a request, it is their responsibility to schedule time (if necessary) with the requestor to perform a scoping exercise that will help define preliminary requirements. Ideally, this follow-up should occur no later than a week of the initial request.

    Structure the follow-up for each request based on your preliminary estimates of project size (next slide). Use the “Key Pieces of Scope” to the left as a guide.

    It may also be helpful for RLs and stakeholders to work together to produce a rough diagram or mock-up of the final deliverable. This will ensure that the stakeholder’s idea has been properly communicated, and it could also help refine or broaden this idea based on IT’s capabilities.

    After the scoping exercise, it is the RL’s responsibility to inform the requestor of next steps.

    Info-Tech Insight

    More time spent with stakeholders defining high-level requirements during the ideation phase is key to project success. It will not only improve the throughput of projects, but it will enhance the transparency of IT’s capacity and enable IT to more effectively support business processes.

    Perform a preliminary estimation of project size

    Project estimation is a common pain point felt by many organizations. At this stage, a range-of-magnitude (ROM) estimate is sufficient for the purposes of sizing the effort required for developing project proposals with appropriate detail.

    A way to structure ROM estimates is to define a set of standard project levels. It will help you estimate 80% of projects with sufficient accuracy over time with little effort. The remaining 20% of projects that don’t meet their standard target dates can be managed as exceptions.

    The increased consistency of most projects will enable you to focus more on managing the exceptions.

    Example of standard project sizes:

    Level Primary unit of estimation Target completion date*
    1 Weeks 3 weeks – 3 months
    2 Months 3 months – 6 months
    3 Quarters 2 – 4 quarters
    3+ Years 1 year or more

    * Target completion date is simply that – a target, not a service level agreement (SLA). Some exceptions will far exceed the target date, e.g. projects that depend heavily on external or uncontrollable factors.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Project levelling is useful for right-sizing many downstream processes; it sets appropriate levels of detail and scrutiny expected for project approval and prioritization steps, as well as the appropriate extent of requirements gathering, project management, and reporting requirements afterwards.

    Set your thresholds for level 2 and level 3 projects

    2.1.5 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    Now that the minimum threshold for your smallest projects has been identified, it’s time to identify the maximum threshold in order to better apply project intake, approval, and prioritization rigor where it’s needed.

    1. Looking at your project list (e.g. Activity 1.1.1, or your current project backlog), isolate the medium and large projects. Examine the two categories in turn.
    2. Start with the medium projects. Using the criteria identified in Activity 2.1.3, identify where your level one category ends.
    • What are the commonly recurring thresholds that distinguish medium-sized projects from smaller initiatives?
    • Are there any criteria that would need to take on a greater importance when making the distinction? For instance, will cost or duration take on a greater weighting when determining level thresholds?
    • Once you have reached consensus, record these in the table on the next slide.
  • Now examine your largest projects. Once again relying on the criteria from Activity 2.1.3, determine where your medium-sized projects end and your large projects begin.
    • What are the commonly recurring thresholds that distinguish large and extra-large projects from medium-sized initiatives?
    • Once you have reached consensus, records these in the table on the next slide.

    INPUT

    • Leveling criteria from Activity 2.1.3
    • Project backlog, or list of projects from Activity 1.1.1

    OUTPUT

    • Clarity around how to define your level two and three projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • The project level table on the next slide

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Sample Project Levels Table

    Project Level Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
    Work Effort 40-100 hours 100-500 hours 500+ hours
    Budget $100,000 and under $100,000 to $500,000 $500,000 and over
    Technology In-house expertise Familiar New or requires system-wide change/training
    Complexity Well-defined solution; no problems expected Solution is known; some problems expected Solution is unknown or not clearly defined
    Cross-Functional Workgroups/Teams 1-2 3-5 > 6

    Apply a computation decision-making method for project levelling

    2.1.5 Project Intake Classification Matrix

    Capture the project levels in Info-Tech’s Project Intake Classification Matrix Tool to benchmark your levelling criteria and to determine project levels for proposed projects.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake Classification Matrix tool.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake Classification Matrix Tool, tab 2 is shown.
    1. Pick a category to define project levels.
    2. Enter the descriptions for each project level.
    3. Assign a relative weight for each category.
    4. A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake Classification Matrix Tool, tab 3 is shown.
    5. Enter a project name.
    6. Choose the description that best fits the project. If unknown, leave it blank.
    7. Suggested project levels are displayed.

    Get tentative buy-in and support from an executive sponsor for project requests

    In most organizations a project requires sponsorship from the executive layer, especially for strategic initiatives. The executive sponsor provides several vital factors for projects:

    • Funding and resources
    • Direct support and oversight of the project leadership
    • Accountability, acting as the ultimate decision maker for the project
    • Ownership of, and commitment to, project benefits

    Sometimes a project request may be made directly by a sponsor; in other times, the Request Liaison may need to connect the project request to a project sponsor.

    In either case, project request has a tentative buy-in and support of an executive sponsor before a project request is developed into a proposal and examined for approval – the subject of this blueprint’s next step.

    PMs and Sponsors: The Disconnect

    A study in project sponsorship revealed a large gap between the perception of the project managers and the perception of sponsors relative to the sponsor capability. The widest gaps appear in the areas of:

    • Motivation: 34% of PMs say sponsors frequently motivate the team, compared to 82% of executive sponsors who say they do so.
    • Active listening: 42% of PMs say that sponsors frequently listen actively, compared to 88% of executive sponsors who say they do so.
    • Effective communication: 47% of PMs say sponsors communicate effectively and frequently, compared to 92% of executive sponsors who say they do so.
    • Managing change: 37% of PMs say sponsors manage change, compared to 82% of executive sponsors who say they do so.

    Source: Boston Consulting Group/PMI, 2014

    Actively engaged executive sponsors continue to be the top driver of whether projects meet their original goals and business intent.

    – PMI Pulse of the Profession, 2017

    76% of respondents [organizations] agree that the role of the executive sponsor has grown in importance over the past five years.

    – Boston Consulting Group/PMI, 2014

    Document your process to follow up on project requests

    2.1.6 45 minutes

    Review and customize section 2.4, “Follow up on project requests” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    The goal of optimizing this process is to initiate communication among the requestor, IT, and the sponsor to scope the project requests at a high level. The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. How will you perform a scoping exercise with the requestor? Leverage existing organizational processes (e.g. high-level requirements gathering). Look to the previous slides for suggested outcomes of the exercise.
    2. How will you determine project levels? Record the outcomes of activities 2.1.5 into the SOP.
    3. How will the RL follow up on the scoped project request with a project sponsor? For example, project requests scoped at a high level will be presented to senior leadership whose lines of business are affected by the proposed project to gauge their initial interest.
    4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? For example, impose a maximum of 8 hours per week per analyst, and track the hours worked for each request to establish a pattern for capacity consumption.
    5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

    INPUT

    • Activity 2.1.5
    • Existing processes for scoping exercises

    OUTPUT

    • SOP for following up on project requests

    Materials

    • SOP Template

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Examine the new project intake workflow as a whole and document it in a flow chart

    2.1.7 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    Review and customize section 2.1, “Project Intake Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    In Step 1.2 of the blueprint, you mapped out the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow and documented it in a flow chart. In this step, take the time to examine the new project intake process as a whole, and document the new workflow in the form of a flow chart.

    1. Requestor fills out form and submits the request.
    2. Requests are triaged into the proper queue.
    3. BA or PM prepares to develop requests into a project proposal.
    4. Requestor is given realistic expectations for approval process.

    Consider the following points:

    1. Are the inputs and outputs of each step clear? Who’s doing the work? How long will each step take, on average?
    2. Is the ownership of each step clear? How will we ensure a smooth handoff between each step and prevent requests from falling through the cracks?

    INPUT

    • New process steps for project intake (Activities 2.1.2-6)

    OUTPUT

    • Flowchart representation of new project intake workflow

    Materials

    • Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Case study: Portfolio manager achieves intake and project success through detailed request follow-up

    Case Study

    Industry: Municipal Government

    Source: Info-Tech Client

    Challenge

    • There is an IT department with a relatively high level of project management maturity.
    • They have approximately 30 projects on the go, ranging from small to large.
    • To help with intake, IT assembled a project initiation team. It was made up of managers from throughout the county. This group “owned the talent” and met once a month to assess requests. As a group, they were able to assemble project teams quickly.

    Solution

    • Project initiation processes kept failing. A lot of time was spent within IT getting estimations precise, only to have sponsors reject business cases because they did not align with what those sponsors had in mind.
    • Off-the-grid projects were a challenge. Directors did not follow intake process and IT talent was torn in multiple directions. There was nothing in place for protecting the talent and enforcing processes on stakeholders.

    Results

    • IT dedicated a group of PMs and BAs to follow up on requests.
    • Working with stakeholders, this group collects specific pieces of information that allows IT to get to work on requests faster. Through this process, requests reach the charter stage more quickly and with greater success.
    • An intake ticketing system was established to protect IT talent. Workers are now better equipped to redirect stakeholders through to the proper channels.

    Step 2.2: Set up steps of project approval to maximize strategic alignment while right-sizing the required effort

    PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

    1.1

    Define project valuation criteria

    1.2

    Envision process target state

    2.1

    Streamline intake

    2.2

    Right-size approval steps

    2.3

    Prioritize projects to fit resource capacity

    3.1

    Pilot your optimized process

    3.2

    Communicate organizational change

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Perform a deeper retrospective on current project approval process
    • Define the approval steps, their accountabilities, and the corresponding terminologies for approval
    • Right-size effort and documentation required for each project level through the approval steps

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Administrative Staff

    Outcomes of this step

    • Retrospective of the current project intake process: to continue doing, to start doing, and to stop doing
    • A series of approval steps are defined, in which their accountabilities, responsibilities, and the nomenclature for what is approved at each steps are clarified and documented
    • A toolbox of deliverables for proposed projects that captures key information developed to inform project approval decisions at each step of the approval process, and the organizational standard for what to use for which project level
    • Documentation of the optimized process in the SOP document

    Set up an incremental series of approval stage-gates to tackle common challenges in project approval

    This section will help you address key challenges IT leaders face around project approval.

    Challenges Info-Tech’s Advice
    Project sponsors receive funding from their business unit or other source (possibly external, such as a grant), and assume this means their project is “approved” without any regard to IT costs or resource constraints. Clearly define a series of approval steps, and communicate requirements for passing them.
    Business case documentation is rarely updated to reflect unforeseen costs, emerging opportunities, and changing priorities. As a result, time and money is spent finishing diminished priority projects while the value of more recent projects erodes in the backlog. Approve projects in smaller pieces, with early test/pilot phases focused on demonstrating the value of later phases.
    Project business cases often focus on implementation and overlook ongoing operating costs imposed on IT after the project is finished. These costs further diminish IT’s capacity for new projects, unless investment in more capacity (such as hiring) is included in business cases. Make ongoing support and maintenance costs a key element in business case templates and evaluations.
    Organizations approve new projects without regard to the availability of resource capacity (or lack thereof). Project lead times grow and stakeholders become more dissatisfied because IT is unable to show how the business is competing with itself for IT’s time. Increase visibility into what IT is already working on and committed to, and for whom.

    Develop a project approval workflow

    Clearly define a series of approval steps, and communicate requirements for passing them. “Approval” can be a dangerous word in project and portfolio management, so it is important to clarify what is required to pass each step, and how long the process will take.

    1 2 3 4
    Approval step Concept Approval Feasibility Approval Business Case Approval Resource Allocation (Prioritization)
    Alignment Focus Business need / Project sponsorship Technology Organization-wide business need Resource capacity
    Possible dispositions at each gate
    • Approve developing project proposal
    • Reject concept
    • Proceed to business case approval
    • Approve a test/pilot project for feasibility
    • Reject proposal
    • Approve project and funding in full
    • Approve a test/pilot project for viability
    • Reject proposal
    • Begin or continue project work
    • Hold project
    • Outsource project
    • Reject project
    Accountability e.g. Project Sponsor e.g. CIO e.g. Steering Committee e.g. CIO
    Deliverable Benefits Commitment Form Template Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool Business Case (Fast Track, Comprehensive) Intake and Prioritization Tool

    Identify the decision-making paradigm at each step

    In general, there are three different, mutually exclusive decision-making paradigms for approving projects:

    Paradigm Description Benefits Challenges Recommendation
    Unilateral authority One individual makes decisions. Decisions tend to be made efficiently and unambiguously. Consistency of agenda is easier to preserve. Decisions are subject to one person’s biases and unseen areas. Decision maker should solicit and consider input from others and seek objective rigor.
    Ad hoc deliberation Stakeholders informally negotiate and communicate decisions between themselves. Deliberation helps ensure different perspectives are considered to counterbalance individual biases and unseen areas. Ad hoc decisions tend to lack documentation and objective rationale, which can perpetuate disagreement. Use where unilateral decisions are unfeasible (due to complexity, speed of change, culture, etc.), and stakeholders are very well aligned or highly skilled negotiators and communicators.
    Formal steering committee A select group that represent various parts of the organization is formally empowered to make decisions for the organization. Formal committees can ensure oversight into decisions, with levers available to help resolve uncertainty or disagreement. Formal committees introduce administrative overhead and effort that might not be warranted by the risks involved. Formal steering committees are best where formality is warranted by the risks and costs involved, and the organizational culture has an appetite for administrative oversight.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The individual or party who has the authority to make choices, and who is ultimately answerable for those decisions, is said to be accountable. Understanding the needs of the accountable party is critical to the success of the project approval process optimization efforts.

    Perform a start-stop-continue exercise to help determine what is working and what is not working

    2.2.1 Estimated Time: 45 minutes

    Optimizing project approval may not require a complete overhaul of your existing processes. You may only need to tweak certain templates or policies. Perhaps you started out with a strong process and simply lost resolve over time – in which case you will need to focus on establishing motivation and discipline, rather than rework your entire process.

    Perform a start-stop-continue exercise with your team to help determine what should be salvaged, what should be abandoned, and what should be introduced:

    1.On a whiteboard or equivalent, write “Start,” “Stop,” and “Continue” in three separate columns. 3.As a group, discuss the responses and come to an agreement as to which are most valid.
    2.Equip your team with sticky notes or markers and have them populate the columns with ideas and suggestions surrounding your current processes. 4.;Document the responses to help structure your game plan for intake optimization.
    StartStopContinue
    • Inject technical feasibility approval step as an input to final approval
    • Simplify business cases
    • Approve low-value projects
    • Take too long in proposal development
    • Quarterly approval meetings
    • Approve resources for proposal development

    INPUT

    • Current project approval workflow (Activity 1.2.2)
    • Project approval success criteria (Activity 1.2.6)

    OUTPUT

    • Retrospective review of current approval process

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes/markers

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Customize the approval steps and describe them at a high level

    2.2.2 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    Review and customize section 3.2, “Project Approval Steps” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    The goal of this activity is to customize the definition of the approval steps for your organization, so that it makes sense for the existing organizational governance structure, culture, and need. Use the results of the start-stop-continue to inform what to customize. Consider the following factors:

    1. Order of steps: given the current decision-making paradigm, does it make sense to reorder the steps?
    2. Dispositions at each step: what are the possible dispositions, and who is accountable for making the dispositions?
    3. Project levels: do all projects require three-step approval before they’re up for prioritization? For example, IT steering committee may wish to be involved only for Level 3 projects and Level 2 projects with significant business impact, and not for Level 1 projects and IT-centric Level 2 projects.
    4. Accountability at each step: who makes the decisions?
    5. Who will handle exceptions? Aim to prevent the new process from being circumvented by vocal stakeholders, but also allow for very urgent requests. A quick win to strike this balance is to clarify who will exercise this discretion.

    INPUT

    • Retrospective of current process (Activity 2.2.1)
    • Project level definition
    • Approval steps in the previous slide

    OUTPUT

    • Customized project approval steps for each project level

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Specify what “approval” really means to manage expectations for what project work can be done and when

    2.2.3 Estimated Time: 15 minutes

    Review and customize section 3.2, “Project Approval Steps” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    In the old reality, projects were approved and never heard back from again, which effectively gave your stakeholders a blanket default expectation of “declined.” With the new approval process, manage your stakeholder expectations more explicitly by refining your vocabulary around approval.

    Within this, decision makers should view their role in approval as approving that which can and should be done. When a project is approved and slated to backlog, the intention should be to allocate resources to it within the current intake cycle.

    Customize the table to the right with organizationally appropriate definitions, and update your SOP.

    “No” Declined.
    “Not Now” “It’s a good idea, but the time isn’t right. Try resubmitting next intake cycle.”
    “Concept Approval” Approval to add the item to the backlog with the intention of starting it this intake cycle.
    “Preliminary Approval” Approval for consumption of PMO resources to develop a business case.
    “Full Approval” Project is greenlighted and project resources are being allocated to it.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Refine the nomenclature. Add context to “approved” and “declined.” Speak in terms of “not now” or “you can have it when these conditions are met.” With clear expectations of the resources required to support each request, you can place accountability for keeping the request alive back on the sponsors.

    Continuously work out a balance between disciplined decision making and “analysis paralysis"

    A graph is depicted to show the relationship between disciplined decision making and analysis paralysis. The sweet spot for disciplined decisions changes between situations and types of decisions.

    A double bar graph is depicted to show the relative effort spent on management practice. The first bar shows that 20% has a high success of portfolio management. 35% has a low success of portfolio management. A caption on the graph: Spending additional time assessing business cases doesn’t necessarily improve success.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Estimates that form the basis of business cases are often based on flawed assumptions. Use early project phases or sprints to build working prototypes to test the assumptions on which business cases are built, rather than investing time improving precision of estimates without improving accuracy.

    Right-size project approval process with Info-Tech’s toolbox of deliverables

    Don’t paint every project with the same brush. Choose the right set of information needed for each project level to maximize the throughput of project approval process.

    The next several slides will take you through a series of tools and templates that help guide the production of deliverables. Each deliverable wireframes the required analysis of the proposed project for one step of the approval process, and captures that information in a document. This breaks down the overall work for proposal development into digestible chunks.

    As previously discussed, aim to right-size the approval process rigor for project levels. Not all project levels may call for all steps of approval, or the extent of required analysis within an approval step may differ. This section will conclude by customizing the requirement for deliverables for each project level.

    Tools and Templates for the Project Approval Toolbox

    • Benefits Commitment Form Template (.xlsx) Document the project sponsor’s buy-in and commitment to proposed benefits in a lightweight fashion.
    • Proposed Technology Assessment Tool (.xlsx) Determine the proposed project’s readiness for adoption from a technological perspective.
    • Business Case Templates (.docx) Guide the analysis process for the overall project proposal development in varying levels of detail.

    Use Info-Tech’s lightweight Benefits Commitment Form Template to document the sponsor buy-in and support

    2.2.4 Benefits Commitment Form Template

    Project sponsors are accountable for the realization of project benefits. Therefore, for a project to be approved by a project sponsor, they must buy-in and commit to the proposed benefits.

    Defining project benefits and obtaining project sponsor commitment has been demonstrated to improve the project outcome by providing the focal point of the project up-front. This will help reduce wasted efforts to develop parts of the proposals that are not ultimately needed.

    A double bar graph titled: Benefits realization improves project outcome is shown.

    Download Info-Tech’s Benefits Commitment Form Template.

    Contents of a Benefits Commitment Form

    • One-sentence highlight of benefits and risks
    • Primary benefit, hard (quantitative) and soft (qualitative)
    • Proposed measurements for metrics
    • Responsible and accountable parties for benefits
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Establish the Benefits Realization Process blueprint is shown.

    For further discussion on benefits realization, use Info-Tech’s blueprint, Establish the Benefits Realization Process.

    Use Info-Tech’s Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool to analyze a technology’s readiness for adoption

    2.2.4 Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool

    In some projects, there needs to be an initial idea of what the project might look like. Develop a high-level solution for projects that:

    • Are very different from previous projects.
    • Are fairly complex, or not business as usual.
    • Require adoption of new technology or skill set.

    IT should advise and provide subject matter expertise on the technology requirements to those that ultimately approve the proposed projects, so that they can take into account additional costs or risks that may be borne from it.

    Info-Tech’s Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool has a series of questions to address eight categories of considerations to determine the project’s technological readiness for adoption. Use this tool to ensure that you cover all the bases, and help you devise alternate solutions if necessary – which will factor into the overall business case development.

    Download Info-Tech’s Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool is shown.

    Enable project valuation beyond financial metrics with Info-Tech’s Business Case Templates

    2.2.4 Business Case Template (Comprehensive and Fast Track)

    Traditionally, a business case is centered around financial metrics. While monetary benefits and costs are matters of bottom line and important, financial metrics are only part of a project’s value. As the project approval decisions must be based on the holistic comparison of project value, the business case document must capture all the necessary – and only those that are necessary – information to enable it.

    However, completeness of information does not always require comprehensiveness. Allow for flexibility to speed up the process of developing business plan by making a “fast-track” business case template available. This enables the application of the project valuation criteria with all other projects, with right-sized effort.

    Alarming business case statistics

    • Only one-third of companies always prepare a business case for new projects.
    • Nearly 45% of project managers admit they are unclear on the business objectives of their IT projects.

    (Source: Wrike)

    Download Info-Tech’s Comprehensive Business Case Template.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Comprehensive Business Case Template is shown.

    Download Info-Tech’s Fast Track Business Case Template.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Fast Track Business Case Template is shown.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Pass on that which is known. Valuable information about projects is lost due to a disconnect between project intake and project initiation, as project managers are typically not brought on board until project is actually approved. This will be discussed more in Phase 3 of this blueprint.

    Document the right-sized effort and documentation required for each project level

    2.2.4 Estimated Time:60-90 minutes

    Review and customize section 3.3, “Project Proposal Deliverables” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    The goal of this activity is to customize the requirements for project proposal deliverables, so that it properly informs each of the approval steps discussed in the previous activity. The deliverables will also shape the work effort required for projects of various levels. Consider the following factors:

    1. Project levels: what deliverables should be required, recommended, or suggested for each of the project levels? How will exceptions be handled, and who will be accountable?
    2. Existing project proposal documents: what existing proposal documents, tools and templates can we leverage for the newly optimized approval steps?
    3. Skills availability: do these tools and templates represent a significant departure from the current state? If so, is there capacity (time and skill) to achieve the desired target state?
    4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? Do a rough order of estimate for the resource capacity consumed the new deliverable standard.
    5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

    INPUT

    • Process steps (Activity 2.2.2)
    • Current approval workflow(Activity 1.2.1)
    • Artifacts introduced in the previous slides

    OUTPUT

    • Requirement for artifacts and effort for each approval step

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Examine the new project approval workflow as a whole and document it in a flow chart

    2.2.5 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    Review and customize section 3.1, “Project Approval Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    In Step 1.2 of the blueprint, you mapped out the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow and documented it in a flow chart. In this step, take the time to examine the new project intake process as a whole, and document the new workflow in the form of a flow chart.

    1 2 3 4
    Approval Step Concept Approval Feasibility Approval Business Case Approval Resource Allocation (Prioritization)
    Alignment Focus Business need/ Project Sponsorship Technology

    Organization-wide

    Business need

    Resource capacity

    Consider the following points:

    1. Are the inputs and outputs of each step clear? Who’s doing the work? How long will each step take, on average?
    2. Is the ownership of each step clear? How will we ensure a smooth hand-off between each step and prevent requests from falling through the cracks?

    INPUT

    • New process steps for project approval (Activities 2.2.2-4)

    OUTPUT

    • Flowchart representation of new project approval workflow

    Materials

    • Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Step 2.3: Prioritize projects to maximize the value of the project portfolio within the constraint of resource capacity

    PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

    1.1

    Define project valuation criteria

    1.2

    Envision process target state

    2.1

    Streamline intake

    2.2

    Right-size approval steps

    2.3

    Prioritize projects to fit resource capacity

    3.1

    Pilot your optimized process

    3.2

    Communicate organizational change

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Perform a deeper retrospective on current project prioritization process
    • Optimize your process to maintain resource capacity supply and project demand data
    • Optimize your process to formally make disposition recommendations to appropriate decision makers

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Administrative Staff

    Outcomes of this step

    • Retrospective of the current project prioritization process: to continue doing, to start doing, and to stop doing
    • Realistic estimate of available resource capacity, in the absence of a resource management practice
    • Optimized process for presenting the decision makers with recommendations and facilitating capacity-constrained steering of the project portfolio
    • Project Intake and Prioritization Tool for facilitating the prioritization process
    • Documentation of the optimized process in the SOP document

    The availability of staff time is rarely factored into IT project and service delivery commitments

    A lot gets promised and worked on, and staff are always busy, but very little actually gets done – at least not within given timelines or to expected levels of quality.

    Organizations tend to bite off more than they can chew when it comes to project and service delivery commitments involving IT resources.

    While the need for businesses to make an excess of IT commitments is understandable, the impacts of systemically over-allocating IT are clearly negative:

    • Stakeholder relations suffer. Promises are made to the business that can’t be met by IT.
    • IT delivery suffers. Project timelines and quality frequently suffer, and service support regularly lags.
    • Employee engagement suffers. Anxiety and stress levels are consistently high among IT staff, while morale and engagement levels are low.

    76%: 76% of organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to.

    – Cooper, 2014

    70%: Almost 70% of workers feel as though they have too much work on their plates and not enough time to do it.

    – Reynolds, 2016

    Unconstrained, unmanaged demand leads to prioritization of work based on consequences rather than value

    Problems caused by the organizational tendency to make unrealistic delivery commitments is further complicated by the reality of the matrix environment.

    Today, many IT departments use matrix organization. In this system, demands on a resource’s time come from many directions. While resources are expected to prioritize their work, they lack the authority to formally reject any demand. As a result, unconstrained, unmanaged demand frequently outstrips the supply of work-hours the resource can deliver.

    When this happens, the resource has three options:

    1. Work more hours, typically without compensation.
    2. Choose tasks not to do in a way that minimizes personal consequences.
    3. Diminish work quality to meet quantity demands.

    The result is an unsustainable system for all those involved:

    1. Individual workers cannot meet expectations, leading to frustration and disengagement.
    2. Managers cannot deliver on the projects or services they manage and struggle to retain skilled resources who are looking elsewhere for “greener pastures.”
    3. Executives cannot execute strategic plans as they lose decision-making power over their resources.

    Prioritize project demand by project value to get the most out of constrained project capacity – but practicing it is difficult

    The theory may be simple and intuitive, but the practice is extremely challenging. There are three practical challenges to making project prioritization effective.

    Project Prioritization

    Capacity awareness

    Many IT departments struggle to realistically estimate available project capacity in a credible way. Stakeholders question the validity of your endeavor to install capacity-constrained intake process, and mistake it for unwillingness to cooperate instead.

    Lack of authority

    Many PMOs and IT departments simply lack the ability to decline or defer new projects.

    Many moving parts

    Project intake, approval, and prioritization involve the coordination of various departments. Therefore, they require a great deal of buy-in and compliance from multiple stakeholders and senior executives.

    Project Approval

    Unclear definition of value

    Defining the project value is difficult, because there are so many different and conflicting ways that are all valid in their own right. However, without it, it's impossible to fairly compare among projects to select what's "best."

    Unclear definition of value

    In Step 1.1 of the blueprint, we took the first step toward resolving this challenge by prototyping a project valuation scorecard.

    A screenshot of Step 1.1 of this blueprint is shown.

    "Prioritization is a huge issue for us. We face the simultaneous challenges of not having enough resources but also not having a good way to say no. "

    – CIO, governmental health agency

    Address the challenges of capacity awareness and authority with a project prioritization workflow

    Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for managing project prioritization.

    1. Collect and update supply and demand data
      1. Re-evaluate project value for all proposed, on-hold and ongoing projects
      2. Estimate available resource capacity for projects
    2. Prioritize project demand by value
      1. Identify highest-value, “slam-dunk” projects
      2. Identify medium-value, “on-the-bubble” projects
      3. Identify lower-value projects that lie beyond the available capacity
    3. Approve projects for initiation or continuation
      1. Submit recommendations for review
      2. Adjust prioritized list with business judgment
      3. Steering committee approves projects to work on
    4. Manage a realistically defined project portfolio
    • Stakeholder Need
    • Strategic Objectives
    • Resource Capacity

    Intake and Prioritization Tool

    Perform a start-stop-continue exercise to help determine what is working and what is not working

    2.3.1 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Optimizing project prioritization may not require a complete overhaul of your existing processes. You may only need to tweak certain templates or policies. Perhaps you started out with a strong process and simply lost resolve over time – in which case you will need to focus on establishing motivation and discipline, rather than rework your entire process.

    Perform a start-stop-continue exercise with your team to help determine what should be salvaged, what should be abandoned, and what should be introduced:

    1. On a whiteboard or equivalent, write “Start,” “Stop,” and “Continue” in three separate columns. 3. As a group, discuss the responses and come to an agreement as to which are most valid.
    2. Equip your team with sticky notes or markers and have them populate the columns with ideas and suggestions surrounding your current processes. 4. Document the responses to help structure your game plan for intake optimization.
    Start Stop Continue
    • Periodically review the project value scorecard with business stakeholders
    • “Loud Voices First” prioritization
    • Post-prioritization score changes
    • Updating project value scores for current projects

    INPUT

    • Current project prioritization workflow (Activity 1.2.2)
    • Project prioritization success criteria (Activity 1.2.6)

    OUTPUT

    • Retrospective review of current prioritization process

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes/markers

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Use Info-Tech’s lightweight Intake and Prioritization Tool to get started on capacity-constrained project prioritization

    Use Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool to facilitate the scorecard-driven prioritization and ensure effective flow of data.

    This tool builds on the Project Valuation Scorecard Tool to address the challenges in project prioritization:

    1. Lack of capacity awareness: quickly estimate a realistic supply of available work hours for projects for a given prioritization period, in the absence of a reliable and well-maintained resource utilization and capacity data.
    2. Using standard project sizing, quickly estimate the size of the demand for proposed and ongoing projects and produce a report that recommends the list of projects to greenlight – and highlight the projects within that list that are at risk of being short-charged of resources – that will aim to help you tackle:

    3. Lack of authority to say “no” or “not yet” to projects: save time and effort in presenting the results of project prioritization analysis that will enable the decision makers to make well-informed, high-quality portfolio decisions.
    4. The next several slides will walk you through the tool and present activities to facilitate its use for your organization.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake Prioritization Tool is shown.

    Create a high-level estimate of available project capacity to inform how many projects can be greenlighted

    2.3.2 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 2: Project Capacity

    Estimate how many work-hours are at your disposal for projects using Info-Tech’s resource calculator.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 2: Project Capacity

    1. Compile a list of each role within your department, the number of staff, and the hours in a typical work week.

    2. Enter the foreseeable out-of-office time (vacation, sick time, etc.). Typically, this value is 12-16% depending on the region.

    3. Enter how much working time is spent on non-projects for each role: administrative duties and “keep the lights on” work.

    4. Select a period of time for breaking down available resource capacity in hours.

    Project Work (%): Percentage of your working time that goes toward project work is calculated as what’s left after your non-project working time allocations have been subtracted.

    Project (h) Total Percentage: Take a note of this percentage as your project capacity. This number will put the estimated project demand in context for the rest of the tool.

    Example for a five-day work week:

    • 2 weeks (10 days) of statutory holidays
    • 3 weeks of vacation
    • 1.4 weeks (7 days) of sick days on average
    • 1 week (5 days) for company holidays

    Result: 7.4/52 weeks’ absence = 14%

    Estimate your available project capacity for the next quarter, half-year, or year

    2.3.2 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    Discover how many work-hours are at your disposal for project work.

    1. Use the wisdom-of-the-crowd approach or resource utilization data to fill out Tab 2 of the tool. This is intended to be somewhat of a rough estimate; avoid the pitfall of being too granular in role or in time split.
    2. Choose a time period that corresponds to your project prioritization period: monthly, quarterly, 4 months, semi-annually (6 months), or annually.
    3. Examine the pie graph representation of your overall capacity breakdown, like the one shown below.

    Screenshot from Tab 2 of Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    INPUT

    • Knowledge of organization’s personnel and their distribution of time

    OUTPUT

    • Estimate of available project capacity

    Materials

    • Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    On average, only about half of the available project capacity results in productive project work

    Place realistic expectations on your resources’ productivity.

    Info-Tech’s PPM Current State Scorecard diagnostic provides a comprehensive view of your portfolio management strengths and weaknesses, including project portfolio management, project management, customer management, and resource utilization.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's PPM Current State Scorecard diagnostic

    Use the wisdom of the crowd to estimate resource waste in:

    • Cancelled projects
    • Inefficiency
    • Suboptimal assignment of resources
    • Unassigned resources
    • Analyzing, fixing, and redeploying

    50% of PPM resource is wasted on average, effectively halving your available project capacity.

    Source: Info-Tech PPM Current State Scorecard

    Define project capacity and project t-shirt sizes

    2.3.3 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 3: Settings

    The resource capacity calculator in the previous tab yields a likely optimistic estimate for how much project capacity is available. Based on this estimate as a guide, enter your optimistic (maximum) and pessimistic (minimum) estimates of project capacity as a percentage of total capacity:

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 3

    Info-Tech’s data shows that only about 50% of time spent on project work is wasted: cancelled projects, inefficiency, rework, etc. As a general rule, enter half of your maximum estimate of your project capacity.

    Capacity in work hours is shown here from the previous tab, to put the percentages in context. This example shows a quarterly breakdown (Step 4 from the previous slide; cell N5 in Tab 2.).

    Next, estimate the percentage of your maximum estimated project capacity that a single project would typically consume in the given period for prioritization.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 3

    These project sizes might not line up with the standard project levels from Step 2.1 of the blueprint: for example, an urgent mid-sized project that requires all hands on deck may need to consume almost 100% of maximum available project capacity.

    Estimate available project capacity and standard project demand sizes for prioritizing project demand

    2.3.3 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    Refine your estimates of project capacity supply and demand as it applies to a prioritization period.

    1. The estimated project capacity from Activity 2.3.2 represents a theoretical limit. It is most likely an overestimation (see box below). As a group, discuss and decide on a more realistic available project capacity:
      1. Optimistic estimate, assuming sustained peak productivity from everyone in your organization;
      2. Pessimistic estimate, taking into account the necessary human downtime and the PPM resource waste (see previous slide).
    2. Refine the choices of standard project effort sizes, expressed as percentages of maximum project capacity. As a reminder, this sizing is for the chosen prioritization period, and is independent from the project levels set previously in Activity 2.1.4 and 2.1.5.

    Dedicated work needs dedicated break time

    In a study conducted by the Draugiem Group, the ideal work-to-break ratio for maximizing focus and productivity was 52 minutes of work, followed by 17 minutes of rest (Evans). This translates to 75% of resource capacity yielding productive work, which could inform your optimistic estimate of project capacity.

    INPUT

    • Project capacity (Activity 2.3.2)
    • PPM Current State Scorecard (optional)

    OUTPUT

    • Capacity and demand estimate data for tool use

    Materials

    • Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Finish setting up the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    2.3.4 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 3: Settings

    Enter the scoring criteria, which was worked out from Step 1.1 of the blueprint. This workbook supports up to ten scoring criteria; use of more than ten may make the prioritization step unwieldy.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 3

    Leave unused criteria rows blank.

    Choose “value” or “execution” from a drop-down.

    Score does not need to add up to 100.

    Finally, set up the rest of the drop-downs used in the next tab, Project Data. These can be customized to fit your unique project portfolio needs.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 3

    Enter project data into the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    2.3.4 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 4: Project Data

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 4

    Ensure that each project has a unique name.

    Completed (or cancelled) projects will not be included in prioritization.

    Choose the standard project size defined in the previous tab.

    Change the heading when you customize the workbook.

    Days in Backlog is calculated from the Date Added column.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 4

    Overall weighted project prioritization score is calculated as a sum of value and execution scores.

    Weighted value and execution scores are calculated according to the scoring criteria table in the 2. Settings tab.

    Enter the raw scores. Weights will be taken into calculation behind the scenes.

    Spaces for unused intake scores will be greyed out. You can enter data, but they will not affect the calculated scores.

    Document your process to maintain resource capacity supply and project demand data

    2.3.4 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    Review and customize section 4.2, “Maintain Supply and Demand Data” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    The goal of this activity is to document the process with which the supply and demand information will be updated for projects. Consider the following factors:

    1. Estimates of resource supply: how often will the resource supply be updated? How are you estimating the range (maximum vs. minimum, optimistic vs. pessimistic)? Leverage your existing organizational process assets for resource management.
    2. Updating project data for proposed projects: when and how often will the project valuation scores be updated? Do you have sufficient inputs? Examine the overall project approval process from Step 2.2 of the blueprint, and ensure that sufficient information is available for project valuation (Activity 2.2.3).
    3. Updating project data for ongoing projects: will you prioritize ongoing projects along with proposed projects? When and how often will the project valuation scores be updated? Do you have sufficient inputs?
    4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? Do a rough order of estimate for the resource capacity consumed in this process.
    5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

    INPUT

    • Organizational process assets for resource management, strategic planning, etc.
    • Activity 2.3.3
    • Activity 2.2.3

    OUTPUT

    • Process steps for refreshing supply and demand data

    Materials

    • SOP Template
    • Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • PMO Admin Staff

    Prioritized list of projects shows what fits under available project capacity for realizing maximum value

    2.3.5 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 5: Results

    The output of the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool is a prioritized list of projects with indicators to show that their demand on project capacity will fit within the estimated available project capacity for the prioritization period.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 5

    Status indicates whether the project is proposed or ongoing; completed projects are excluded.

    Disposition indicates the course of recommended action based on prioritization.

    Proposed projects display how long they have been sitting in the backlog.

    Projects highlighted yellow are marked as “deliberate” for their dispositions. These projects pose risks of not getting properly resourced. One must proceed with caution if they are to be initiated or continued.

    Provide better support to decision makers with the prioritized list, and be prepared for their steering

    It is the portfolio manager’s responsibility to provide the project portfolio owners with reliable data and enable them to make well-informed decisions for the portfolio.

    The prioritized list of proposed and ongoing projects, and an approximate indication for how they fill out the estimated available resource capacity, provide a meaningful starting ground for discussion on which projects to continue or initiate, to hold, or to proceed with caution.

    However, it is important to recognize the limitation of the prioritization methodology. There may be legitimate reasons why some projects should be prioritized over another that the project valuation method does not successfully capture. At the end of the day, it’s the prerogative of the portfolio owners who carry on the accountabilities to steer the portfolio.

    The portfolio manager has a responsibility to be prepared for reconciling the said steering with the unchanged available resource capacity for project work. What comes off the list of projects to continue or initiate? Or, will we outsource capacity if we must meet irreconcilable demand? The next slide will show how Info-Tech’s tool helps you with this process.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Strive to become the best co-pilot. Constantly iterate on the scoring criteria to better adapt to the portfolio owners’ preference in steering the project portfolio.

    Manipulate the prioritized list with the Force Disposition list

    2.3.5 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 5: Results

    The Force Disposition list enables you to inject subjective judgment in project prioritization. Force include and outsource override project prioritization scores and include the projects for approval:

    • Force include counts the project demand against capacity.
    • Outsource, on the other hand, does not count the project demand.
    • Force exclude removes a project from prioritized list altogether, without deleting the row and losing its data.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 5

    Choose a project name and a disposition using a drop-down.

    Use this list to test out various scenarios, useful for what-if analysis.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 5

    Document your process to formally make disposition recommendations to appropriate decision-making party

    2.3.5 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Review and customize section 4.3, “Approve projects for initiation or continuation” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    The goal of this activity is to formalize the process of presenting the prioritized list of projects for review, modify the list based on steering decisions, and obtain the portfolio owners’ approval for projects to initiate or continue, hold, or terminate. Consider the following factors:

    1. Existing final approval process: what are the new injections to the current decision-making process for final approval?
    2. Meeting prep, agenda, and follow-up: what are the activities that must be carried out by PMO / portfolio manager to support the portfolio decision makers and obtain final approval?
    3. “Deliberate” projects: what additional information should portfolio owners be presented with, in order to deliberate on the projects at risk of being not properly resourced? For example, consider a value-execution plot (right).

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool Tab 5

    INPUT

    • Approval process steps (Activity 2.2.2)
    • Steering Committee process documentation

    OUTPUT

    • Activities for supporting the decision-making body

    Materials

    • SOP Template
    • Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Once a project is approved, pass that which is known on to those responsible for downstream processes

    Aim to be responsible stewards of important and costly information developed throughout project intake, approval, and prioritization processes.

    Once the proposed project is given a green light, the project enters an initiation phase.

    No matter what project management methodology is employed, it is absolutely vital to pass on the knowledge gained and insights developed through the intake, approval, and prioritization processes. This ensures that the project managers and team are informed of the project’s purpose, business benefits, rationale for the project approval, etc. and be able to focus their efforts in realizing the project’s business goals.

    Recognize that this does not aim to create any new artifacts. It is simply a procedural safeguard against the loss of important and costly information assets for your organization.

    A flowchart is shown as an example of business documents leading to the development of a project charter.

    Information from the intake process directly feeds into, for example, developing a project charter.

    Source: PMBOK, 6th edition

    "If the project manager can connect strategy to the project they are leading (and therefore the value that the organization desires by sanctioning the project), they can ensure that the project is appropriately planned and managed to realize those benefits."

    – Randall T. Black, P.Eng., PMP; source: PMI Today

    Examine the new project intake workflow as a whole and document it in a flow chart

    2.3.6 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    Review and customize section 4.1, “Project Prioritization Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

    In Step 1.2 of the blueprint, you mapped out the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow and documented it in a flow chart. In this step, take the time to examine the new project intake process as a whole, and document the new workflow in the form of a flow chart.

    1. Collect and update supply and demand data
    2. Prioritize project demand by value
    3. Approve projects for initiation or continuation
    4. Manage a realistically defined project portfolio

    Consider the following points:

    1. Are the inputs and outputs of each step clear? Who’s doing the work? How long will each step take, on average?
    2. Is the ownership of each step clear? How will we ensure a smooth handoff between each step and prevent requests from falling through the cracks?

    INPUT

    • New process steps for project prioritization (Activities 2.3.x-y)

    OUTPUT

    • Flowchart representation of new project prioritization workflow

    Materials

    • Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Leverage Info-Tech’s other blueprints to complement your project prioritization processes

    The project capacity estimates overlook a critical piece of the resourcing puzzle for the sake of simplicity: skills. You need the right skills at the right time for the right project.

    Use Info-Tech’s Balance Supply and Demand with Realistic Resource Management Practices blueprint to enhance the quality of information on your project supply.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Balance Supply and Demand with Realistic Resource Management Practices blueprint.

    There is more to organizing your project portfolio than a strict prioritization by project value. For example, as with a financial investment portfolio, project portfolio must achieve the right investment mix to balance your risks and leverage opportunities.

    Use Info-Tech’s Maintain an Organized Portfolio blueprint to refine the makeup of your project portfolio.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Maintain an Organized Portfolio blueprint.

    Continuous prioritization of projects allow organizations to achieve portfolio responsiveness.

    Use Info-Tech’s Manage an Agile Portfolio blueprint to take prioritization of your project portfolio to the next level.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Manage an Agile Portfolio blueprint

    46% of organizations use a homegrown PPM solution. Info-Tech’s Grow Your Own PPM Solution blueprint debuts a spreadsheet-based Portfolio Manager tool that provides key functionalities that integrates those of the Intake and Prioritization Tool with resource management, allocation and portfolio reporting capabilities.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Grow Your Own PPM Solution blueprint

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    A picture of an Info-Tech analyst is shown.

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1.2-6

    A screenshot of activities 2.1.2-6 is shown.

    Optimize your process to receive, triage, and follow up on project requests

    Discussion on decision points and topics of consideration will be facilitated to leverage the diverse viewpoints amongst the workshop participants.

    2.3.2-5

    A screenshot of activities 2.3.2-5 is shown.

    Set up a capacity-informed project prioritization process using Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

    A table-top planning exercise helps you visualize the current process in place and identify opportunities for optimization.

    Phase 3

    Integrate the New Optimized Processes into Practice

    Phase 3 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 3: Integrate the New Optimized Processes into Practice

    Proposed Time to Completion: 6-12 weeks

    Step 3.1: Pilot your process to refine it prior to rollout

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review the proposed intake, approval, and prioritization process

    Then complete these activities…

    • Select receptive stakeholders to work with
    • Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics
    • Document lessons learned and create an action plan for any changes

    With these tools & templates:

    • Process Pilot Plan
    • Project Backlog Manager Job Description

    Step 3.2: Analyze the impact of organizational change

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Results of the process pilot and the finalized intake SOP
    • Key PPM stakeholders
    • Current organizational climate

    Then complete these activities…

    • Analyze the stakeholder impact and responses to impending organizational change
    • Create message canvases for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders to create an effective communication plan

    With these tools & templates:

    • Intake Process Implementation Impact Analysis Tool

    Phase 3 Results & Insights:

    • Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An “engagement” approach (rather than simply “communication”) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

    Step 3.1: Pilot your intake, approval, and prioritization process to refine it before rollout

    PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

    1.1

    Define project valuation criteria

    1.2

    Envision process target state

    2.1

    Streamline intake

    2.2

    Right-size approval steps

    2.3

    Prioritize projects to fit resource capacity

    3.1

    Pilot your optimized process

    3.2

    Communicate organizational change

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Select receptive managers to work with during your pilot
    • Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics
    • Plan to obtain feedback, document lessons learned, and create an action plan for any changes
    • Finalize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Outcomes of this step

    • A pilot team
    • A process pilot plan that defines the scope, logistics, and process for retrospection
    • Project Backlog Manager job description
    • Finalized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP for rollout

    Pilot your new processes to test feasibility and address issues before a full deployment

    Adopting the right set of practices requires a significant degree of change that necessitates buy-in from varied stakeholders throughout IT and the business.

    Rome wasn’t built in a day. Similarly, benefits of optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization process will not be realized overnight.

    Resist the urge to deploy a big-bang roll out of your new intake practices. The approach is ill advised for two main reasons:

    • It will put more of a strain on the implementation team in the near term, with a larger pool of end users to train and collect data from.
    • Putting untested practices in a department-wide spotlight could lead to mass confusion in the near-term and color the new processes in a negative light, leading to a loss of stakeholder trust and engagement right out-of-the-gate.

    Start with a pilot phase. Identify receptive lines of business and IT resources to work with, and leverage their insights to help iron out the kinks in your process before unveiling your practices to IT and all business users at large.

    This step will help you to:

    • Plan and execute a pilot of the processes we developed in Phase 2.
    • Incorporate the lessons learned from that pilot to strengthen your SOP and ease the communication process.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An “engagement” approach (rather than simply “communication”) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

    Plan your pilot like you would any project to ensure it’s well defined and its goals are clearly articulated

    Use Info-Tech’s Intake Process Pilot Plan Template to help define the scope of your pilot and set appropriate goals for the test-run of your new processes.

    A process pilot is a limited scope of an implementation (constrained by time and resources involved) in order to test the viability and effectiveness of the process as it has been designed.

    • Investing time and energy into a pilot phase can help to lower implementation risk, enhance the details and steps within a process, and improve stakeholder relations prior to a full scale rollout.
    • More than a dry run, however, a pilot should be approached strategically, and planned out to limit the scope of it and achieve specific outcomes.
    • Leverage a planning document to ensure your process pilot is grounded in a common set of definitions, that the pilot is delivering value and insight, and that ultimately the pilot can serve as a starting point for a full-scale process implementation.

    Download Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Process Pilot Plan Template is shown.

    "The advantages to a pilot are several. First, risk is constrained. Pilots are closely monitored so if a problem does occur, it can be fixed immediately. Second, the people working in the pilot can become trainers as you roll the process out to the rest of the organization. Third, the pilot is another opportunity for skeptics to visit the pilot process and learn from those working in it. There’s nothing like seeing a new process working for people to change their minds."

    Daniel Madison

    Select receptive stakeholders to work with during your pilot

    3.1.1 Estimated Time: 20-60 minutes

    Info-Tech recommends selecting PPM stakeholders who are aware of your role and some of the challenges in project intake, approval, and prioritization to assist in the implementation process.

    1. If receptive PPM stakeholders are known, schedule a 15-minute meeting with them to inquire if they would be willing to be part of the pilot process.
    2. If receptive project managers are not known, use Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Engagement Workbook to conduct a formal selection process.
      1. Enter a list of potential participants for pilot in tab 3.
      2. Rate project managers in terms of influence, pilot interest, and potential deployment contribution within tab 4.
      3. Review tab 5 in the workbook. Receptive PPM stakeholders will appear in the top quadrants. Ideal PPM stakeholders for the pilot are located in the top right quadrant of the graph.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Stakeholder Engagement Workbook Tab 5 is shown.

    INPUT

    • Project portfolio management stakeholders (Activity 1.2.3)

    OUTPUT

    • Pilot project team

    Materials

    • Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
    • Process Pilot Plan Template

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • CIO (optional)

    Document the PPM stakeholders involved in your pilot in Section 3 of Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template.

    Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics

    3.1.2 Estimated Time: 60-90 minutes

    Use Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template to design the details of your pilot.

    Investing time into planning your pilot phase strategically will ensure a clear scope, better communications for those piloting the processes, and – overall – better, more actionable results for the pilot phase. The Pilot Plan Template is broken into five sections to assist in these goals:

    • Pilot Overview and Scope
    • Success and Risk Factors
    • Stakeholders Involved and Communications Plan
    • Pilot Retrospective and Feedback Protocol

    The duration of your pilot should go at least one prioritization period, e.g. one to two quarters.

    Estimates of time commitments should be captured for each stakeholder. During the retrospective at the end of the pilot you should capture actuals to help determine the time-cost of the process itself and measure its sustainability.

    Once the Plan Template is completed, schedule time to share and communicate it with the pilot team and executive sponsors of the process.

    While you should invest time in this planning document, continue to lean on the Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP throughout the pilot phase.

    INPUT

    • Sections 1 through 4 of the Process Pilot Plan Template

    OUTPUT

    • A process pilot plan

    Materials

    • Process Pilot Plan Template

    Participants

    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • CIO (optional)

    Execute your pilot and prepare to make process revisions before the full rollout

    Hit play! Begin the process pilot and get familiar with the work routine and resource management solution.

    Some things to keep in mind during the pilot include:

    • Depending on the solution you are using, you will likely need to spend one day or less to populate the tool. During the pilot, measure the time and effort required to manage the data within the tool. Determine whether time and effort required is viable on an ongoing basis (i.e. can you do it every month or quarter) and has value.
    • Meet with the pilot team and other stakeholders regularly during the pilot, at least biweekly. Allow the team (and yourself) to speak honestly and openly about what isn’t working. The pilot is your chance to make things better.
    • Keep notes about what will need to change in the SOP. For major changes, you may have to tweak the process during the pilot itself. Update the process documents as needed and communicate the changes and why they’re being made. If required, update the scope of the pilot in the Pilot Plan Template.
    An example is shown on how to begin the process pilot and getting familiar with the work routine and resource management solution.

    Obtain feedback from the pilot group to improve your processes before a wider rollout

    3.1.3 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    Pilot projects allow you to validate your assumptions and leverage lessons learned. During the planning of the pilot, you should have scheduled a retrospective meeting with the pilot team to formally assess strengths and weaknesses in the process you have drafted.

    • Schedule the retrospective shortly after the pilot is completed. Info-Tech recommends performing a Stop/Start/Continue meeting with pilot participants to obtain and capture feedback.
    • Have members of the meeting record any processes/activities on sticky notes that should:
      • Stop: because they are ineffective or not useful
      • Start: because they would be useful for the tool and have not been incorporated into current processes
      • Continue: because they are useful and positively contribute to intended process outcomes.

    An example of how to structure a Stop/Start/Continue activity on a whiteboard using sticky notes.

    An example of stop, start, and continue is activity is shown.

    INPUT

    • What’s working and what isn’t in the process

    OUTPUT

    • Ideas to improve process

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes
    • Process Pilot Plan Template

    Participants

    • Process owner (PMO director or portfolio owner)
    • Pilot team

    See the following slide for additional instructions.

    Document lessons learned and create an action plan for any changes to the processes

    3.1.4 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    An example of stop, start, and continue is activity is shown.

    As a group, discuss everyone’s responses and organize according to top priority (mark with a 1) and lower priority/next steps (mark with a 2). At this point, you can also remove any sticky notes that are repetitive or no longer relevant.

    Once you have organized based on priority, be sure to come to a consensus with the group regarding which actions to take. For example, if the group agrees that they should “stop holding meetings weekly,” come to a consensus regarding how often meetings will be held, i.e. monthly.

    Priority Action Required Who is Responsible Implementation Date
    Stop: Holding meetings weekly Hold meetings monthly Jane Doe, PMO Next Meeting: August 1, 2017
    Start: Discussing backlog during meetings Ensure that backlog data is up to date for discussion on date of next meeting. John Doe, Portfolio Manager August 1, 2017

    Create an action plan for the top priority items that require changes (the Stops and Starts). Record in this slide, or your preferred medium. Be sure to include who is responsible for the action and the date that it will be implemented.

    Document the outcomes of the start/stop/continue and your action plan in Section 6 of Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template.

    Use Info-Tech’s Backlog Manager Job Description Template to help fill any staffing needs around data maintenance

    3.1 Project Backlog Manager Job Description

    You will need to determine responsibilities and accountabilities for portfolio management functions within your team.

    If you do not have a clearly identifiable portfolio manager at this time, you will need to clarify who will wear which hats in terms of facilitating intake and prioritization, high-level capacity awareness, and portfolio reporting.

    • Use Info-Tech’s Project Backlog Manager job description template to help clarify some of the required responsibilities to support your intake, approval, and prioritization strategy.
      • If you need to bring in an additional staff member to help support the strategy, you can customize the job description template to help advertise the position. Simply edit the text in grey within the template.
    • If you have other PPM tasks that you need to define responsibilities for, you can use the RASCI chart on the final tab of the PPM Strategy Development Tool.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Backlog Manager job description template.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Backlog Manager template is shown.

    Finalize the Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP and prepare to communicate your processes

    Once you’ve completed the pilot process and made the necessary tweaks, you should finalize your Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP and prepare to communicate it.

    Update section 1.2, “Overall Process Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template with the new process flow.

    Revisit your SOP from Phase 2 and ensure it has been updated to reflect the process changes that were identified in activity 3.1.4.

    • If during the pilot process the data was too difficult or time consuming to maintain, revisit the dimensions you have chosen and choose dimensions that are easier to accurately maintain. Tweak your process steps in the SOP accordingly.
    • In the long term, if you are not observing any progress toward achieving your success criteria, revisit the impact analysis that we’ll prepare in step 3.2 and address some of these inhibitors to organizational change.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP template.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP template.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Make your SOP high impact. SOPs are often at risk of being left unmaintained and languishing in disuse. Improve the SOP’s succinctness and usability by making it visual; consult Info-Tech’s blueprint, Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind.

    Step 3.2: Analyze the impact of organizational change through the eyes of PPM stakeholders to gain their buy-in

    PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

    1.1

    Define project valuation criteria

    1.2

    Envision process target state

    2.1

    Streamline intake

    2.2

    Right-size approval steps

    2.3

    Prioritize projects to fit resource capacity

    3.1

    Pilot your optimized process

    3.2

    Communicate organizational change

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Analyze the stakeholder impact and responses to impending organizational change
    • Create message canvases for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders
    • Set the course of action for communicating changes to your stakeholders

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Outcomes of this step

    • A thorough organizational change impact analysis, based on Info-Tech’s expertise in organizational change management
    • Message canvases and communication plan for your stakeholders
    • Go-live for the new intake, approval, and prioritization process

    Manage key PPM stakeholders and communicate changes

    • Business units: Projects are undertaken to provide value to the business. Senior management from business units must help define how project will be valued.
    • IT: IT must ensure that technical/practical considerations are taken into account when determining project value.
    • Finance: The CFO or designated representative will ensure that estimated project costs and benefits can be used to manage the budget.
    • PMO: PMO is the administrator of the project portfolio. PMO must provide coordination and support to ensure the process operates smoothly and its goals are realized.
    • Business analysts: BAs carry out the evaluation of project value. Therefore, their understanding of the evaluation criteria and the process as a whole are critical to the success of the process.
    • Project sponsors: Project sponsors are accountable for the realization of benefits for which projects are undertaken.

    Impacts will be felt differently by different stakeholders and stakeholder groups

    As you assess change impacts, keep in mind that no impact will be felt the same across the organization. Depth of impact can vary depending on the frequency (will the impact be felt daily, weekly, monthly?), the actions necessitated by it (e.g. will it change the way the job is done or is it simply a minor process tweak?), and the anticipated response of the stakeholder (support, resistance, indifference?).

    Use the Organizational Change Depth Scale below to help visualize various depths of impact. The deeper the impact, the tougher the job of managing change will be.

    Procedural Behavioral Interpersonal Vocational Cultural
    Procedural change involves changes to explicit procedures, rules, policies, processes, etc. Behavioral change is similar to procedural change, but goes deeper to involve the changing tacit or unconscious habits. Interpersonal change goes beyond behavioral change to involve changing relationships, teams, locations, reporting structures, and other social interactions. Vocational change requires acquiring new knowledge and skills, and accepting the loss or decline in the value or relevance of previously acquired knowledge and skills. Cultural change goes beyond interpersonal and vocational change to involve changing personal values, social norms, and assumptions about the meaning of good vs. bad or right vs. wrong.
    Example: providing sales reps with mobile access to the CRM application to let them update records from the field. Example: requiring sales reps to use tablets equipped with a custom mobile application for placing orders from the field. Example: migrating sales reps to work 100% remotely. Example: migrating technical support staff to field service and sales support roles. Example: changing the operating model to a more service-based value proposition or focus.

    Perform a change impact analysis to maximize the chances of adoption for the new intake process

    Invest time and effort to analyze the impact of change to create an actionable stakeholder communication plan that yields the desirable result: adoption.

    Info-Tech’s Drive Organizational Change from the PMO blueprint offers the OCM Impact Analysis Tool to helps document the change impact across multiple dimensions, enabling the project team to review the analysis with others to ensure that the most important impacts are captured.

    This tool has been customized for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process to deliver the same result in a more streamlined way. The next several slides will take you through the activities to ultimately create an OCM message canvas and a communication plan for your key stakeholders.

    Download Info-Tech’s Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool is shown.

    "As a general principle, project teams should always treat every stakeholder initially as a recipient of change. Every stakeholder management plan should have, as an end goal, to change recipients’ habits or behaviors."

    -PMI, 2015

    Set up the Intake Process and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

    3.2.1 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 2-3

    In Tab 2, enter your stakeholders’ names. Represent stakeholders as a group if you expect the impact of change on them to be reasonably uniform, as well as their anticipated responses. Otherwise, consider adding them as individuals or subgroups.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 2 is shown.

    In Tab 3, enter whether you agree or disagree with each statement that represents an element of organizational change that be introduced as the newly optimized intake process is implemented.

    As a result of the change initiative in question:

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 3 is shown.

    Analyze the impact and the anticipated stakeholder responses of each change

    3.2.1 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 4: Impact Analysis Inputs

    Each change statement that you agreed with in Tab 3 are listed here in Tab 4 of the Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool. For each stakeholder, estimate and enter the following data:

    1. Frequency of the Impact: how often will the impact of the change be felt?
    2. Effort Associated with Impact: what is the demand on a stakeholder’s effort to implement the change?
    3. Anticipated Response: rate from enthusiastic response to active subversion. Honest and realistic estimates of anticipated responses are critical to the rest of the impact analysis.
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 4 is shown.

    Analyze the stakeholder impact and responses to impending organizational change as a group

    3.2.1 Estimated Time: 60-90 minutes

    Divide and conquer. Leverage the group to get through the seemingly daunting amount of work involved with impact analysis.

    1. Divide the activity participants into subgroups and assign a section of the impact analysis. It may be helpful to do one section together as a group to make sure everyone is roughly on the same page for assessing impact.
    2. Suggested ways to divide up the impact analysis include:

    • By change impact. This would be suitable when the process owners (or would-be process owners) are available and participating.
    • By stakeholders. This would be suitable for large organizations where the activity participants know some stakeholders better than others.

    Tip: use a spreadsheet tool that supports multi-user editing (e.g. Google Sheets, Excel Online).

  • Aggregate the completed work and benchmark one another’s analysis by reviewing them with the entire group.
  • INPUT

    • Organizational and stakeholder knowledge
    • Optimized intake process

    OUTPUT

    • Estimates of stakeholder-specific impact and response

    Materials

    • Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Info-Tech Insight

    Beware of bias. Groups are just as susceptible to producing overly optimistic or pessimistic analysis as individuals, just in different ways. Unrealistic change impact analysis will compromise your chances of arriving at a reasonable, tactful stakeholder communication plan.

    Examine your impact analysis report

    3.2.2 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 5: Impact Analysis Outputs

    These outputs are based on the impacts you analyzed in Tab 4 of the tool (Activity 3.2.1). They are organized in seven sections:

    1. Top Five Highest Risk Impacts, based on the frequency and effort inputs across all impacts.
    2. Overall Process Adoption Rating (top right), showing the overall difficulty of this change given likelihood/risk that the stakeholders involved will absorb the anticipated change impacts.
    3. Top Five Most Impacted Stakeholders, based on the frequency and effort inputs across all impacts.
    4. Top Five Process Supporters and;
    5. Top Five Process Resistors, based on the anticipated response inputs across all impacts.
    6. Impact Register (bottom right): this list breaks down each change’s likelihood of adoption.
    7. Potential Impacts to Watch Out For: this list compiles all of the "Don't Know" responses from Tab 3.
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 5 is shown. It shows Section 2. Overall process adoption rating. A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 5 is shown. It shows Section 6. Impact Register.

    Tailor messages for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders with Info-Tech’s Message Canvas

    3.2.2 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 6: Message Canvas

    Use Info-Tech’s Message Canvas on this tab to help rationalize and elaborate the change vision for each group.

    Elements of a Message Canvas

    • Why is there a need for this process change?
    • What will be new for this audience?
    • What will go away for this audience?
    • What will be meaningfully unchanged for this audience?
    • How will this change benefit this audience?
    • When and how will the benefits be realized for this audience?
    • What does this audience have to do for this change to succeed?
    • What does this audience have to stop doing for this change to succeed?
    • What should this audience continue doing?
    • What support will this audience receive to help manage the transition?
    • What should this audience expect to do/happen next?

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 6 is shown.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Change thy language, change thyself.

    Jargon, acronyms, and technical terms represent deeply entrenched cultural habits and assumptions.

    Continuing to use jargon or acronyms after a transition tends to drag people back to old ways of thinking and working.

    You don’t need to invent a new batch of buzzwords for every change (nor should you), but every change is an opportunity to listen for words and phrases that have lost their meaning through overuse and abuse.

    Create message canvases for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders as a group

    3.2.2 Estimated Time: 90-120 minutes

    1. Decide on the number of message canvases to complete. This will be based on the number of at-risk change impacts and stakeholders.
    2. Divide the activity participants into subgroups and assign a section of the message canvas. It may be helpful to do one section together as a group to make sure everyone is roughly on the same page for assessing impact.
    3. Aggregate the completed work and benchmark the message canvases amongst subgroups.

    Remember these guidelines to help your messages resonate:

    • People are busy and easily distracted. Tell people what they really need to know first, before you lose their attention.
    • Repetition is good. Remember the Aristotelian triptych: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them.”
    • Don’t use technical terms, jargon, or acronyms. Different groups in organizations tend to develop specialized vocabularies. Everybody grows so accustomed to using acronyms and jargon every day that it becomes difficult to notice how strange it sounds to outsiders. This is especially important when IT communicates with non-technical audiences. Don’t alienate your audience by talking at them in a strange language.
    • Test your message. Run focus groups or deliver communications to a test audience (which could be as simple as asking 2–3 people to read a draft) before delivering messages more broadly.

    – Info-Tech Blueprint, Drive Organizational Change from the PMO

    INPUT

    • Impact Analysis Outputs
    • Organizational and stakeholder knowledge

    OUTPUT

    • Estimates of stakeholder-specific impact and response

    Materials

    • Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Distill the message canvases into a comprehensive communication plan

    3.2.3 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 7: Communication Plan

    The communication plan creates an action plan around the message canvases to coordinate the responsibilities of delivering them, so the risks of “dropping the ball” on your stakeholders are minimized.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 7: Communication is shown.

    1. Choose a change impact from a drop-down menu.

    2. Choose an intended audience...

    … and the message canvas to reference.

    3. Choose the method of delivery. It will influence how to craft the message for the stakeholder.

    4. Indicate who is responsible for creating and communicating the message.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 7: Communication is shown.

    5. Briefly indicate goal of the communication and the likelihood of success.

    6. Record the dates to plan and track the communications that take place.

    Set the course of action for communicating changes to your stakeholders

    3.2.2 Estimated Time: 90-120 minutes

    1. Divide the activity participants into subgroups and assign communication topics to each group. There should be one communication topic for each change impact. Based on the message canvas, create a communication plan draft.
    2. Aggregate the completed work and benchmark the communication topic amongst subgroups.
    3. Share the finished communication plan with the rest of the working group. Do not share this file widely, but keep it private within the group.

    Identify critical points in the change curve:

    1. Honeymoon of “Uninformed Optimism”: There is usually tentative support and even enthusiasm for change before people have really felt or understood what it involves.
    2. Backlash of “Informed Pessimism” (leading to “Valley of Despair”): As change approaches or begins, people realize they’ve overestimated the benefits (or the speed at which benefits will be achieved) and underestimated the difficulty of change.
    3. Valley of Despair and beginning of “Hopeful Realism”: Eventually, sentiment bottoms out and people begin to accept the difficulty (or inevitability) of change.
    4. Bounce of “Informed Optimism”: People become more optimistic and supportive when they begin to see bright spots and early successes.
    5. Contentment of “Completion”: Change has been successfully adopted and benefits are being realized.

    Based on Don Kelley and Daryl Conner’s Emotional Cycle of Change.

    INPUT

    • Change impact analysis results
    • Message canvases
    • List of stakeholders

    OUTPUT

    • Communication Plan

    Materials

    • Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Roll out the optimized intake, approval, and prioritization process, and continually monitor adoption and success

    As you implement your new project intake process, familiarize yourself with common barriers and challenges.

    There will be challenges to watch for in evaluating the effectiveness of your intake processes. These may include circumvention of process by key stakeholders, re-emergence of off-the-grid projects and low-value initiatives.

    As a quick and easy way to periodically assess your processes, consider the following questions:

    • Are you confident that all work in progress is being tracked via the project list?
    • Are your resources all currently working on high-value initiatives?
    • Since optimizing, have you been able to deliver (or are you on target to deliver) all that has been approved, with no initiatives in states of suspended animation for long periods of time?
    • Thanks to sufficient portfolio visibility and transparency into your capacity, have you been able to successfully decline requests that did not add value or that did not align with resourcing?

    If you answer “no” to any of these questions after a sufficient post-implementation period (approximately six to nine months, depending on the scope of your optimizing), you may need to tweak certain aspects of your processes or seek to align your optimization with a lower capability level in the short term.

    Small IT department struggles to optimize intake and to communicate new processes to stakeholders

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Government

    Source: Info-Tech Client

    Challenge

    There is an IT department for a large municipal government. Possessing a relatively low level of PPM maturity, IT is in the process of establishing more formal intake practices in order to better track, and respond to, project requests. New processes include a minimalist request form (sent via email) coupled with more thorough follow-up from BAs and PMs to determine business value, ROI, and timeframes.

    Solution

    Even with new user-friendly processes in place, IT struggles to get stakeholders to adopt, especially with smaller initiatives. These smaller requests frequently continue to come in outside of the formal process and, because of this, are often executed outside of portfolio oversight. Without good, reliable data around where staff time is spent, IT lacks the authority to decline new requests.

    Results

    IT is seeking further optimization through better communication. They are enforcing discipline on stakeholders and reiterating that all initiatives, regardless of size, need to be directed through the process. IT is also training its staff to be more critical. “Don’t just start working on an initiative because a stakeholder asks.” With staff being more critical and directing requests through the proper queues, IT is getting better at tracking and prioritizing requests.

    "The biggest challenge when implementing the intake process was change management. We needed to shift our focus from responding to requests to strategically thinking about how requests should be managed. The intake process allows the IT Department to be transparent to customers and enables decision makers."

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    A picture of an Info-Tech analyst is shown.

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1.1

    A screenshot of activity 3.1.1 is shown

    Select receptive stakeholders to work with during your pilot

    Identify the right team of supportive PPM stakeholders to carry out the process pilot. Strategies to recruit the right people outside the workshop will be discussed if appropriate.

    3.2.1

    A screenshot of activity 3.2.1 is shown.

    Analyze the stakeholder impact and responses to impending organizational change

    Carry out a thorough analysis of change impact in order to maximize the effectiveness of the communication strategy in support of the implementation of the optimized process.

    Insight breakdown

    Insight 1

    • The overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects. To achieve this goal, one must have a clear way to determine what are “the best” projects.

    Insight 2

    • Info-Tech’s methodology systemically fits the project portfolio into its triple constraint of stakeholder needs, strategic objectives, and resource capacity to effectively address the challenges of establishing organizational discipline for project intake.

    Insight 3

    • Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An “engagement” approach (rather than simply “communication”) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • Triple constraint model of project portfolio: stakeholder needs, strategic objectives, and resource capacity
    • Benefits of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization for managing a well-behaved project portfolio
    • Challenges of installing well-run project intake
    • Importance of piloting the process and communicating impacts to stakeholders

    Processes Optimized

    • Project valuation process: scorecard, weights
    • Project intake process: reception, triaging, follow-up
    • Project approval process: steps, accountabilities, deliverables
    • Project prioritization process: estimation of resource capacity for projects, project demand
    • Communication for organizational change

    Deliverables Completed

    • Optimized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process
    • Documentation of the optimized process in the form of a Standard Operating Procedure
    • Project valuation criteria, developed with Project Value Scorecard Development Tool and implemented through the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool
    • Standardized project request form with right-sized procedural friction
    • Standard for project level classification, implemented through the Project Intake Classification Matrix
    • Toolbox of deliverables for capturing information developed to inform decision makers for approval: Benefits Commitment Form, Technology Assessment Tool, Business Case Templates
    • Process pilot plan
    • Communication plan for organizational change, driven by a thorough analysis of change impacts on key stakeholders using the Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

    Research contributors and experts

    Picture of Kiron D. Bondale

    Kiron D. Bondale, PMP, PMI - RMP

    Senior Project Portfolio & Change Management Professional

    A placeholder photo is shown here.

    Scot Ganshert, Portfolio Group Manager

    Larimer County, CO

    Picture of Garrett McDaniel

    Garrett McDaniel, Business Analyst II – Information Technology

    City of Boulder, CO

    A placeholder photo is shown here.

    Joanne Pandya, IT Project Manager

    New York Property Insurance Underwriters

    Picture of Jim Tom.

    Jim Tom, CIO

    Public Health Ontario

    Related Info-Tech research

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    Manage an Agile Portfolio

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    Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program

    The Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program is a low-effort, high-impact program designed to help project owners assess and improve their PPM practices. Gather and report on all aspects of your PPM environment to understand where you stand and how you can improve.

    Bibliography

    Boston Consulting Group. “Executive Sponsor Engagement: Top Driver of Project and Program Success.” PMI, 2014. Web.

    Boston Consulting Group. “Winning Through Project Portfolio Management: the Practitioners’ Perspective.” PMI, 2015. Web.

    Bradberry, Travis. “Why The 8-Hour workday Doesn’t Work.” Forbes, 7 Jun 2016. Web.

    Cook, Scott. Playbook: Best Practices. Business Week

    Cooper, Robert, G. “Effective Gating: Make product innovation more productive by using gates with teeth.” Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute. March/April 2009. Web.

    Epstein, Dan. “Project Initiation Process: Part Two.” PM World Journal. Vol. IV, Issue III. March 2015. Web.

    Evans, Lisa. “The Exact Amount of Time You Should Work Every Day.” Fast Company, 15 Sep. 2014. Web.

    Madison, Daniel. “The Five Implementation Options to Manage the Risk in a New Process.” BPMInstitute.org. n.d. Web.

    Merkhofer, Lee. “Improve the Prioritization Process.” Priority Systems, n.d. Web.

    Miller, David, and Mike Oliver. “Engaging Stakeholder for Project Success.” PMI, 2015. Web.

    Mind Tools. “Kelley and Conner’s Emotional Cycle of Change.” Mind Tools, n.d. Web.

    Mochal, Jeffrey and Thomas Mochal. Lessons in Project Management. Appress: September 2011. Page 6.

    Newcomer, Eric. “Getting Decisions to Stick.” Standish Group PM2go, 20 Oct 2017. Web.

    “PMI Today.” Newtown Square, PA: PMI, Oct 2017. Web.

    Project Management Institute. “Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed.” Newtown Square, PA: PMI, 2013.

    Project Management Institute. “Pulse of the Profession 2017: Success Rates Rise.” PMI, 2017. Web.

    Transparent Choice. “Criteria for Project Prioritization.” n.p., n.d. Web.

    University of New Hampshire (UNH) Project Management Office. “University of New Hampshire IT Intake and Selection Process Map.” UNH, n.d. Web.

    Ward, John. “Delivering Value from Information Systems and Technology Investments: Learning from Success.” Information Systems Research Centre. August 2006. Web.

    Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /it-strategy
    • As a strategic driver, IT needs to work with the business. Yet, traditionally IT has not worked hand-in-hand with the business. IT does not know what information it needs from the business to execute on its initiatives.
    • A faster time to new investment decisions mean that IT needs a repeatable and efficient process to understand what the business needs.
    • CIOs must execute strategic initiatives to create an IT function that can support the business. Most CIOs fail because of low business support.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Understanding the business context is a must for all strategic IT initiatives. At its core, each strategic IT project requires answers to a specific set of questions regarding the business.
    • An effective CIO understands which part of the business context applies to which strategic IT project and, in turn, what questions to ask to uncover those insights.

    Impact and Result

    • Uncover what IT knows and needs to know about the business context. This is a necessary first step to begin each of Info-Tech’s strategic IT initiatives, which any CIO should complete.
    • Conduct efficient and repeatable business context discovery activities to uncover business context gaps.
    • Document the business context you have uncovered and streamline the process for executing on Info-Tech’s strategic CIO blueprints.

    Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should define the business context, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing key CIO strategic initiatives.

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

    1. Identify and document the business needs of the organization

    Define the business context needed to complete strategic IT initiatives.

    • Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy – Storyboard
    • Business Context Discovery Tool
    • Business Context Discovery Record Template
    • PESTLE Analysis Template
    • Strategy Alignment Map Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy

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

    1 Identify the Missing Business Context (pre-work)

    The Purpose

    Conduct analysis and facilitate discussions to uncover business needs for IT.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A baseline understanding of what business needs mean for IT

    Activities

    1.1 Define the strategic CIO initiatives our organization will pursue.

    1.2 Complete the Business Context Discovery Tool.

    1.3 Schedule relevant interviews.

    1.4 Select relevant Info-Tech diagnostics to conduct.

    Outputs

    Business context scope

    Completed Business Context Discovery Tool

    Completed Info-Tech diagnostics

    2 Uncover and Document the Missing Context

    The Purpose

    Analyze the outputs from step 1 and uncover the business context gaps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thorough understanding of business needs and why IT should pursue certain initiatives

    Activities

    2.1 Conduct group or one-on-one interviews to identify the missing pieces of the business context.

    Outputs

    Documentation of answers to business context gaps

    3 Uncover and Document the Missing Context

    The Purpose

    Analyze the outputs from step 1 and uncover the business context gaps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thorough understanding of business needs and why IT should pursue certain initiatives

    Activities

    3.1 Conduct group or one-on-one interviews to identify the missing pieces of the business context.

    Outputs

    Documentation of answers to business context gaps

    4 Review Business Context and Next Steps

    The Purpose

    Review findings and implications for IT’s strategic initiative.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thorough understanding of business needs and how IT’s strategic initiatives addresses those needs

    Activities

    4.1 Review documented business context with IT team.

    4.2 Discuss next steps for strategic CIO initiative execution.

    Outputs

    Finalized version of the business context

    Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms

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    • Parent Category Name: Big Data
    • Parent Category Link: /big-data
    • The immaturity of the big data market means that organizations lack examples and best practices to follow, and they are often left trailblazing their own paths.
    • Experienced and knowledgeable big data professionals are limited and without creative resourcing; IT might struggle to fill big data positions.
    • The term NoSQL has become a catch-all phrase for big data technologies; however, the technologies falling under the umbrella of NoSQL are disparate and often misunderstood. Organizations are at risk of adopting incorrect technologies if they don’t take the time to learn the jargon.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • NoSQL plays a key role in the emergence of the big data market, but it has not made relational databases outdated. Successful big data strategies can be conducted using SQL, NoSQL, or a combination of the two.
    • Assign a Data Architect to oversee your initiative. Hire or dedicate someone who has the ability to develop both a short-term and long-term vision and that has hands-on experience with data management, mining and modeling. You will still need someone (like a database administrator) who understands the database, the schemas, and the structure.
    • Understand your data before you attempt to use it. Take a master data management approach to ensure there are rules and standards for managing your enterprise’s data, and take extra caution when integrating external sources.

    Impact and Result

    • Assess whether SQL, NoSQL, or a combination of both technologies will provide you with the appropriate capabilities to achieve your business objectives and gain value from your data.
    • Form a Big Data Team to bring together IT and the business in order to leave a successful initiative.
    • Conduct ongoing training with your personnel to ensure up-to-date skills and end-user understanding.
    • Frequently scan the big data market space to identify new technologies and opportunities to help optimize your big data strategy.

    Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms Research & Tools

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

    1. Develop a big data strategy

    Know where to start and where to focus attention in the implementation of a big data strategy.

    • Storyboard: Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms

    2. Assess the appropriateness of big data technologies

    Decide the most correct tools to use in order to solve enterprise data management problems.

    • Big Data Diagnostic Tool

    3. Determine the TCO of a scale out implementation

    Compare the TCO of a SQL (scale up) with a NoSQL (scale out) deployment to determine whether NoSQL will save costs.

    • Scale Up vs. Scale Out TCO Tool
    [infographic]

    Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively

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    • Parent Category Name: Development
    • Parent Category Link: /development
    • Your organization wants to implement (or revamp existing) software delivery metrics to monitor performance as well as achieve its goals.
    • You know that metrics can be a powerful tool for managing team behavior.
    • You also know that all metrics are prone to misuse and mismanagement, which can lead to unintended consequences that will harm your organization.
    • You need an approach for selecting and using effective software development lifecycle (SDLC) metrics that will help your organization to achieve its goals while minimizing the risk of unintended consequences.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Metrics are powerful, dangerous, and often mismanaged, particularly when they are tied to reward or punishment. To use SDLC metrics effectively, know the dangers, understand good practices, and then follow Info-Tech‘s TAG (team-oriented, adaptive, and goal-focused) approach to minimize risk and maximize impact.

    Impact and Result

    • Begin by understanding the risks of metrics.
    • Then understand good practices associated with metrics use.
    • Lastly, follow Info-Tech’s TAG approach to select and use SDLC metrics effectively.

    Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Understand both the dangers and good practices related to metrics, along with Info-Tech’s TAG approach to the selection and use of SDLC metrics.

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

    1. Understand the dangers of metrics

    Explore the significant risks associated with metrics selection so that you can avoid them.

    • Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively – Phase 1: Understand the Risks of Metrics

    2. Know good practices related to metrics

    Learn about good practices related to metrics and how to apply them in your organization, then identify your team’s business-aligned goals to be used in SDLC metric selection.

    • Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively – Phase 2: Know Good Practices Related to Metrics
    • SDLC Metrics Evaluation and Selection Tool

    3. Rank and select effective SDLC metrics for your team

    Follow Info-Tech’s TAG approach to selecting effective SDLC metrics for your team, create a communication deck to inform your organization about your selected SDLC metrics, and plan to review and revise these metrics over time.

    • Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively – Phase 3: Rank and Select Effective SDLC Metrics for Your Team
    • SDLC Metrics Rollout and Communication Deck
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively

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

    1 Understand the Dangers of Metrics

    The Purpose

    Learn that metrics are often misused and mismanaged.

    Understand the four risk areas associated with metrics: Productivity loss Gaming behavior Ambivalence Unintended consequences

    Productivity loss

    Gaming behavior

    Ambivalence

    Unintended consequences

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An appreciation of the dangers associated with metrics.

    An understanding of the need to select and manage SDLC metrics carefully to avoid the associated risks.

    Development of critical thinking skills related to metric selection and use.

    Activities

    1.1 Examine the dangers associated with metric use.

    1.2 Share real-life examples of poor metrics and their impact.

    1.3 Practice identifying and mitigating metrics-related risk.

    Outputs

    Establish understanding and appreciation of metrics-related risks.

    Solidify understanding of metrics-related risks and their impact on an organization.

    Develop the skills needed to critically analyze a potential metric and reduce associated risk.

    2 Understand Good Practices Related to Metrics

    The Purpose

    Develop an understanding of good practices related to metric selection and use.

    Introduce Info-Tech’s TAG approach to metric selection and use.

    Identify your team’s business-aligned goals for SDLC metrics.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of good practices for metric selection and use.

    Document your team’s prioritized business-aligned goals.

    Activities

    2.1 Examine good practices and introduce Info-Tech’s TAG approach.

    2.2 Identify and prioritize your team’s business-aligned goals.

    Outputs

    Understanding of Info-Tech’s TAG approach.

    Prioritized team goals (aligned to the business) that will inform your SDLC metric selection.

    3 Rank and Select Your SDLC Metrics

    The Purpose

    Apply Info-Tech’s TAG approach to rank and select your team’s SDLC metrics.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identification of potential SDLC metrics for use by your team.

    Collaborative scoring/ranking of potential SDLC metrics based on their specific pros and cons.

    Finalize list of SDLC metrics that will support goals and minimize risk while maximizing impact.

    Activities

    3.1 Select your list of potential SDLC metrics.

    3.2 Score each potential metric’s pros and cons against objectives using a five-point scale.

    3.3 Collaboratively select your team’s first set of SDLC metrics.

    Outputs

    A list of potential SDLC metrics to be scored.

    A ranked list of potential SDLC metrics.

    Your team’s first set of goal-aligned SDLC metrics.

    4 Create a Communication and Rollout Plan

    The Purpose

    Develop a rollout plan for your SDLC metrics.

    Develop a communication plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    SDLC metrics.

    A plan to review and adjust your SDLC metrics periodically in the future.

    Communication material to be shared with the organization.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify rollout dates and responsible individuals for each SDLC metric.

    4.2 Identify your next SDLC metric review cycle.

    4.3 Create a communication deck.

    Outputs

    SDLC metrics rollout plan

    SDLC metrics review plan

    SDLC metrics communication deck

    Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management

    Understanding the differences in IaaS platform agreements, purchasing options, associated value, and risks. What are your options for:

    • Upfront or monthly payments
    • Commitment discounts
    • Support options
    • Migration planning and support

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    IaaS platforms offer similar technical features, but they vary widely on their procurement model. By fully understanding the procurement differences and options, you will be able to purchase wisely, save money both long and short term, and mitigate investment risk.

    Most vendors have similar processes and options to buy. Finding a transparent explanation and summary of each platform in a side-by-side review is difficult.

    • Are vendor reps being straight forward?
    • What are the licensing requirements?
    • What discounts or incentives can I negotiate?
    • How much do I have to commit to and for how long?

    Impact and Result

    This project will provide several benefits for both IT and the business. It includes:

    • Best IaaS platform to support current and future procurement requirements.
    • Right-sized cloud commitment tailored to the organization’s budget.
    • Predictable and controllable spend model.
    • Flexible and reliable IT infrastructure that supports the lines of business.
    • Reduced financial and legal risk.

    Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to learn how the public cloud IaaS procurement models compare. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the top three platforms, features, and benefits to support and inform the IaaS vendor choice.

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

    1. Educate

    Learn the IaaS basics, terminologies, purchasing options, licensing requirements, hybrid options, support, and organization requirements through a checklist process.

    • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 1: Educate
    • Public Cloud Procurement Checklist
    • Microsoft Public Cloud Licensing Guide

    2. Evaluate

    Review and understand the features, downsides, and differences between the big three players.

    • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 2: Evaluate
    • Public Cloud Procurement Comparison Summary

    3. Execute

    Decide on a primary vendor that meets requirements, engage with a reseller, negotiate pricing incentives, migration costs, review, and execute the agreement.

    • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 3: Execute
    • Public Cloud Acquisition Executive Summary Template

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    Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller (VAR)

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management

    Organizations need to understand their value-added reseller (VAR) portfolio and the greater VAR landscape to better:

    • Manage the VAR portfolio.
    • Understand additional value each VAR can provide.
    • Maximize existing VAR commitments.
    • Evaluate the VARs’ performance.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    VARs typically charge more for products because they are in some way adding value. If you’re not leveraging any of the provided value, you’re likely wasting money and should use a basic commodity-type reseller for procurement.

    Impact and Result

    This project will provide several benefits to Vendor Management and Procurement:

    • Defined VAR value and performance tracking.
    • Manageable portfolio of VARs that fully benefit the organization.
    • Added training, licensing advice, faster quoting, and invoicing resolution.
    • Reduced deployment and logistics costs.

    Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller (VAR) Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our informative Executive Brief to find out why you should maximize value from your value-added reseller, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the three ways to better manage your VARs improve performance and reduce costs.

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

    1. Organize and prioritize

    Organize all your VARs and create a manageable portfolio detailing their value, specific, product, services, and certifications.

    • Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller – Phase 1: Organize and Prioritize
    • VAR Listing and Prioritization Tool

    2. “EvaluRate” your VARs

    Create an in-depth evaluation of the VARs’ capabilities.

    • Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller – Phase 2: EvaluRate Your VARs
    • VAR Features Checklist Tool
    • VAR Profile and EvaluRation Tool

    3. Consolidate and reduce

    Assess each VAR for low performance and opportunity to increase value or consolidate to another VAR and reduce redundancy.

    • Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller – Phase 3: Consolidate and Reduce

    4. Maximize their value

    Micro-manage your primary VARs to ensure performance to commitments and maximize their value.

    • Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller – Phase 4: Maximize Their Value
    • VAR Information and Scorecard Workbook
    [infographic]

    Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts

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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /innovation
    • Organizations today continue to use traditional and often archaic methods of manual processing with physical paper documents.
    • These error-prone methods introduce cumbersome administrative work, causing businesses to struggle with payments and contract disputes.
    • The increasing scale and complexity of business processes has led to many third parties, middlemen, and paper hand-offs.
    • Companies remain bogged down by expensive and inefficient processes while losing sight of their ultimate stakeholder: the customer. A failure to focus on the customer is a failure to do business.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Simplify, automate, secure. Smart contracts enable businesses to simplify, automate, and secure traditionally complex transactions.
    • Focus on the customer. Smart contracts provide a frictionless experience for customers by removing unnecessary middlemen and increasing the speed of transactions.
    • New business models. Smart contracts enable the redesign of your organization and business-to-business relationships and transactions.

    Impact and Result

    • Simplify and optimize your business processes by using Info-Tech’s methodology to select processes with inefficient transactions, unnecessary middlemen, and excessive manual paperwork.
    • Use Info-Tech’s template to generate a smart contract use case customized for your business.
    • Customize Info-Tech’s stakeholder presentation template to articulate the goals and benefits of the project and get buy-in from business executives.

    Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should leverage smart contracts in your business, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    • Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts – Phases 1-2

    1. Understand smart contracts

    Understand the fundamental concepts of smart contract technology and get buy-in from stakeholders.

    • Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts – Phase 1: Understand Smart Contracts
    • Smart Contracts Executive Buy-in Presentation Template

    2. Develop a smart contract use case

    Select a business process, create a smart contract logic diagram, and complete a smart contract use-case deliverable.

    • Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts – Phase 2: Develop the Smart Contract Use Case
    • Smart Contracts Use-Case Template

    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts

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

    1 Understand Smart Contracts

    The Purpose

    Review blockchain basics.

    Understand the fundamental concepts of smart contracts.

    Develop smart contract use-case executive buy-in presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of blockchain basics.

    Understanding the fundamentals of smart contracts.

    Development of an executive buy-in presentation.

    Activities

    1.1 Review blockchain basics.

    1.2 Understand smart contract fundamentals.

    1.3 Identify business challenges and smart contract benefits.

    1.4 Create executive buy-in presentation.

    Outputs

    Executive buy-in presentation

    2 Smart Contract Logic Diagram

    The Purpose

    Brainstorm and select a business process to develop a smart contract use case around.

    Generate a smart contract logic diagram.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Selected a business process.

    Developed a smart contract logic diagram for the selected business process.

    Activities

    2.1 Brainstorm candidate business processes.

    2.2 Select a business process.

    2.3 Identify phases, actors, events, and transactions.

    2.4 Create the smart contract logic diagram.

    Outputs

    Smart contract logic diagram

    3 Smart Contract Use Case

    The Purpose

    Develop smart contract use-case diagrams for each business process phase.

    Complete a smart contract use-case deliverable.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Smart contract use-case diagrams.

    Smart contract use-case deliverable.

    Activities

    3.1 Build smart contract use-case diagrams for each phase of the business process.

    3.2 Create a smart contract use-case summary diagram.

    3.3 Complete smart contract use-case deliverable.

    Outputs

    Smart contract use case

    4 Next Steps and Action Plan

    The Purpose

    Review workshop week and lessons learned.

    Develop an action plan to follow through with next steps for the project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Reviewed workshop week with common understanding of lessons learned.

    Completed an action plan for the project.

    Activities

    4.1 Review workshop deliverables.

    4.2 Create action plan.

    Outputs

    Smart contract action plan

     

    Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case

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    • Parent Category Name: Business Analysis
    • Parent Category Link: /business-analysis
    • Enterprise application initiatives are complex, expensive, and require a significant amount of planning before initiation.
    • A financial business case is sometimes used to justify these initiatives.
    • Once the business case (and benefits therein) are approved, the case is forgotten, eliminating a critical check and balance of benefit realization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    1. Frame the conversation.

    Understand the audience and forum for the business case to best frame the conversation.

    2. Time-box the process of building the case.

    More time should be spent on performing the action rather than building the case.

    3. The business case is a living document.

    The business case creates the basis for review of the realization of the proposed business benefits once the procurement is complete.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand the drivers for decision making in your organization, and the way initiatives are evaluated.
    • Compile a compelling business case that provides decision makers with sufficient information to make decisions confidently.
    • Evaluate proposed enterprise application initiatives “apples-to-apples” using a standardized and repeatable methodology.
    • Provide a mechanism for tracking initiative performance during and after implementation.

    Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a business case for enterprise application investments, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Gather the required information

    Complete the necessary preceding tasks to building the business case. Rationalize the initiative under consideration, determine the organizational decision flow following a stakeholder assessment, and conduct market research to understand the options.

    • Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case – Phase 1: Gather the Required Information
    • Business Case Readiness Checklist
    • Business Case Workbook
    • Request for Information Template
    • Request for Quotation Template

    2. Conduct the business case analysis

    Conduct a thorough assessment of the initiative in question. Define the alternatives under consideration, identify tangible and intangible benefits for each, aggregate the costs, and highlight any risks.

    • Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case – Phase 2: Conduct the Business Case Analysis

    3. Make the case

    Finalize the recommendation based on the analysis and create a business case presentation to frame the conversation for key stakeholders.

    • Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case – Phase 3: Make the Case
    • Full-Form Business Case Presentation Template
    • Summary Business Case Presentation Template
    • Business Case Change Log
    • Business Case Close-Out Form
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case

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

    1 Plan for Business Case Development

    The Purpose

    Complete the necessary preceding tasks to building a strong business case.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Alignment with business objectives.

    Stakeholder buy-in.

    Activities

    1.1 Map the decision flow in your organization.

    1.2 Define the proposed initiative.

    1.3 Define the problem/opportunity statement.

    1.4 Clarify goals and objectives expected from the initiative.

    Outputs

    Decision traceability

    Initiative summary

    Problem/opportunity statement

    Business objectives

    2 Build the Business Case Model

    The Purpose

    Put together the key elements of the business case including alternatives, benefits, and costs.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Rationalize the business case.

    Activities

    2.1 Design viable alternatives.

    2.2 Identify the tangible and intangible benefits.

    2.3 Assess current and future costs.

    2.4 Create the financial business case model.

    Outputs

    Shortlisted alternatives

    Benefits tracking model

    Total cost of ownership

    Impact analysis

    3 Enhance the Business Case

    The Purpose

    Determine more integral factors in the business case such as ramp-up time for benefits realization as well as risk assessment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Complete a comprehensive case.

    Activities

    3.1 Determine ramp-up times for costs and benefits.

    3.2 Identify performance measures and tracking.

    3.3 Assess initiative risk.

    Outputs

    Benefits realization schedule

    Performance tracking framework

    Risk register

    4 Prepare the Business Case

    The Purpose

    Finalize the recommendation and formulate the business case summary and presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Prepare the business case presentation.

    Activities

    4.1 Choose the alternative to be recommended.

    4.2 Create the detailed and summary business case presentations.

    4.3 Present and incorporate feedback.

    4.4 Monitor and close out.

    Outputs

    Final recommendation

    Business case presentation

    Final sign-off

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

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    • Parent Category Name: Organizational Design
    • Parent Category Link: /organizational-design

    Most organizations go through an organizational redesign to:

    • Better align to the strategic objectives of the organization.
    • Increase the effectiveness of IT as a function.
    • Provide employees with clarity in their roles and responsibilities.
    • Support new capabilities.
    • Better align IT capabilities to suit the vision.
    • Ensure the IT organization can support transformation initiatives.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizational redesign is only as successful as the process leaders engage in. It shapes a story framed in a strong foundation of need and a method to successfully implement and adopt the new structure.
    • Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work. Other organizations have different strategies, drivers, and context. It’s important to focus on your organization, not someone else's.
    • You could have the best IT employees in the world, but if they aren’t structured well your organization will still fail in reaching its vision.

    Impact and Result

    • We are often unsuccessful in organizational redesign because we lack an understanding of why this initiative is required or fail to recognize that it is a change initiative.
    • Successful organizational design requires a clear understanding of why it is needed and what will be achieved by operating in a new structure.
    • Additionally, understanding the impact of the change initiative can lead to greater adoption by core stakeholders.

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Research & Tools

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

    1. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Deck – A defined method of redesigning your IT structure that is founded by clear drivers and consistently considering change management practices.

    The purpose of this storyboard is to provide a four-phased approach to organizational redesign.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure – Phases 1-4

    2. Communication Deck – A method to communicate the new organizational structure to critical stakeholders to gain buy-in and define the need.

    Use this templated Communication Deck to ensure impacted stakeholders have a clear understanding of why the new organizational structure is needed and what that structure will look like.

    • Organizational Design Communications Deck

    3. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Executive Summary Template – A template to secure executive leadership buy-in and financial support for the new organizational structure to be implemented.

    This template provides IT leaders with an opportunity to present their case for a change in organizational structure and roles to secure the funding and buy-in required to operate in the new structure.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Executive Summary

    4. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Workbook – A method to document decisions made and rationale to support working through each phase of the process.

    This Workbook allows IT and business leadership to work through the steps required to complete the organizational redesign process and document key rationale for those decisions.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Workbook

    5. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Operating Models and Capability Definitions – A tool that can be used to provide clarity on the different types of operating models that exist as well as the process definitions of each capability.

    Refer to this tool when working through the redesign process to better understand the operating model sketches and the capability definitions. Each capability has been tied back to core frameworks that exist within the information and technology space.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Operating Models and Capability Definitions

    Infographic

    Workshop: Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

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

    1 Establish the Organizational Design Foundation

    The Purpose

    Lay the foundation for your organizational redesign by establishing a set of organizational design principles that will guide the redesign process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clearly articulate why this organizational redesign is needed and the implications the strategies and context will have on your structure.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the org design drivers.

    1.2 Document and define the implications of the business context.

    1.3 Align the structure to support the strategy.

    1.4 Establish guidelines to direct the organizational design process.

    Outputs

    Clear definition of the need to redesign the organizational structure

    Understanding of the business context implications on the organizational structure creation.

    Strategic impact of strategies on organizational design.

    Customized Design Principles to rationalize and guide the organizational design process.

    2 Create the Operating Model Sketch

    The Purpose

    Select and customize an operating model sketch that will accurately reflect the future state your organization is striving towards. Consider how capabilities will be sourced, gaps in delivery, and alignment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A customized operating model sketch that informs what capabilities will make up your IT organization and how those capabilities will align to deliver value to your organization.

    Activities

    2.1 Augmented list of IT capabilities.

    2.2 Capability gap analysis

    2.3 Identified capabilities for outsourcing.

    2.4 Select a base operating model sketch.

    2.5 Customize the IT operating model sketch.

    Outputs

    Customized list of IT processes that make up your organization.

    Analysis of which capabilities require dedicated focus in order to meet goals.

    Definition of why capabilities will be outsourced and the method of outsourcing used to deliver the most value.

    Customized IT operating model reflecting sourcing, centralization, and intended delivery of value.

    3 Formalize the Organizational Structure

    The Purpose

    Translate the operating model sketch into a formal structure with defined functional teams, roles, reporting structure, and responsibilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A detailed organizational chart reflecting team structures, reporting structures, and role responsibilities.

    Activities

    3.1 Categorize your IT capabilities within your defined functional work units.

    3.2 Create a mandate statement for each work unit.

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units and assign accountability and responsibility.

    3.4 Finalize your organizational structure.

    Outputs

    Capabilities Organized Into Functional Groups

    Functional Work Unit Mandates

    Organizational Chart

    4 Plan for the Implementation & Change

    The Purpose

    Ensure the successful implementation of the new organizational structure by strategically communicating and involving stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear plan of action on how to transition to the new structure, communicate the new organizational structure, and measure the effectiveness of the new structure.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify and mitigate key org design risks.

    4.2 Define the transition plan.

    4.3 Create the change communication message.

    4.4 Create a standard set of FAQs.

    4.5 Align sustainment metrics back to core drivers.

    Outputs

    Risk Mitigation Plan

    Change Communication Message

    Standard FAQs

    Implementation and sustainment metrics.

    Further reading

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    Designing an IT structure that will enable your strategic vision is not about an org chart – it’s about how you work.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Structure enables strategy.

    The image contains a picture of Allison Straker.

    Allison Straker

    Research Director,

    Organizational Transformation

    The image contains a picture of Brittany Lutes.

    Brittany Lutes

    Senior Research Analyst,

    Organizational Transformation

    An organizational structure is much more than a chart with titles and names. It defines the way that the organization operates on a day-to-day basis to enable the successful delivery of the organization’s information and technology objectives. Moreover, organizational design sees beyond the people that might be performing a specific role. People and role titles will and often do change frequently. Those are the dynamic elements of organizational design that allow your organization to scale and meet specific objectives at defined points of time. Capabilities, on the other hand, are focused and related to specific IT processes.

    Redesigning an IT organizational structure can be a small or large change transformation for your organization. Create a structure that is equally mindful of the opportunities and the constraints that might exist and ensure it will drive the organization towards its vision with a successful implementation. If everyone understands why the IT organization needs to be structured that way, they are more likely to support and adopt the behaviors required to operate in the new structure.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Your organization needs to reorganize itself because:

    • The current IT structure does not align to the strategic objectives of the organization.
    • There are inefficiencies in how the IT function is currently operating.
    • IT employees are unclear about their role and responsibilities, leading to inconsistencies.
    • New capabilities or a change in how the capabilities are organized is required to support the transformation.

    Common Obstacles

    Many organizations struggle when it comes redesigning their IT organizational structure because they:

    • Jump right into creating the new organizational chart.
    • Do not include the members of the IT leadership team in the changes.
    • Do not include the business in the changes.
    • Consider the context in which the change will take place and how to enable successful adoption.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Successful IT organization redesign includes:

    • Understanding the drivers, context, and strategies that will inform the structure.
    • Remaining objective by focusing on capabilities over people or roles.
    • Identifying gaps in delivery, sourcing strategies, customers, and degrees of centralization.
    • Remembering that organizational design is a change initiative and will require buy-in.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A successful redesign requires a strong foundation and a plan to ensure successful adoption. Without these, the organizational chart has little meaning or value.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations who are looking to:

    • Redesign the IT structure to align to the strategic objectives of the enterprise.
    • Increase the effectiveness in how the IT function is operating in the organization.
    • Provide clarity to employees around their roles and responsibilities.
    • Ensure there is an ability to support new IT capabilities and/or align capabilities to better support the direction of the organization.
    • Align the IT organization to support a business transformation such as becoming digitally enabled or engaging in M&A activities.

    Organizational design is a challenge for many IT and digital executives

    69% of digital executives surveyed indicated challenges related to structure, team silos, business-IT alignment, and required roles when executing on a digital strategy.

    Source: MIT Sloan, 2020

    Common obstacles

    These barriers make IT organizational redesign difficult to address for many organizations:

    • Confuse organizational design and organizational charts as the same thing.
    • Start with the organizational chart, not taking into consideration the foundational elements that will make that chart successful.
    • Fail to treat organizational redesign as a change management initiative and follow through with the change.
    • Exclude impacted or influential IT leaders and/or business stakeholders from the redesign process.
    • Leverage an operating model because it is trending.

    To overcome these barriers:

    • Understand the context in which the changes will take place.
    • Communicate the changes to those impacted to enable successful adoption and implementation of a new organizational structure.
    • Understand that organizational design is for more than just HR leaders now; IT executives should be driving this change.

    Succeed in Organizational Redesign

    75% The percentage of change efforts that fail.

    Source: TLNT, 2019

    55% The percentage of practitioners who identify how information flows between work units as a challenge for their organization.

    Source: Journal of Organizational Design, 2019

    Organizational design defined

    If your IT strategy is your map, your IT organizational design represents the optimal path to get there.

    IT organizational design refers to the process of aligning the organization’s structure, processes, metrics, and talent to the organization’s strategic plan to drive efficiency and effectiveness.

    Why is the right IT organizational design so critical to success?

    Adaptability is at the core of staying competitive today

    Structure is not just an organizational chart

    Organizational design is a never-ending process

    Digital technology and information transparency are driving organizations to reorganize around customer responsiveness. To remain relevant and competitive, your organizational design must be forward looking and ready to adapt to rapid pivots in technology or customer demand.

    The design of your organization dictates how roles function. If not aligned to the strategic direction, the structure will act as a bungee cord and pull the organization back toward its old strategic direction (ResearchGate.net, 2014). Structure supports strategy, but strategy also follows structure.

    Organization design is not a one-time project but a continuous, dynamic process of organizational self-learning and continuous improvement. Landing on the right operating model will provide a solid foundation to build upon as the organization adapts to new challenges and opportunities.

    Understand the organizational differences

    Organizational Design

    Organizational design the process in which you intentionally align the organizational structure to the strategy. It considers the way in which the organization should operate and purposely aligns to the enterprise vision. This process often considers centralization, sourcing, span of control, specialization, authority, and how those all impact or are impacted by the strategic goals.

    Operating Model

    Operating models provide an architectural blueprint of how IT capabilities are organized to deliver value. The placement of the capabilities can alter the culture, delivery of the strategic vision, governance model, team focus, role responsibility, and more. Operating model sketches should be foundational to the organizational design process, providing consistency through org chart changes.

    Organizational Structure

    The organizational structure is the chosen way of aligning the core processes to deliver. This can be strategic, or it can be ad hoc. We recommend you take a strategic approach unless ad hoc aligns to your culture and delivery method. A good organizational structure will include: “someone with authority to make the decisions, a division of labor and a set of rules by which the organization operates” (Bizfluent, 2019).

    Organizational Chart

    The capstone of this change initiative is an easy-to-read chart that visualizes the roles and reporting structure. Most organizations use this to depict where individuals fit into the organization and if there are vacancies. While this should be informed by the structure it does not necessarily depict workflows that will take place. Moreover, this is the output of the organizational design process.

    Sources: Bizfluent, 2019; Strategy & Business, 2015; SHRM, 2021

    The Technology Value Trinity

    The image contains a diagram of the Technology Value Trinity as described in the text below.

    All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work in harmony to delivery business value and achieve strategic needs. As one changes, the others need to change as well.

    How do these three elements relate?

    • Digital and IT strategy tells you what you need to achieve to be successful.
    • Operating model and organizational design align resources to deliver on your strategy and priorities. This is done by strategically structuring IT capabilities in a way that enables the organizations vision and considers the context in which the structure will operate.
    • I&T governance is the confirmation of IT’s goals and strategy, which ensures the alignment of IT and business strategy and is the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work to ensure that what is delivered is in line with the strategy.

    Too often strategy, organizational design, and governance are considered separate practices – strategies are defined without teams and resources to support. Structure must follow strategy.

    Info-Tech’s approach to organizational design

    Like a story, a strategy without a structure to deliver on it is simply words on paper.

    Books begin by setting the foundation of the story.

    Introduce your story by:

    • Defining the need(s) that are driving this initiative forward.
    • Introducing the business context in which the organizational redesign must take place.
    • Outlining what’s needed in the redesign to support the organization in reaching its strategic IT goals.

    The plot cannot thicken without the foundation. Your organizational structure and chart should not exist without one either.

    The steps to establish your organizational chart - with functional teams, reporting structure, roles, and responsibilities defined – cannot occur without a clear definition of goals, need, and context. An organizational chart alone won’t provide the insight required to obtain buy-in or realize the necessary changes.

    Conclude your story through change management and communication.

    Good stories don’t end without referencing what happened before. Use the literary technique of foreshadowing – your change management must be embedded throughout the organizational redesign process. This will increase the likelihood that the organizational structure can be communicated, implemented, and reinforced by stakeholders.

    Info-Tech uses a capability-based approach to help you design your organizational structure

    Once your IT strategy is defined, it is critical to identify the capabilities that are required to deliver on those strategic initiatives. Each initiative will require a combination of these capabilities that are only supported through the appropriate organization of roles, skills, and team structures.

    The image contains a diagram of the various services and blueprints that Info-Tech has to offer.

    Embed change management into organizational design

    Change management practices are needed from the onset to ensure the implementation of an organizational structure.

    For each phase of this blueprint, its important to consider change management. These are the points when you need to communicate the structure changes:

    • Phase 1: Begin to socialize the idea of new organizational structure with executive leadership and explain how it might be impactful to the context of the organization. For example, a new control, governance model, or sourcing approach could be considered.
    • Phase 2: The chosen operating model will influence your relationships with the business and can create/eliminate silos. Ensure IT and business leaders have insight into these possible changes and a willingness to move forward.
    • Phase 3: The new organizational structure could create or eliminate teams, reduce or increase role responsibilities, and create different reporting structures than before. It’s time to communicate these changes with those most impacted and be able to highlight the positive outcomes of the various changes.
    • Phase 4: Should consider the change management practices holistically. This includes the type of change and length of time to reach the end state, communication, addressing active resistors, acquiring the right skills, and measuring the success of the new structure and its adoption.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Do not undertake an organizational redesign initiative if you will not engage in change management practices that are required to ensure its successful adoption.

    Measure the value of the IT organizational redesign

    Given that the organizational redesign is intended to align with the overall vision and objectives of the business, many of the metrics that support its success will be tied to the business. Adapt the key performance indicators (KPIs) that the business is using to track its success and demonstrate how IT can enable the business and improve its ability to reach those targets.

    Strategic Resources

    The percentage of resources dedicated to strategic priorities and initiatives supported by IT operating model. While operational resources are necessary, ensuring people are allocating time to strategic initiatives as well will drive the business towards its goal state. Leverage Info-Tech’s IT Staffing Assessment diagnostic to benchmark your IT resource allocation.

    Business Satisfaction

    Assess the improvement in business satisfaction overall with IT year over year to ensure the new structure continues to drive satisfaction across all business functions. Leverage Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic to see how your IT organization is perceived.

    Role Clarity

    The degree of clarity that IT employees have around their role and its core responsibilities can lead to employee engagement and retention. Consider measuring this core job driver by leveraging Info-Tech’s Employee Engagement Program.

    Customer & User Satisfaction

    Measure customer satisfaction with technology-enabled business services or products and improvements in technology-enabled client acquisition or retention processes. Assess the percentage of users satisfied with the quality of IT service delivery and leverage Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Survey to determine improvements.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Redesigning Your IT Organization

    Phase

    1. Establish the Organizational Design Foundation

    2. Create the Operating Model Sketch

    3. Formalize the Organizational Structure

    4. Plan for Implementation and Change

    Phase Outcomes

    Lay the foundation for your organizational redesign by establishing a set of organizational design principles that will guide the redesign process.

    Select and customize an operating model sketch that will accurately reflect the future state your organization is striving towards. Consider how capabilities will be sourced, gaps in delivery, and alignment.

    Translate the operating model sketch into a formal structure with defined functional teams, roles, reporting structure, and responsibilities.

    Ensure the successful implementation of the new organizational structure by strategically communicating and involving stakeholders.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    Organizational redesign processes focus on defining the ways in which you want to operate and deliver on your strategy – something an organizational chart will never be able to convey.

    Phase 1 insight

    Focus on your organization, not someone else's’. Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work. Other organizations have different strategies, drivers, and context.

    Phase 2 insight

    An operating model sketch that is customized to your organization’s specific situation and objectives will significantly increase the chances of creating a purposeful organizational structure.

    Phase 3 insight

    If you follow the steps outlined in the first three phases, creating your new organizational chart should be one of the fastest activities.

    Phase 4 insight

    Throughout the creation of a new organizational design structure, it is critical to involve the individuals and teams that will be impacted.

    Tactical insight

    You could have the best IT employees in the world, but if they aren’t structured well your organization will still fail in reaching its vision.

    Blueprint deliverables

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


    Communication Deck

    Communicate the changes to other key stakeholders such as peers, managers, and staff.

    Workbook

    As you work through each of the activities, use this workbook as a place to document decisions and rationale.

    Reference Deck

    Definitions for every capability, base operating model sketches, and sample organizational charts aligned to those operating models.

    Job Descriptions

    Key deliverable:

    Executive Presentation

    Leverage this presentation deck to gain executive buy-in for your new organizational structure.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Create an organizational structure that aligns to the strategic goals of IT and the business.
    • Provide IT employees with clarity on their roles and responsibilities to ensure the successful delivery of IT capabilities.
    • Highlight and sufficiently staff IT capabilities that are critical to the organization.
    • Define a sourcing strategy for IT capabilities.
    • Increase employee morale and empowerment.

    Business Benefits

    • IT can carry out the organization’s strategic mission and vision of all technical and digital initiatives.
    • Business has clarity on who and where to direct concerns or questions.
    • Reduce the likelihood of turnover costs as IT employees understand their roles and its importance.
    • Create a method to communicate how the organizational structure aligns with the strategic initiatives of IT.
    • Increase ability to innovate the organization.

    Executive Brief Case Study

    IT design needs to support organizational and business objectives, not just IT needs.

    INDUSTRY: Government

    SOURCE: Analyst Interviews and Working Sessions

    Situation

    IT was tasked with providing equality to the different business functions through the delivery of shared IT services. The government created a new IT organizational structure with a focus on two areas in particular: strategic and operational support capabilities.

    Challenge

    When creating the new IT structure, an understanding of the complex and differing needs of the business functions was not reflected in the shared services model.

    Outcome

    As a result, the new organizational structure for IT did not ensure adequate meeting of business needs. Only the operational support structure was successfully adopted by the organization as it aligned to the individual business objectives. The strategic capabilities aspect was not aligned to how the various business lines viewed themselves and their objectives, causing some partners to feel neglected.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Phase 1

    Call #1: Define the process, understand the need, and create a plan of action.

    Phase 2

    Call #2: Define org. design drivers and business context.

    Call #3: Understand strategic influences and create customized design principles.

    Call #4: Customize, analyze gaps, and define sourcing strategy for IT capabilities.

    Call #5: Select and customize the IT operating model sketch.

    Phase 3

    Call #6: Establish functional work units and their mandates.

    Call #7: Translate the functional organizational chart to an operational organizational chart with defined roles.

    Phase 4

    Call #8: Consider risks and mitigation tactics associated with the new structure and select a transition plan.

    Call #9: Create your change message, FAQs, and metrics to support the implementation plan.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Establish the Organizational Redesign Foundation

    Create the Operating Model Sketch

    Formalize the Organizational Structure

    Plan for Implementation and Change

    Next Steps and
    Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1 Define the org. design drivers.

    1.2 Document and define the implications of the business context.

    1.3 Align the structure to support the strategy.

    1.4 Establish guidelines to direct the organizational design process.

    2.1 Augment list of IT capabilities.

    2.2 Analyze capability gaps.

    2.3 Identify capabilities for outsourcing.

    2.4 Select a base operating model sketch.

    2.5 Customize the IT operating model sketch.

    3.1 Categorize your IT capabilities within your defined functional work units.

    3.2 Create a mandate statement for each work unit.

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units and assign accountability and responsibility.

    3.4 Finalize your organizational structure.

    4.1 Identify and mitigate key org. design risks.

    4.2 Define the transition plan.

    4.3 Create the change communication message.

    4.4 Create a standard set of FAQs.

    4.5 Align sustainment metrics back to core drivers.

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Deliverables

    1. Foundational components to the organizational design
    2. Customized design principles
    1. Heat mapped IT capabilities
    2. Defined outsourcing strategy
    3. Customized operating model
    1. Capabilities organized into functional groups
    2. Functional work unit mandates
    3. Organizational chart
    1. Risk mitigation plan
    2. Change communication message
    3. Standard FAQs
    4. Implementation and sustainment metrics
    1. Completed organizational design communications deck

    This blueprint is part one of a three-phase approach to organizational transformation

    PART 1: DESIGN

    PART 2: STRUCTURE

    PART 3: IMPLEMENT

    IT Organizational Architecture

    Organizational Sketch

    Organizational Structure

    Organizational Chart

    Transition Strategy

    Implement Structure

    1. Define the organizational design drivers, business context, and strategic alignment.

    2. Create customized design principles.

    3. Develop and customize a strategically aligned operating model sketch.

    4. Define the future-state work units.

    5. Create future-state work unit mandates.

    6. Define roles by work unit.

    7. Turn roles into jobs with clear capability accountabilities and responsibilities.

    8. Define reporting relationships between jobs.

    9. Assess options and select go-forward organizational sketch.

    11. Validate organizational sketch.

    12. Analyze workforce utilization.

    13. Define competency framework.

    14. Identify competencies required for jobs.

    15. Determine number of positions per job

    16. Conduct competency assessment.

    17. Assign staff to jobs.

    18. Build a workforce and staffing plan.

    19. Form an OD implementation team.

    20. Develop change vision.

    21. Build communication presentation.

    22. Identify and plan change projects.

    23. Develop organizational transition plan.

    24. Train managers to lead through change.

    25. Define and implement stakeholder engagement plan.

    26. Develop individual transition plans.

    27. Implement transition plans.

    Risk Management: Create, implement, and monitor risk management plan.

    HR Management: Develop job descriptions, conduct job evaluation, and develop compensation packages.

    Monitor and Sustain Stakeholder Engagement

    Phase 1

    Establish the Organizational Redesign Foundation

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1.1 Define the organizational redesign driver(s)

    1.2 Create design principles based on the business context

    1.3a (Optional Exercise) Identify the capabilities from your value stream

    1.3b Identify the capabilities required to deliver on your strategies

    1.4 Finalize your list of design principles

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Embed change management into the organizational design process

    Articulate the Why

    Changes are most successful when leaders clearly articulate the reason for the change – the rationale for the organizational redesign of the IT function. Providing both staff and executive leaders with an understanding for this change is imperative to its success. Despite the potential benefits to a redesign, they can be disruptive. If you are unable to answer the reason why, a redesign might not be the right initiative for your organization.

    Employees who understand the rationale behind decisions made by executive leaders are 3.6 times more likely to be engaged.

    McLean & Company Engagement Survey Database, 2021; N=123,188

    Info-Tech Insight

    Successful adoption of the new organizational design requires change management from the beginning. Start considering how you will convey the need for organizational change within your IT organization.

    The foundation of your organizational design brings together drivers, context, and strategic implications

    All aspects of your IT organization’s structure should be designed with the business’ context and strategic direction in mind.

    Use the following set of slides to extract the key components of your drivers, business context, and strategic direction to land on a future structure that aligns with the larger strategic direction.

    REDESIGN DRIVERS

    Driver(s) can originate from within the IT organization or externally. Ensuring the driver(s) are easy to understand and articulate will increase the successful adoption of the new organizational structure.

    BUSINESS CONTEXT

    Defines the interactions that occur throughout the organization and between the organization and external stakeholders. The context provides insight into the environment by both defining the purpose of the organization and the values that frame how it operates.

    STRATEGY IMPLICATIONS

    The IT strategy should be aligned to the overall business strategy, providing insight into the types of capabilities required to deliver on key IT initiatives.

    Understand IT’s desired maturity level, alignment with business expectations, and capabilities of IT

    Where are we today?

    Determine the current overall maturity level of the IT organization.

    Where do we want to be as an organization?

    Use the inputs from Info-Tech’s diagnostic data to determine where the organization should be after its reorganization.

    How can you leverage these results?

    The result of these diagnostics will inform the design principles that you’ll create in this phase.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s diagnostics to provide an understanding of critical areas your redesign can support:

    CIO Business Vision Diagnostic

    Management & Governance Diagnostic

    IT Staffing Diagnostic

    The image contains a picture of Info-Tech's maturity ladder.

    Consider the organizational design drivers

    Consider organizational redesign if …

    Effectiveness is a concern:

    • Insufficient resources to meet demand
    • Misalignment to IT (and business) strategies
    • Lack of clarity around role responsibility or accountability
    • IT functions operating in silos

    New capabilities are needed:

    • Organization is taking on new capabilities (digital, transformation, M&A)
    • Limited innovation
    • Gaps in the capabilities/services of IT
    • Other external environmental influences or changes in strategic direction

    Lack of business understanding

    • Misalignment between business and IT or how the organization does business
    • Unhappy customers (internal or external)

    Workforce challenges

    • Frequent turnover or inability to attract new skills
    • Low morale or employee empowerment

    These are not good enough reasons …

    • New IT leader looking to make a change for the sake of change or looking to make their legacy known
    • To work with specific/hand-picked leaders over others
    • To “shake things up” to see what happens
    • To force the organization to see IT differently

    Info-Tech Insight

    Avoid change for change’s sake. Restructuring could completely miss the root cause of the problem and merely create a series of new ones.

    1.1 Define the organizational redesign driver(s)

    1-2 hours

    1. As a group, brainstorm a list of current pain points or inhibitors in the current organizational structure, along with a set of opportunities that can be realized during your restructuring. Group these pain points and opportunities into themes.
    2. Leverage the pain points and opportunities to help further define why this initiative is something you’re driving towards. Consider how you would justify this initiative to different stakeholders in the organization.
    3. Questions to consider:
      1. Who is asking for this initiative?
      2. What are the primary benefits this is intended to produce?
      3. What are you optimizing for?
      4. What are we capable of achieving as an IT organization?
      5. Are the drivers coming from inside or outside the IT organization?
    4. Once you’ve determined the drivers for redesigning the IT organization, prioritize those drivers to ensure there is clarity when communicating why this is something you are focusing time and effort on.

    Input

    Output

    • Knowledge of the current organization
    • Pain point and opportunity themes
    • Defined drivers of the initiative

    Materials

    Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Frame the organizational design within the context of the business

    Workforce Considerations:

    • How does your organization view its people resources? Does it have the capacity to increase the number of resources?
    • Do you currently have sufficient staff to meet the demands of the organization? Are you able to outsource resources when demand requires it?
    • Are the members of your IT organization unionized?
    • Is your workforce distributed? Do time zones impact how your team can collaborate?

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Culture:

    Culture, "the way we do things here,” has huge implications for executing strategy, driving engagement, and providing a guiding force that ensures organizations can work together toward common goals.

    • What is the culture of your organization? Is it cooperative, traditional, competitive, or innovative? (See appendix for details.)
    • Is this the target culture or a stepping-stone to the ideal culture?
    • How do the attitudes and behaviors of senior leaders in the organization reinforce this culture?

    Consider whether your organization’s culture can accept the operating model and organizational structure changes that make sense on paper.

    Certain cultures may lean toward particular operating models. For example, the demand-develop-service operating model may be supported by a cooperative culture. A traditional organization may lean towards the plan-build-run operating model.

    Ensure you have considered your current culture and added exercises to support it.

    If more capacity is required to accomplish the goals of the organization, you’ll want to prepare the leaders and explain the need in your design principles (to reflect training, upskilling, or outsourcing). Unionized environments require additional consideration. They may necessitate less structural changes, and so your principles will need to reflect other alternatives (hiring additional resources, creative options) to support organizational needs. Hybrid or fully remote workforces may impact how your organization interacts.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Control & Governance:

    It is important to consider how your organization is governed, how decisions are made, and who has authority to make decisions.

    Strategy tells what you do, governance validates you’re doing the right things, and structure is how you execute on what’s been approved.

    • How do decisions get considered and approved in your organization? Are there specific influences that impact the priorities of the organization?
    • Are those in the organization willing to release decision-making authority around specific IT components?
    • Should the organization take on greater accountability for specific IT components?

    Organizations that require more controls may lean toward more centralized governance. Organizations that are looking to better enable and empower their divisions (products, groups, regions, etc.) may look to embed governance in these parts of the organization.

    For enterprise organizations, consider where IT has authority to make decisions (at the global, local, or system level). Appropriate governance needs to be built into the appropriate levels.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Financial Constraints:

    Follow the money: You may need to align your IT organization according to the funding model.

    • Do partners come to IT with their budgets, or does IT have a central pool that they use to fund initiatives from all partners?
    • Are you able to request finances to support key initiatives/roles prioritized by the organization?
    • How is funding aligned: technology, data, digital, etc.? Is your organization business-line funded? Pooled?
    • Are there special products or digital transformation initiatives with resources outside IT? Product ownership funding?
    • How are regulatory changes funded?
    • Do you have the flexibility to adjust your budget throughout the fiscal year?
    • Are chargebacks in place? Are certain services charged back to business units

    Determine if you can move forward with a new model or if you can adjust your existing one to suit the financial constraints.

    If you have no say over your funding, pre-work may be required to build a business case to change your funding model before you look at your organizational structure – without this, you might have to rule out centralized and focus on hybrid/centralized. If you don’t control the budget (funding comes from your partners), it will be difficult to move to a more centralized model.

    A federated business organization may require additional IT governance to help prioritize across the different areas.

    Budgets for digital transformation might come from specific areas of the business, so resources may need to be aligned to support that. You’ll have to consider how you will work with those areas. This may also impact the roles that are going to exist within your IT organization – product owners or division owners might have more say.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Business Perspective of IT:

    How the business perceives IT and how IT perceives itself are sometimes not aligned. Make sure the business’ goals for IT are well understood.

    • Are your business partners satisfied if IT is an order taker? Do they agree with the need for IT to become a business partner? Is IT expected to innovate and transform the organization?
    • Is what the business needs from IT the same as what IT is providing currently?

    Business Organization Structure and Growth:

    • How is the overall organization structured: Centralized/decentralized? Functionally aligned? Divided by regions?
    • In what areas does the organization prioritize investments?
    • Is the organization located across a diverse geography?
    • How big is the organization?
    • How is the organization growing and changing – by mergers and acquisitions?

    If IT needs to become more of a business partner, you’ll want to define what that means to your organization and focus on the capabilities to enable this. Educating your partners might also be required if you’re not aligned.

    For many organizations, this will include stakeholder management, innovation, and product/project management. If IT and its business partners are satisfied with an order-taker relationship, be prepared for the consequences of that.

    A global organization will require different IT needs than a single location. Specifically, site reliability engineering (SRE) or IT support services might be deployed in each region. Organizations growing through mergers and acquisitions can be structured differently depending on what the organization needs from the transaction. A more centralized organization may be appropriate if the driver is reuse for a more holistic approach, or the organization may need a more decentralized organization if the acquisitions need to be handled uniquely.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Sourcing Strategy:

    • What are the drivers for sourcing? Staff augmentation, best practices, time zone support, or another reason?
    • What is your strategy for sourcing?
    • Does IT do all of your technology work, or are parts being done by business or other units?
    • Are we willing/able to outsource, and will that place us into non-compliance (regulations)?
    • Do you have vendor management capabilities in areas that you might outsource?
    • How cloud-driven is your organization?
    • Do you have global operations?

    Change Tolerance:

    • What’s your organization’s tolerance to make changes around organizational design?
    • What's the appetite and threshold for risk?

    Your sourcing strategy affects your organizational structure, including what capabilities you group together. Since managing outsourced capabilities also includes the need for vendor management, you’ll need to ensure there aren’t too many capabilities required per leader. Look closely at what can be achieved through your operating model if IT is done through other groups. Even though these groups may not be in scope of your organization changes, you need to ensure your IT team works with them effectively.

    If your organization is going to push back if there are big structural changes, consider whether the changes are truly necessary. It may be preferred to take baby steps – use an incremental versus big-bang approach.

    A need for incremental change might mean not making a major operating model change.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org Design. Implication

    Stakeholder Engagement & Focus:

    Identify who your customers and stakeholders are; clarify their needs and engagement model.

    • Who is the customer for IT products and services?
    • Is your customer internal? External? Both?
    • How much of a priority is customer focus for your organization?
    • How will IT interact with customers, end users, and partners? What is the engagement model desired?

    Business Vision, Services, and Products:

    Articulate what your organization was built to do.

    • What does the organization create or provide?
    • Are these products and services changing?
    • What are the most critical capabilities to your organization?
    • What makes your organization a success? What are critical success factors of the organization and how are they measuring this to determine success?

    For a customer or user focus, ensure capabilities related to understanding needs (stakeholder, UX, etc.) are prioritized. Hybrid, decentralized, or demand-develop-service models often have more of a focus on customer needs.

    Outsourcing the service desk might be a consideration if there’s a high demand for the service. A differentiation between these users might mean there’s a different demand for services.

    Think broadly in terms of your organizational vision, not just the tactical (widget creation). You might need to choose an operating model that supports vision.

    Do you need to align your organization with your value stream? Do you need to decentralize specific capabilities to enable prioritization of the key capabilities?

    1.2 Create design principles based on the business context

    1-3 hours

    1. Discuss the business context in which the IT organizational redesign will be taking place. Consider the following standard components of the business context; include other relevant components specific to your organization:
    • Culture
    • Workforce Considerations
    • Control and Governance
    • Financial Constraints
    • Business Perspective of IT
    • Business Organization Structure and Growth
    • Sourcing Strategy
    • Change Tolerance
    • Stakeholder Engagement and Focus
    • Business Vision, Services, and Products
  • Different stakeholders can have different perspectives on these questions. Be sure to consider a holistic approach and engage these individuals.
  • Capture your findings and use them to create initial design principles.
  • Input

    Output

    • Business context
    • Design principles reflecting how the business context influences the organizational redesign for IT

    Materials

    Participants

    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • List of Context Questions
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    How your IT organization is structured needs to reflect what it must be built to do

    Structure follows strategy – the way you design will impact what your organization can produce.

    Designing your IT organization requires an assessment of what it needs to be built to do:

    • What are the most critical capabilities that you need to deliver, and what does success look like in those different areas?
    • What are the most important things that you deliver overall in your organization?

    The IT organization must reflect your business needs:

    • Understand your value stream and/or your prioritized business goals.
    • Understand the impact of your strategies – these can include your overall digital strategy and/or your IT strategy

    1.3a (Optional Exercise) Identify the capabilities from your value stream

    1 hour

    1. Identify your organization’s value stream – what your overall organization needs to do from supplier to consumer to provide value. Leverage Info-Tech’s industry reference architectures if you haven’t identified your value stream, or use the Document Your Business Architecture blueprint to create yours.
    2. For each item in your value stream, list capabilities that are critical to your organizational strategy and IT needs to further invest in to enable growth.
    3. Also, list those that need further support, e.g. those that lead to long wait times, rework time, re-tooling, down-time, unnecessary processes, unvaluable processes.*
    4. Capture the IT capabilities required to enable your business in your draft principles.
    The image contains a screenshot of the above activity: Sampling Manufacturing Business Capabilities.
    Source: Six Sigma Study Guide, 2014
    Input Output
    • Organization’s value stream
    • List of IT capabilities required to support the IT strategy
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Your strategy will help you decide on your structure

    Ensure that you have a clear view of the goals and initiatives that are needed in your organization. Your IT, digital, business, and/or other strategies will surface the IT capabilities your organization needs to develop. Identify the goals of your organization and the initiatives that are required to deliver on them. What capabilities are required to enable these? These capabilities will need to be reflected in your design principles.

    Sample initiatives and capabilities from an organization’s strategies

    The image contains a screenshot of sample initiatives and capabilities from an organization's strategies.

    1.3b Identify the capabilities required to deliver on your strategies

    1 hour

    1. For each IT goal, there may be one or more initiatives that your organization will need to complete in order to be successful.
    2. Document those goals and infinitives. For each initiative, consider which core IT capabilities will be required to deliver on that goal. There might be one IT capability or there might be several.
    3. Identify which capabilities are being repeated across the different initiatives. Consider whether you are currently investing in those capabilities in your current organizational structure.
    4. Highlight the capabilities that require IT investment in your design principles.
    InputOutput
    • IT goals
    • IT initiatives
    • IT, digital, and business strategies
    • List of IT capabilities required to support the IT strategy
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Create your organizational design principles

    Your organizational design principles should define a set of loose rules that can be used to design your organizational structure to the specific needs of the work that needs to be done. These rules will guide you through the selection of the appropriate operating model that will meet your business needs. There are multiple ways you can hypothetically organize yourself to meet these needs, and the design principles will point you in the direction of which solution is the most appropriate as well as explain to your stakeholders the rationale behind organizing in a specific way. This foundational step is critical: one of the key reasons for organizational design failure is a lack of requisite time spent on the front-end understanding what is the best fit.

    The image contains an example of organizing design principles as described above.

    1.4 Finalize your list of design principles

    1-3 hours

    1. As a group, review the key outputs from your data collection exercises and their implications.
    2. Consider each of the previous exercises – where does your organization stand from a maturity perspective, what is driving the redesign, what is the business context, and what are the key IT capabilities requiring support. Identify how each will have an implication on your organizational redesign. Leverage this conversation to generate design principles.
    3. Vote on a finalized list of eight to ten design principles that will guide the selection of your operating model. Have everyone leave the meeting with these design principles so they can review them in more detail with their work units or functional areas and elicit any necessary feedback.
    4. Reconvene the group that was originally gathered to create the list of design principles and make any final amendments to the list as necessary. Use this opportunity to define exactly what each design principle means in the context of your organization so everyone has the same understanding of what this means moving forward.
    InputOutput
    • Organizational redesign drivers
    • Business context
    • IT strategy capabilities
    • Organizational design principles to help inform the selection of the right operating model sketch
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Example design principles

    Your eight to ten design principles will be those that are most relevant to YOUR organization. Below are samples that other organizations have created, but yours will not be the same.

    Design Principle

    Description

    Decision making

    We will centralize decision making around the prioritization of projects to ensure that the initiatives driving the most value for the organization as a whole are executed.

    Fit for purpose

    We will build and maintain fit-for-purpose solutions based on business units’ unique needs.

    Reduction of duplication

    We will reduce role and application duplication through centralized management of assets and clearly differentiated roles that allow individuals to focus within key capability areas.

    Managed security

    We will manage security enterprise-wide and implement compliance and security governance policies.

    Reuse > buy > build

    We will maximize reuse of existing assets by developing a centralized application portfolio management function and approach.

    Managed data

    We will create a specialized data office to provide data initiatives with the focus they need to enable our strategy.

    Design Principle

    Description

    Controlled technical diversity

    We will control the variety of technology platforms we use to allow for increased operability and reduction of costs.

    Innovation

    R&D and innovation are critical – we will build an innovation team into our structure to help us meet our digital agenda.

    Resourcing

    We will separate our project and maintenance activities to ensure each are given the dedicated support they need for success and to reduce the firefighting mentality.

    Customer centricity

    The new structure will be directly aligned with customer needs – we will have dedicated roles around relationship management, requirements, and strategic roadmapping for business units.

    Interoperability

    We will strengthen our enterprise architecture practices to best prepare for future mergers and acquisitions.

    Cloud services

    We will move toward hosted versus on-premises infrastructure solutions, retrain our data center team in cloud best practices, and build roles around effective vendor management, cloud provisioning, and architecture.

    Phase 2

    Create the Operating Model Sketch

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    2.1 Augment the capability list

    2.2 Heatmap capabilities to determine gaps in service

    2.3 Identify the target state of sourcing for your IT capabilities

    2.4 Review and select a base operating model sketch

    2.5 Customize the selected overlay to reflect the desired future state

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Embed change management into the organizational design process

    Gain Buy-In

    Obtain desire from stakeholders to move forward with organizational redesign initiative by involving them in the process to gain interest. This will provide the stakeholders with assurance that their concerns are being heard and will help them to understand the benefits that can be anticipated from the new organizational structure.

    “You’re more likely to get buy-in if you have good reason for the proposed changes – and the key is to emphasize the benefits of an organizational redesign.”

    Source: Lucid Chart

    Info-Tech Insight

    Just because people are aware does not mean they agree. Help different stakeholders understand how the change in the organizational structure is a benefit by specifically stating the benefit to them.

    Info-Tech uses capabilities in your organizational design

    We differentiate between capabilities and competencies.

    Capabilities

    • Capabilities are focused on the entire system that would be in place to satisfy a particular need. This includes the people who are competent to complete a specific task and also the technology, processes, and resources to deliver.
    • Capabilities work in a systematic way to deliver on specific need(s).
    • A functional area is often made up of one or more capabilities that support its ability to deliver on that function.
    • Focusing on capabilities rather then the individuals in organizational redesign enables a more objective and holistic view of what your organization is striving toward.

    Competencies

    • Competencies on the other hand are specific to an individual. It determines if the individual poses the skills or ability to perform.
    • Competencies are rooted in the term competent, which looks to understand if you are proficient enough to complete the specific task at hand.
    • Source: The People Development Magazine, 2020

    Use our IT capabilities to establish your IT organization design

    The image contains a diagram of the various services and blueprints that Info-Tech has to offer.

    2.1 Augment the capability list

    1-3 hours

    1. Using the capability list on the previous slide, go through each of the IT capabilities and remove any capabilities for which your IT organization is not responsible and/or accountable. Refer to the Operating Model and Capability Definition List for descriptions of each of the IT capabilities.
    2. Augment the language of specific capabilities that you feel are not directly reflective of what is being done within your organizational context or that you feel need to be changed to reflect more specifically how work is being done in your organization.
    • For example, some organizations may refer to their service desk capability as help desk or regional support. Use a descriptive term that most accurately reflects the terminology used inside the organization today.
  • Add any core capabilities from your organization that are missing from the provided IT capability list.
    • For example, organizations that leverage DevOps capabilities for their product development may desire to designate this in their operating model.
  • Document the rationale for decisions made for future reference.
  • Input Output
    • Baseline list of IT capabilities
    • IT capabilities required to support IT strategy
    • Customized list of IT capabilities
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Gaps in delivery

    Identify areas that require greater focus and attention.

    Assess the gaps between where you currently are and where you need to be. Evaluate how critical and how effective your capabilities are:

    • Criticality = Importance
      • Try to focus on those which are highly critical to the organization.
      • These may be capabilities that have been identified in your strategies as areas to focus on.
    • Effectiveness = Performance
      • Identify those where the process or system is broken or ineffective, preventing the team from delivering on the capability.
      • Effectiveness could take into consideration how scalable, adaptable, or sustainable each capability is.
      • Focus on the capabilities that are low or medium in effectiveness but highly critical. Addressing the delivery of these capabilities will lead to the most positive outcomes in your organization.

    Remember to identify what allows the highly effective capabilities to perform at the capacity they are. Leverage this when increasing effectiveness elsewhere.

    High Gap

    There is little to no effectiveness (high gap) and the capability is highly important to your organization.

    Medium Gap

    Current ability is medium in effectiveness (medium gap) and there might be some priority for that capability in your organization.

    Low Gap

    Current ability is highly effective (low gap) and the capability is not necessarily a priority for your organization.

    2.2 Heatmap capabilities to determine gaps in delivery

    1-3 hours

    1. At this point, you should have identified what capabilities you need to have to deliver on your organization's goals and initiatives.
    2. Convene a group of the key stakeholders involved in the IT organizational design initiative.
    3. Review your IT capabilities and color each capability border according to the effectiveness and criticality of that capability, creating a heat map.
    • Green indicates current ability is highly effective (low gap) and the capability is not necessarily a priority for your organization.
    • Yellow indicates current ability is medium in effectiveness (medium gap) and there might be some priority for that capability in your organization.
    • Red indicates that there is little to no effectiveness (high gap) and the capability is highly important to your organization.
    Input Output
    • Selected capabilities from activity 2.1
    • Gap analysis in delivery of capabilities currently
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Don’t forget the why: why are you considering outsourcing?

    There are a few different “types” of outsourcing:

    1. Competitive Advantage – Working with a third-party organization for the knowledge, insights, and best practices they can bring to your organization.
    2. Managed Service– The third party manages a capability or function for your organization.
    3. Staff Augmentation – Your organization brings in contractors and third-party organizations to fill specific skills gaps.

    Weigh which sourcing model(s) will best align with the needed capabilities to deliver effectively

    Insourcing

    Staff Augmentation

    Managed Service

    Competitive Advantage

    Description

    The organization maintains full responsibility for the management and delivery of the IT capability or service.

    Vendor provides specialized skills and enables the IT capability or service together with the organization to meet demand.

    Vendor completely manages the delivery of value for the IT capability, product or service.

    Vendor has unique skills, insights, and best practices that can be taught to staff to enable insourced capability and competency.

    Benefits

    • Retains in-house control over proprietary knowledge and assets that provide competitive or operational advantage.
    • Gains efficiency due to integration into the organization’s processes.
    • Provision of unique skills.
    • Addresses variation in demand for resources.
    • Labor cost savings.
    • Improves use of internal resources.
    • Improves effectiveness due to narrow specialization.
    • Labor cost savings.
    • Gain insights into aspects that could provide your organization with advantages over competitors.
    • Long-term labor cost savings.
    • Short-term outsourcing required.
    • Increase in-house competencies.

    Drawbacks

    • Quality of services/capabilities might not be as high due to lack of specialization.
    • No labor cost savings.
    • Potentially inefficient distribution of labor for the delivery of services/capabilities.
    • Potential conflicts in management or delivery of IT services and capabilities.
    • Negative impact on staff morale.
    • Limited control over services/capabilities.
    • Limited integration into organization’s processes.
    • Short-term labor expenses.
    • Requires a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

    Your strategy for outsourcing will vary with capability and capacity

    The image contains a diagram to show the Develop Vendor Management Capabilities, as described in the text below.

    Capability

    Capacity

    Outsourcing Model

    Low

    Low

    Your solutions may be with you for a long time, so it doesn’t matter whether it is a strategic decision to outsource development or if you are not able to attract the talent required to deliver in your market. Look for a studio, agency, or development shop that has a proven reputation for long-term partnership with its clients.

    Low

    High

    Your team has capacity but needs to develop new skills to be successful. Look for a studio, agency, or development shop that has a track record of developing its customers and delivering solutions.

    High

    Low

    Your organization knows what it is doing but is strapped for people. Look at “body shops” and recruiting agencies that will support short-term development contracts that can be converted to full-time staff or even a wholesale development shop acquisition.

    High

    High

    You have capability and capacity for delivering on your everyday demands but need to rise to the challenge of a significant, short-term rise in demand on a critical initiative. Look for a major system integrator or development shop with the specific expertise in the appropriate technology.

    Use these criteria to inform your right sourcing strategy

    Sourcing Criteria

    Description

    Determine whether you’ll outsource using these criteria

    1. Critical or commodity

    Determine whether the component to be sourced is critical to your organization or if it is a commodity. Commodity components, which are either not strategic in nature or related to planning functions, are likely candidates for outsourcing. Will you need to own the intellectual property created by the third party? Are you ok if they reuse that for their other clients?

    2. Readiness to outsource

    Identify how easy it would be to outsource a particular IT component. Consider factors such as knowledge transfer, workforce reassignment or reduction, and level of integration with other components.

    Vendor management readiness – ensuring that you have sufficient capabilities to manage vendors – should also be considered here.

    3. In-house capabilities

    Determine if you have the capability to deliver the IT solutions in-house. This will help you establish how easy it would be to insource an IT component.

    4. Ability to attract resources (internal vs. outsourced)

    Determine if the capability is one that is easily sourced with full-time, internal staff or if it is a specialty skill that is best left for a third-party to source.

    Determine your sourcing model using these criteria

    5. Cost

    Consider the total cost (investment and ongoing costs) of the delivery of the IT component for each of the potential sourcing models for a component.

    6. Quality

    Define the potential impact on the quality of the IT component being sourced by the possible sourcing models.

    7. Compliance

    Determine whether the sourcing model would fit with regulations in your industry. For example, a healthcare provider would only go for a cloud option if that provider is HIPAA compliant.

    8. Security

    Identify the extent to which each sourcing option would leave your organization open to security threats.

    9. Flexibility

    Determine the extent to which the sourcing model will allow your organization to scale up or down as demand changes.

    2.3 Identify capabilities that could be outsourced

    1-3 hours

    1. For each of the capabilities that will be in your future-state operating model, determine if it could be outsourced. Review the sourcing criteria available on the previous slide to help inform which sourcing strategy you will use for each capability.
    2. When looking to outsource or co-source capabilities, consider why that capability would be outsourced:
    • Competitive Advantage – Work with a third-party organization for the knowledge, insights, and best practices they can bring to your organization.
    • Managed Service – The third party manages a capability or function for your organization.
    • Staff Augmentation – Your organization brings in contractors and third-party organizations to fill specific skills gaps.
  • Place an asterisk (*) around the capabilities that will be leveraging one of the three previous sourcing options.
  • InputOutput
    • Customized IT capabilities
    • Sourcing strategy for each IT capability
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    What is an operating model?

    Leverage a cohesive operating model throughout the organizational design process.

    An IT operating model sketch is a visual representation of the way your IT organization needs to be designed and the capabilities it requires to deliver on the business mission, strategic objectives, and technological ambitions. It ensures consistency of all elements in the organizational structure through a clear and coherent blueprint.

    The visual should be the optimization and alignment of the IT organization’s structure to deliver the capabilities required to achieve business goals. Additionally, it should clearly show the flow of work so that key stakeholders can understand where inputs flow in and outputs flow out of the IT organization. Investing time in the front end getting the operating model right is critical. This will give you a framework to rationalize future organizational changes, allowing you to be more iterative and your model to change as the business changes.

    The image contains an example of an operating model as described in the text above.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every structure decision you make should be based on an identified need, not on a trend.Build your IT organization to enable the priorities of the organization.

    Each IT operating model is characterized by a variety of advantages and disadvantages

    Centralized

    Hybrid

    Decentralized

    Advantages
    • Maximum flexibility to allocate IT resources across business units.
    • Low-cost delivery model and greatest economies of scale.
    • Control and consistency offers opportunity for technological rationalization and standardization and volume purchasing at the highest degree.
    • Centralizes processes and services that require consistency across the organization.
    • Decentralizes processes and services that need to be responsive to local market conditions.
    • Eliminates duplication and redundancy by allowing effective use of common resources (e.g. shared services, standardization).
    • Goals are aligned to the distinct business units or functions.
    • Greater flexibility and more timely delivery of services.
    • Development resources are highly knowledgeable about business-unit-specific applications.
    • Business unit has greatest control over IT resources and can set and change priorities as needed.

    Disadvantages

    • Less able to respond quickly to local requirements with flexibility.
    • IT can be resistant to change and unwilling to address the unique needs of end users.
    • Business units can be frustrated by perception of lack of control over resources.
    • Development of special business knowledge can be limited.
    • Requires the most disciplined governance structure and the unwavering commitment of the business; therefore, it can be the most difficult to maintain.
    • Requires new processes as pooled resources must be staffed to approved projects.
    • Redundancies, conflicts, and incompatible technologies can result from business units having differentiated services and applications – increasing cost.
    • Ability to share IT resources is low due to lack of common approaches.
    • Lack of integration limits the communication of data between businesses and reduces common reporting.

    Decentralization can take many forms – define what it means to your organization

    Decentralization can take a number of different forms depending on the products the organization supports and how the organization is geographically distributed. Use the following set of explanations to understand the different types of decentralization possible and when they may make sense for supporting your organizational objectives.

    Line of Business

    Decentralization by lines of business (LoB) aligns decision making with business operating units based on related functions or value streams. Localized priorities focus the decision making from the CIO or IT leadership team. This form of decentralization is beneficial in settings where each line of business has a unique set of products or services that require specific expertise or flexible resourcing staffing between the teams.

    Product Line

    Decentralization by product line organizes your team into operationally aligned product families to improve delivery throughput, quality, and resource flexibility within the family. By adopting this approach, you create stable product teams with the right balance between flexibility and resource sharing. This reinforces value delivery and alignment to enterprise goals within the product lines.

    Geographical

    Geographical decentralization reflects a shift from centralized to regional influences. When teams are in different locations, they can experience a number of roadblocks to effective communication (e.g. time zones, regulatory differences in different countries) that may necessitate separating those groups in the organizational structure, so they have the autonomy needed to make critical decisions.

    Functional

    Functional decentralization allows the IT organization to be separated by specialty areas. Organizations structured by functional specialization can often be organized into shared service teams or centers of excellence whereby people are grouped based on their technical, domain, or functional area within IT (Applications, Data, Infrastructure, Security, etc.). This allows people to develop specialized knowledge and skills but can also reinforce silos between teams.

    2.4 Review and select a base operating model sketch

    1 hour

    1. Review the set of base operating model sketches available on the following slides.
    2. For each operating model sketch, there are benefits and risks to be considered. Make an informed selection by understanding the risks that your organization might be taking on by adopting that particular operating model.
    3. If at any point in the selection process the group is unsure about which operating model will be the right fit, refer back to your design principles established in activity 1.4. These should guide you in the selection of the right operating model and eliminate those which will not serve the organization.
    InputOutput
    • Organizational design principles
    • Customized list of IT capabilities
    • Operating model sketch examples
    • Selected operating model sketch
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Centralized Operating Model #1: Plan-Build-Run

    I want to…

    • Establish a formalized governance process that takes direction from the organization on which initiatives should be prioritized by IT.
    • Ensure there is a clear separation between teams that are involved in strategic planning, building solutions, and delivering operational support.
    • Be able to plan long term by understanding the initiatives that are coming down the pipeline and aligning to an infrequent budgeting plan.

    BENEFITS

    • Effective at implementing long-term plans efficiently; separates maintenance and projects to allow each to have the appropriate focus.
    • More oversight over financials; better suited for fixed budgets.
    • Works across centralized technology domains to better align with the business’ strategic objectives – allows for a top-down approach to decision making.
    • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
    • Well-suited for a project-driven environment that employs waterfall or a hybrid project management methodology that is less iterative.

    RISKS

    • Creates artificial silos between the build (developers) and run (operations staff) teams, as both teams focus on their own responsibilities and often fail to see the bigger picture.
    • Miss opportunities to deliver value to the organization or innovate due to an inability to support unpredictable/shifting project demands as decision making is centralized in the plan function.
    • The portfolio of initiatives being pursued is often determined before requirements analysis takes place, meaning the initiative might be solving the wrong need or problem.
    • Depends on strong hand-off processes to be defined and strong knowledge transfer from build to run functions in order to be successful.
    The image contains an example of a Centralized Operating Model: Plan-Build-Run.

    Centralized Operating Model #2: Demand-Develop-Service

    I want to…

    • Listen to the business to understand new initiatives or service enhancements being requested.
    • Enable development and operations to work together to seamlessly deliver in a DevOps culture.
    • Govern and confirm that initiatives being requested by the business are still aligned to IT’s overarching strategy and roadmap before prioritizing those initiatives.

    BENEFITS

    • Aligns well with an end-to-end services model; constant attention to customer demand and service supply.
    • Centralizes service operations under one functional area to serve shared needs across lines of business.
    • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
    • Elevates sourcing and vendor management as its own strategic function; lends well to managed service and digital initiatives.
    • Development and operations housed together; lends well to DevOps-related initiatives and reduces the silos between these two core groups.

    RISKS

    • IT prioritizes the initiatives it thinks are a priority to the business based on how well it establishes good stakeholder relations and communications.
    • Depends on good governance to prevent enhancements and demands from being prioritized without approval from those with accountability and authority.
    • This model thrives in a DevOps culture but does not mean it ensures your organization is a “DevOps” organization. Be sure you're encouraging the right behaviors and attitudes.

    The image contains an example of a Centralized Operating Model: Demand, Develop, Service.

    Hybrid Operating Model #1: LOB/Functional Aligned

    I want to…

    • Better understand the various needs of the organization to align IT priorities and ensure the right services can be delivered.
    • Keep all IT decisions centralized to ensure they align with the overarching strategy and roadmap that IT has set.
    • Organize your shared services in a strategic manner that enables delivery of those services in a way that fits the culture of the organization and the desired method of operating.

    BENEFITS

    • Best of both worlds of centralization and decentralization; attempts to channel benefits from both centralized and decentralized models.
    • Embeds key IT functions that require business knowledge within functional areas, allowing for critical feedback and the ability to understand those business needs.
    • Places IT in a position to not just be “order takers” but to be more involved with the different business units and promote the value of IT.
    • Achieves economies of scale where necessary through the delivery of shared services that can be requested by the function.
    • Shared services can be organized to deliver in the best way that suits the organization.

    RISKS

    • Different business units may bypass governance to get their specific needs met by functions – to alleviate this, IT must have strong governance and prioritize amongst demand.
    • Decentralized role can be viewed as an order taker by the business if not properly embedded and matured.
    • No guaranteed synergy and integration across functions; requires strong communication, collaboration, and steering.
    • Cannot meet every business unit’s needs – can cause tension from varying effectiveness of the IT functions.

    The image contains an example of a Hybrid Operating Model: LOB/Functional Aligned.

    Hybrid Model #2: Product-Aligned Operating Model

    I want to…

    • Align my IT organization into core products (services) that IT provides to the organization and establish a relationship with those in the organization that have alignment to that product.
    • Have roles dedicated to the lifecycle of their product and ensure the product can continuously deliver value to the organization.
    • Maintain centralized set of standards as it applies to overall IT strategy, security, and architecture to ensure consistency across products and reduce silos.

    BENEFITS

    • Focus is on the full lifecycle of a product – takes a strategic view of how technology enables the organization.
    • Promotes centralized backlog around a specific value creator, rather than a traditional project focus that is more transactional.
    • Dedicated teams around the product family ensure you have all of the resources required to deliver on your product roadmap.
    • Reduces barriers between IT and business stakeholders; focuses on technology as a key strategic enabler.
    • Delivery is largely done through frequent releases that can deliver value.

    RISKS

    • If there is little or no business involvement, it could prevent IT from truly understanding business demand and prioritizing the wrong work.
    • A lack of formal governance can create silos between the IT products, causing duplication of efforts, missed opportunities for collaboration, and redundancies in application or vendor contracts.
    • Members of each product can interpret the definition of standards (e.g. architecture, security) differently.

    The image contains an example of the Hybrid Operating Model: Product-Aligned Operating Model.

    Hybrid Operating Model #3: Service-Aligned Operating Model

    I want to…

    • Decentralize the IT organization by the various IT services it offers to the organization while remaining centralized with IT strategy, governance, security and operational services.
    • Ensure IT services are defined and people resources are aligned to deliver on those services.
    • Enable each of IT’s services to have the autonomy to understand the business needs and be able to manage the operational and new project initiatives with a dedicated service owner or business relationship manager.

    BENEFITS

    • Strong enabler of agility as each service has the autonomy to make decisions around operational work versus project work based on their understanding of the business demand.
    • Individuals in similar roles that are decentralized across services are given coaching to provide common direction.
    • Allows teams to efficiently scale with service demand.
    • This is a structurally baseline DevOps model. Each group will have services built within that have their own dedicated teams that will handle the full gambit of responsibilities, from new features to enhancements and maintenance.

    RISKS

    • Service owners require a method to collaborate to avoid duplication of efforts or projects that conflict with the efforts of other IT services.
    • May result in excessive cost through role redundancies across different services, as each will focus on components like integration, stakeholder management, project management, and user experiences.
    • Silos cause a high degree of specialization, making it more difficult for team members to imagine moving to another defined service group, limiting potential career advancement opportunities.
    • The level of complex knowledge required by shared services (e.g. help desk) is often beyond what they can provide, causing them to rely on and escalate to defined service groups more than with other operating models.

    The image contains an example of the Hybrid Operating Model: Service-Aligned Operating Model.

    Decentralized Model: Division Decentralization (LoB, Geography, Function, Product)

    I want to…

    • Decentralize the IT organization to enable greater autonomy within specific groups that have differing customer demands and levels of support.
    • Maintain a standard level of service that can be provided by IT for all divisions.
    • Ensure each division has access to critical data and reports that supports informed decision making.

    BENEFITS

    • Organization around functions allows for diversity in approach in how areas are run to best serve a specific business unit’s needs.
    • Each functional line exists largely independently, with full capacity and control to deliver service at the committed SLAs.
    • Highly responsive to shifting needs and demands with direct connection to customers and all stages of the solution development lifecycle.
    • Accelerates decision making by delegating authority lower into the function.
    • Promotes a flatter organization with less hierarchy and more direct communication with the CIO.

    RISKS

    • Requires risk and security to be centralized and have oversight of each division to prevent the decisions of one division from negatively impacting other divisions or the enterprise.
    • Less synergy and integration across what different lines of business are doing can result in redundancies and unnecessary complexity.
    • Higher overall cost to the IT group due to role and technology duplication across different divisions.
    • It will be difficult to centralize aspects of IT in the future, as divisions adopt to a culture of IT autonomy.

    The image contains an example of the Decentralized Model: Division Decentralization.

    Enterprise Model: Multi-Modal

    I want to…

    • Have an organizational structure that leverages several different operating models based on the needs and requirements of the different divisions.
    • Provide autonomy and authority to the different divisions so they can make informed and necessary changes as they see fit without seeking approval from a centralized IT group.
    • Support the different initiatives the enterprise is focused on delivering and ensure the right model is adopted based on those initiatives.

    BENEFITS

    • Allows for the organization to work in ways that best support individual areas; for example, areas that support legacy systems can be supported through traditional operating models while areas that support digital transformations may be supported through more flexible operating models.
    • Enables a specialization of knowledge related to each division.

    RISKS

    • Inconsistency across the organization can lead to confusion on how the organization should operate.
    • Parts of the organization that work in more traditional operating models may feel limited in career growth and innovation.
    • Cross-division initiatives may require greater oversight and a method to enable operations between the different focus areas.

    The image contains an example of the Enterprise Model: Multi-Modal.

    Create enabling teams that bridge your divisions

    The following bridges might be necessary to augment your divisions:

    • Specialized augmentation: There might not be a sufficient number of resources to support each division. These teams will be leveraged across the divisions; this means that the capabilities needed for each division will exist in this bridge team, rather than in the division.
    • Centers of Excellence: Capabilities that exist within divisions can benefit from shared knowledge across the enterprise. Your organization might set up centers of excellence to support best practices in capabilities organization wide. These are Forums in the unfix model, or communities of practice and support capability development rather than deliveries of each division.
    • Facilitation teams might be required to support divisions through coaching. This might include Agile or other coaches who can help teams adopt practices and embed learnings.
    • Holistic teams provide an enterprise view as they work with various divisions. This can include capabilities like user experience, which can benefit from the holistic perspective rather than a siloed one. People with these capabilities augment the divisions on an as-needed basis.
    The image contains a diagram to demonstrate the use of bridges on divisions.

    2.5 Customize the selected sketch to reflect the desired future state

    1-3 hours

    1. Using the baseline operating model sketch, walk through each of the IT capabilities. Based on the outputs from activity 2.1:
      1. Remove any capabilities for which your IT organization is not responsible and/or accountable.
      2. Augment the language of specific capabilities that you feel are not directly reflective of what is being done within your organizational context or that you feel need to be changed to reflect more specifically how work is being done in your organization.
      3. Add any core capabilities from your organization that are missing from the provided IT capability list.
    2. Move capabilities to the right places in the operating model to reflect how each of the core IT processes should interact with one another.
    3. Add bridges as needed to support the divisions in your organization. Identify which capabilities will sit in these bridges and define how they will enable the operating model sketch to deliver.
    InputOutput
    • Selected base operating model sketch
    • Customized list of IT capabilities
    • Understanding of outsourcing and gaps
    • Customized operating model sketch
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Operating model sketch examples
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Document the final operating model sketch in the Communications Deck

    Phase 3

    Formalize the Organizational Structure

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    3.1 Create work units

    3.2 Create work unit mandates

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units

    3.4 Finalize the organizational chart

    3.5 Identify and mitigate key risks

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Embed change management into the organizational design process

    Enable adoption of the new structure.

    You don’t have to make the change in one big bang. You can adopt alternative transition plans such as increments or pilots. This allows people to see the benefits of why you are undergoing the change, allows the change message to be repeated and applied to the individuals impacted, and provides people with time to understand their role in making the new organizational structure successful.

    “Transformational change can be invigorating for some employees but also highly disruptive and stressful for others.”

    Source: OpenStax, 2019

    Info-Tech Insight

    Without considering the individual impact of the new organizational structure on each of your employees, the change will undoubtedly fail in meeting its intended goals and your organization will likely fall back into old structured habits.

    Use a top-down approach to build your target-state IT organizational sketch

    The organizational sketch is the outline of the organization that encompasses the work units and depicts the relationships among them. It’s important that you create the structure that’s right for your organization, not one that simply fits with your current staff’s skills and knowledge. This is why Info-Tech encourages you to use your operating model as a mode of guidance for structuring your future-state organizational sketch.

    The organizational sketch is made up of unique work units. Work units are the foundational building blocks on which you will define the work that IT needs to get done. The number of work units you require and their names will not match your operating model one to one. Certain functional areas will need to be broken down into smaller work units to ensure appropriate leadership and span of control.

    Use your customized operating model to build your work units

    WHAT ARE WORK UNITS?

    A work unit is a functional group or division that has a discrete set of processes or capabilities that it is responsible for, which don’t overlap with any others. Your customized list of IT capabilities will form the building blocks of your work units. Step one in the process of building your structure is grouping IT capabilities together that are similar or that need to be done in concert in the case of more complex work products. The second step is to iterate on these work units based on the organizational design principles from Phase 1 to ensure that the future-state structure is aligned with enablement of the organization’s objectives.

    Work Unit Examples

    Here is a list of example work units you can use to brainstorm what your organization’s could look like. Some of these overlap in functionality but should provide a strong starting point and hint at some potential alternatives to your current way of organizing.

    • Office of the CIO
    • Strategy and Architecture
    • Architecture and Design
    • Business Relationship Management
    • Projection and Portfolio Management
    • Solution Development
    • Solution Delivery
    • DevOps
    • Infrastructure and Operations
    • Enterprise Information Security
    • Security, Risk & Compliance
    • Data and Analytics

    Example of work units

    The image contains an example of work units.

    3.1 Create functional work units

    1-3 hours

    1. Using a whiteboard or large tabletop, list each capability from your operating model on a sticky note and recreate your operating model. Use one color for centralized activities and a second color for decentralized activities.
    2. With the group of key IT stakeholders, review the operating model and any important definitions and rationale for decisions made.
    3. Starting with your centralized capabilities, review each in turn and begin to form logical groups of compatible capabilities. Review the decentralized capabilities and repeat the process, writing additional sticky notes for capabilities that will be repeated in decentralized units.
    4. Note: Not all capabilities need to be grouped. If you believe that a capability has a high enough priority, has a lot of work, or is significantly divergent from others put this capability by itself.
    5. Define a working title for each new work unit, and discuss the pros and cons of the model. Ensure the work units still align with the operating model and make any changes to the operating model needed.
    6. Review your design principles and ensure that they are aligned with your new work units.
    InputOutput
    • Organizational business objectives
    • Customized operating model
    • Defined work units
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Group formation

    Understand the impact of the functional groups you create.

    A group consists of two or more individuals who are working toward a common goal. Group formation is how those individuals are organized to deliver on that common goal. It should take into consideration the levels of hierarchy in your structure, the level of focus you give to processes, and where power is dispersed within your organizational design.

    Importance: Balance highly important capabilities with lower priority capabilities

    Specialization: The scope of each role will be influenced by specialized knowledge and a dedicated leader

    Effectiveness: Group capabilities that increase their efficacy

    Span of Control: Identify the right number of employees reporting to a single leader

    Choose the degree of specialization required

    Be mindful of the number of hats you’re placing on any one role.

    • Specialization exists when individuals in an organization are dedicated to performing specific tasks associated with a common goal and requiring a particular skill set. Aligning the competencies required to carry out the specific tasks based on the degree of complexity associated with those tasks ensures the right people and number of people can be assigned.
    • When people are organized by their specialties, it reduces the likelihood of task switching, reduces the time spent training or cross-training, and increases the focus employees can provide to their dedicated area of specialty.
    • There are disadvantages associated with aligning teams by their specialization, such as becoming bored and seeing the tasks they are performing as monotonous. Specialization doesn’t come without its problems. Monitor employee motivation

    Info-Tech Insight

    Smaller organizations will require less specialization simply out of necessity. To function and deliver on critical processes, some people might be asked to wear several hats.

    Avoid overloading the cognitive capacity of employees

    Cognitive load refers to the number of responsibilities that one can successfully take on.

    • When employees are assigned an appropriate number of responsibilities this leads to:
      • Engaged employees
      • Less task switching
      • Increased effectiveness on assigned responsibilities
      • Reduced bottlenecks
    • While this cognitive load can differ from employee to employee, when assigning role responsibilities, ensure each role isn’t being overburdened and spreading their focus thin.
    • Moreover, capable does not equal successful. Just because someone has the capability to take on more responsibilities doesn’t mean they will be successful.
    • Leverage the cognitive load being placed on your team to help create boundaries between teams and demonstrate clear role expectations.
    Source: IT Revolution, 2021

    Info-Tech Insight

    When you say you are looking for a team that is a “jack of all trades,” you are likely exceeding appropriate cognitive loads for your staff and losing productivity to task switching.

    Factors to consider for span of control

    Too many and too few direct reports have negative impacts on the organization.

    Complexity: More complex work should have fewer direct reports. This often means the leader will need to provide lots of support, even engaging in the work directly at times.

    Demand: Dynamic shifts in demand require more managerial involvement and therefore should have a smaller span of control. Especially if this demand is to support a 24/7 operation.

    Competency Level: Skilled employees should require less hands-on assistance and will be in a better position to support the business as a member of a larger team than those who are new to the role.

    Purpose: Strategic leaders are less involved in the day-to-day operations of their teams, while operational leaders tend to provide hands-on support, specifically when short-staffed.

    Group formation will influence communication structure

    Pick your poison…

    It’s important to understand the impacts that team design has on your services and products. The solutions that a team is capable of producing is highly dependent on how teams are structured. For example, Conway’s Law tells us that small distributed software delivery teams are more likely to produce modular service architecture, where large collocated teams are better able to create monolithic architecture. This doesn’t just apply to software delivery but also other products and services that IT creates. Note that small distributed teams are not the only way to produce quality products as they can create their own silos.

    Sources: Forbes, 2017

    Create mandates for each of your identified work units

    WHAT ARE WORK UNIT MANDATES?

    The work unit mandate should provide a quick overview of the work unit and be clear enough that any reader can understand why the work unit exists, what it does, and what it is accountable for.

    Each work unit will have a unique mandate. Each mandate should be distinguishable enough from your other work units to make it clear why the work is grouped in this specific way, rather than an alternative option. The mandate will vary by organization based on the agreed upon work units, design archetype, and priorities.

    Don’t just adopt an example mandate from another organization or continue use of the organization’s pre-existing mandate – take the time to ensure it accurately depicts what that group is doing so that its value-added activities are clear to the larger organization.

    Examples of Work Unit Mandates

    The Office of the CIO will be a strategic enabler of the IT organization, driving IT organizational performance through improved IT management and governance. A central priority of the Office of the CIO is to ensure that IT is able to respond to evolving environments and challenges through strategic foresight and a centralized view of what is best for the organization.

    The Project Management Office will provide standardized and effective project management practices across the IT landscape, including an identified project management methodology, tools and resources, project prioritization, and all steps from project initiation through to evaluation, as well as education and development for project managers across IT.

    The Solutions Development Group will be responsible for the high-quality development and delivery of new solutions and improvements and the production of customized business reports. Through this function, IT will have improved agility to respond to new initiatives and will be able to deliver high-quality services and insights in a consistent manner.

    3.2 Create work unit mandates

    1-3 hours

    1. Break into teams of three to four people and assign an equal number of work units to each team.
    2. Have each team create a set of statements that describe the overall purpose of that working group. Each mandate statement should:
    • Be clear enough that any reader can understand.
    • Explain why the work unit exists, what it does, and what it is accountable for.
    • Be distinguishable enough from your other work units to make it clear why the work is grouped in this specific way, rather than an alternative option.
  • Have each group present their work unit mandates and make changes wherever necessary.
  • InputOutput
    • Work units
    • Work unit mandates
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Identify the key roles and responsibilities for the target IT organization

    Now that you have identified the main units of work in the target IT organization, it is time to identify the roles that will perform that work. At the end of this step, the key roles will be identified, the purpose statement will be built, and accountability and responsibility for roles will be clearly defined. Make sure that accountability for each task is assigned to one role only. If there are challenges with a role, change the role to address them (e.g. split roles or shift responsibilities).

    The image contains an example of two work units: Enterprise Architecture and PMO. It then lists the roles of the two work units.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Do not bias your role design by focusing on your existing staff’s competencies. If you begin to focus on your existing team members, you run the risk of artificially narrowing the scope of work or skewing the responsibilities of individuals based on the way it is, rather than the way it should be.

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units

    1-3 hours

    1. Select a work unit from the organizational sketch.
    2. Describe the most senior role in that work unit by asking, “what would the leader of this group be accountable or responsible for?” Define this role and move the capabilities they will be accountable for under that leader. Repeat this activity for the capabilities this leader would be responsible for.
    3. Continue to define each role that will be required in that work unit to deliver or provide oversight related to those capabilities.
    4. Continue until key roles are identified and the capabilities each role will be accountable or responsible for are clarified.
    5. Remember, only one role can have accountability for each capability but several can have responsibility.
    6. For each role, use the list of capabilities that the position will be accountable, responsible, or accountable and responsible for to create a job description. Leverage your own internal job descriptions or visit our Job Descriptions page.
    InputOutput
    • Work units
    • Work unit mandates
    • Responsibilities
    • Accountabilities
    • Roles with clarified responsibilities and accountabilities
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Delivery model for product or solution development

    Can add additional complexity or clarity

    • Certain organizational structures will require a specific type of resourcing model to meet expectations and deliver on the development or sustainment of core products and solutions.
    • There are four common methods that we see in IT organizations:
      • Functional Roles: Completed work is handed off from functional team to functional team sequentially as outlined in the organization’s SDLC.
      • Shared Service & Resource Pools (Matrix): Resources are pulled whenever the work requires specific skills or pushed to areas where product demand is high.
      • Product or System: Work is directly sent to the teams who are directly managing the product or directly supporting the requestor.
      • Skills & Competencies: Work is directly sent to the teams who have the IT and business skills and competencies to complete the work.
    • Each of these will lead to a difference in how the functional team is skilled. They could have a great understanding of their customer, the product, the solution, or their service.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Despite popular belief, there is no such thing as the Spotify model, and organizations that structured themselves based on the original Spotify drawing might be missing out on key opportunities to obtain productivity from employees.

    Sources: Indeed, 2020; Agility Scales

    There can be different patterns to structure and resource your product delivery teams

    The primary goal of any product delivery team is to improve the delivery of value for customers and the business based on your product definition and each product’s demand. Each organization will have different priorities and constraints, so your team structure may take on a combination of patterns or may take on one pattern and then transform into another.

    Delivery Team Structure Patterns

    How Are Resources and Work Allocated?

    Functional Roles

    Teams are divided by functional responsibilities (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk) and arranged according to their placement in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

    Completed work is handed off from team to team sequentially as outlined in the organization’s SDLC.

    Shared Service and Resource Pools

    Teams are created by pulling the necessary resources from pools (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk).

    Resources are pulled whenever the work requires specific skills or pushed to areas where product demand is high.

    Product or System

    Teams are dedicated to the development, support, and management of specific products or systems.

    Work is directly sent to the teams who are directly managing the product or directly supporting the requester.

    Skills and Competencies

    Teams are grouped based on skills and competencies related to technology (e.g. Java, mobile, web) or familiarity with business capabilities (e.g. HR, Finance).

    Work is directly sent to the teams who have the IT and business skills and competencies to complete the work.

    Delivery teams will be structured according to resource and development needs

    Functional Roles

    Shared Service and Resource Pools

    Product or System

    Skills and Competencies

    When your people are specialists versus having cross-functional skills

    Leveraged when specialists such as Security or Operations will not have full-time work on the product

    When you have people with cross-functional skills who can self-organize around a product’s needs

    When you have a significant investment in a specific technology stack

    The image contains a diagram of functional roles.The image contains a diagram of shared service and resource pools.The image contains a diagram of product or system.The image contains a diagram of skills and competencies.

    For more information about delivering in a product operating model, refer to our Deliver Digital Products at Scale blueprint.

    3.4 Finalize the organizational chart

    1-3 hours

    1. Import each of your work units and the target-state roles that were identified for each.
    2. In the place of the name of each work unit in your organizational sketch, replace the work unit name with the prospective role name for the leader of that group.
    3. Under each of the leadership roles, import the names of team members that were part of each respective work unit.
    4. Validate the final structure as a group to ensure each of the work units includes all the necessary roles and responsibilities and that there is clear delineation of accountabilities between the work units.

    Input

    Output

    • Work units
    • Work unit mandates
    • Roles with accountabilities and responsibilities
    • Finalized organizational chart

    Materials

    Participants

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook & Executive Communications Deck

    Proactively consider and mitigate redesign risks

    Every organizational structure will include certain risks that should have been considered and accepted when choosing the base operating model sketch. Now that the final organizational structure has been created, consider if those risks were mitigated by the final organizational structure that was created. For those risks that weren’t mitigated, have a tactic to control risks that remain present.

    3.5 Identify and mitigate key risks

    1-3 hours

    1. For each of the operating model sketch options, there are specific risks that should have been considered when selecting that model.
    2. Take those risks and transfer them into the correct slide of the Organizational Design Workbook.
    3. Consider if there are additional risks that need to be considered with the new organizational structure based on the customizations made.
    4. For each risk, rank the severity of that risk on a scale of low, medium, or high.
    5. Determine one or more mitigation tactic(s) for each of the risks identified. This tactic should reduce the likelihood or impact of the risk event happening.
    InputOutput
    • Final organizational structure
    • Operating model sketch benefits and risks
    • Redesign risk mitigation plan
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Phase 4

    Plan for Implementation & Change

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    4.1 Select a transition plan

    4.2 Establish the change communication messages

    4.3 Be consistent with a standard set of FAQs

    4.4 Define org. redesign resistors

    4.5 Create a sustainment plan

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership
    • HR Business Partners

    All changes require change management

    Change management is:

    Managing a change that requires replanning and reorganizing and that causes people to feel like they have lost control over aspects of their jobs.

    – Padar et al., 2017
    People Process Technology

    Embedding change management into organizational design

    PREPARE A

    Awareness: Establish the need for organizational redesign and ensure this is communicated well.

    This blueprint is mostly focused on the prepare and transition components.

    D

    Desire: Ensure the new structure is something people are seeking and will lead to individual benefits for all.

    TRANSITION K

    Knowledge: Provide stakeholders with the tools and resources to function in their new roles and reporting structure.

    A

    Ability: Support employees through the implementation and into new roles or teams.

    FUTURE R

    Reinforcement: Emphasize and reward positive behaviors and attitudes related to the new organizational structure.

    Implementing the new organizational structure

    Implementing the organizational structure can be the most difficult part of the process.

    • To succeed in the process, consider creating an implementation plan that adequately considers these five components.
    • Each of these are critical to supporting the final organizational structure that was established during the redesign process.

    Implementation Plan

    Transition Plan: Identify the appropriate approach to making the transition, and ensure the transition plan works within the context of the business.

    Communication Strategy: Create a method to ensure consistent, clear, and concise information can be provided to all relevant stakeholders.

    Plan to Address Resistance: Given that not everyone will be happy to move forward with the new organizational changes, ensure you have a method to hear feedback and demonstrate concerns have been heard.

    Employee Development Plan: Provide employees with tools, resources, and the ability to demonstrate these new competencies as they adjust to their new roles.

    Monitor and Sustain the Change: Establish metrics that inform if the implementation of the new organizational structure was successful and reinforce positive behaviors.

    Define the type of change the organizational structure will be

    As a result, your organization must adopt OCM practices to better support the acceptance and longevity of the changes being pursued.

    Incremental Change

    Transformational Change

    Organizational change management is highly recommended and beneficial for projects that require people to:

    • Adopt new tools and workflows.
    • Learn new skills.
    • Comply with new policies and procedures.
    • Stop using old tools and workflows.

    Organizational change management is required for projects that require people to:

    • Move into different roles, reporting structures, and career paths.
    • Embrace new responsibilities, goals, reward systems, and values.
    • Grow out of old habits, ideas, and behaviors.
    • Lose stature in the organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    How you transition to the new organizational structure can be heavily influenced by HR. This is the time to be including them and leveraging their expertise to support the transition “how.”

    Transition Plan Options

    Description

    Pros

    Cons

    Example

    Big Bang Change

    Change that needs to happen immediately – “ripping the bandage off.”

    • It puts an immediate stop to the current way of operating.
    • Occurs quickly.
    • More risky.
    • People may not buy into the change immediately.
    • May not receive the training needed to adjust to the change.

    A tsunami in Japan stopped all imports and exports. Auto manufacturers were unable to get parts shipped and had to immediately find an alternative supplier.

    Incremental Change

    The change can be rolled out slower, in phases.

    • Can ensure that people are bought in along the way through the change process, allowing time to adjust and align with the change.
    • There is time to ensure training takes place.
    • It can be a timely process.
    • If the change is dragged on for too long (over several years) the environment may change and the rationale and desired outcome for the change may no longer be relevant.

    A change in technology, such as HRIS, might be rolled out one application at a time to ensure that people have time to learn and adjust to the new system.

    Pilot Change

    The change is rolled out for only a select group, to test and determine if it is suitable to roll out to all impacted stakeholders.

    • Able to test the success of the change initiative and the implementation process.
    • Able to make corrections before rolling it out wider, to aid a smooth change.
    • Use the pilot group as an example of successful change.
    • Able to gain buy-in and create change champions from the pilot group who have experienced it and see the benefits.
    • Able to prevent an inappropriate change from impacting the entire organization.
    • Lengthy process.
    • Takes time to ensure the change has been fully worked through.

    A retail store is implementing a new incentive plan to increase product sales. They will pilot the new incentive plan at select stores, before rolling it out broadly.

    4.1 Select a transition plan approach

    1-3 hours

    1. List each of the changes required to move from your current structure to the new structure. Consider:
      1. Changes in reporting structure
      2. Hiring new members
      3. Eliminating positions
      4. Developing key competencies for staff
    2. Once you’ve defined all the changes required, consider the three different transition plan approaches: big bang, incremental, and pilot. Each of the transition plan approaches will have drawbacks and benefits. Use the list of changes to inform the best approach.
    3. If you are proceeding with the incremental or the pilot, determine the order in which you will proceed with the changes or the groups that will pilot the new structure first.
    InputOutput
    • Customized operating model sketch
    • New org. chart
    • Current org. chart
    • List of changes to move from current to future state
    • Transition plan to support changes
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • HR Business Partners

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Make a plan to effectively manage and communicate the change

    Success of your new organizational structure hinges on adequate preparation and effective communication.

    The top challenge facing organizations in completing the organizational redesign is their organizational culture and acceptance of change. Effective planning for the implementation and communication throughout the change is pivotal. Make sure you understand how the change will impact staff and create tailored plans for communication.

    65% of managers believe the organizational change is effective when provided with frequent and clear communication.

    Source: SHRM, 2021

    Communicate reasons for organizational structure changes and how they will be implemented

    Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state, and that makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff.

    The organizational change message should:

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

    Five elements of communicating change

    • What is the change?
    • Why are we doing it?
    • How are we going to go about it?
    • How long will it take us to do it?
    • What will the role be for each department and individual?
    Source: Cornelius & Associates, 2010

    4.2 Establish the change communication messages

    2 hours

    1. The purpose of this activity is to establish a change communication message you can leverage when talking to stakeholders about the new organizational structure.
    2. Review the questions in the Organizational Design Workbook.
    3. Establish a clear message around the expected changes that will have to take place to help realize the new organizational structure.
    InputOutput
    • Customized operating model sketch
    • New org. chart
    • Current org. chart
    • List of changes
    • Transition plan
    • Change communication message for new organizational structure
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Apply the following communication principles to make your IT organization redesign changes relevant to stakeholders

    Be Clear

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

    Be Consistent

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

    Be Concise

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

    Be Relevant

    • Talk about what matters to the stakeholder.
    • Talk about what matters to the initiative.
    • Tailor the details of the message to each stakeholder’s specific concerns.
    • IT thinks in processes but stakeholders only care about results: talk in terms of results.
    • IT wants to be understood but this does not matter to stakeholders. Think: “what’s in it for them?”
    • Communicate truthfully; do not make false promises or hide bad news.

    Frequently asked questions (FAQs) provide a chance to anticipate concerns and address them

    As a starting point for building an IT organizational design implementation, look at implementing an FAQ that will address the following:

    • The what, who, when, why, and where
    • The transition process
    • What discussions should be held with clients in business units
    • HR-centric questions

    Questions to consider answering:

    • What is the objective of the IT organization?
    • What are the primary changes to the IT organization?
    • What does the new organizational structure look like?
    • What are the benefits to our IT staff and to our business partners?
    • How will the IT management team share new information with me?
    • What is my role during the transition?
    • What impact is there to my reporting relationship within my department?
    • What are the key dates I should know about?

    4.3 Be consistent with a standard set of FAQs

    1 hour

    1. Beyond the completed communications plans, brainstorm a list of answers to the key “whats” of your organizational design initiative:
    • What is the objective of the IT organization?
    • What are the primary changes to the IT organization?
    • What does the new organizational structure look like?
    • What are the benefits to our IT staff and to our business partners?
  • Think about any key questions that may rise around the transition:
    • How will the IT management team share new information with me?
    • What is my role during the transition?
    • What impact is there to my reporting relationship within my department?
    • What are the key dates I should know about?
  • Determine the best means of socializing this information. If you have an internal wiki or knowledge-sharing platform, this would be a useful place to host the information.
  • InputOutput
    • Driver(s) for the new organizational structure
    • List of changes to move from current to future state
    • Change communication message
    • FAQs to provide to staff about the organizational design changes
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    The change reaction model

    The image contains a picture of the change reaction model. The model includes a double arrow pointing in both directions of left and right. On top of the arrow are 4 circles spread out on the arrow. They are labelled: Active Resistance, Detachment, Questioning, Acceptance.

    (Adapted from Cynthia Wittig)

    Info-Tech Insight

    People resist changes for many reasons. When it comes to organizational redesign changes, some of the most common reasons people resist change include a lack of understanding, a lack of involvement in the process, and fear.

    Include employees in the employee development planning process

    Prioritize

    Assess employee to determine competency levels and interests.

    Draft

    Employee drafts development goals; manager reviews.

    Select

    Manager helps with selection of development activities.

    Check In

    Manager provides ongoing check-ins, coaching, and feedback.

    Consider core and supplementary components that will sustain the new organizational structure

    Supplementary sustainment components:

    • Tools & Resources
    • Structure
    • Skills
    • Work Environment
    • Tasks
    • Disincentives

    Core sustainment components:

    • Empowerment
    • Measurement
    • Leadership
    • Communication
    • Incentives

    Sustainment Plan

    Sustain the change by following through with stakeholders, gathering feedback, and ensuring that the change rationale and impacts are clearly understood. Failure to so increases the potential that the change initiative will fail or be a painful experience and cost the organization in terms of loss of productivity or increase in turnover rates.

    Support sustainment with clear measurements

    • Measurement is one of the most important components of monitoring and sustaining the new organizational structure as it provides insight into where the change is succeeding and where further support should be added.
    • There should be two different types of measurements:
    1. Standard Change Management Metrics
    2. Organizational Redesign Metrics
  • When gathering data around metrics, consider other forms of measurement (qualitative) that can provide insights on opportunities to enhance the success of the organizational redesign change.
    1. Every measurement should be rooted to a goal. Many of the goals related to organizational design will be founded in the driver of this change initiative
    2. Once the goals have been defined, create one or more measurements that determines if the goal was successful.
    3. Use specific key performance indicators (KPIs) that contain a metric that is being measured and the frequency of that measurement.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Obtaining qualitative feedback from employees, customers, and business partners can provide insight into where the new organizational structure is operating optimally versus where there are further adjustments that could be made to support the change.

    4.4 Consider sustainment metrics

    1 hour

    1. Establish metrics that bring the entire process together and that will ensure the new organizational design is a success.
    2. Go back to your driver(s) for the organizational redesign. Use these drivers to help inform a particular measurement that can be used to determine if the new organizational design will be successful. Each measurement should be related to the positive benefits of the organization, an individual, or the change itself.
    3. Once you have a list of measurements, use these to determine the specific KPI that can be qualified through a metric. Often you are looking for an increase or decrease of a particular measurement by a dollar or percentage within a set time frame.
    4. Use the example metrics in the workbook and update them to reflect your organization’s drivers.
    InputOutput
    • Driver(s) for the new organizational structure
    • List of changes to move from current to future state
    • Change communication message
    • Sustainment metrics
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

    • Continue into the second phase of the organizational redesign process by defining the required workforce to deliver.
    • Leveraging trends, data, and feedback from your employees, define the competencies needed to deliver on the defined roles.

    Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

    • Organizational design implementations can be highly disruptive for IT staff and business partners.
    • Without a structured approach, IT leaders may experience high turnover, decreased productivity, and resistance to the change.

    Define the Role of Project Management in Agile and Product-Centric Delivery

    • There are many voices with different opinions on the role of project management. This causes confusion and unnecessary churn.
    • Project management and product management naturally align to different time horizons. Harmonizing their viewpoints can take significant work.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    The image contains a picture of Jardena London.

    Jardena London

    Transformation Catalyst, Rosetta Technology Group

    The image contains a picture of Jodie Goulden.

    Jodie Goulden

    Consultant | Founder, OrgDesign Works

    The image contains a picture of Shan Pretheshan.

    Shan Pretheshan

    Director, SUPA-IT Consulting

    The image contains a picture of Chris Briley.

    Chris Briley

    CIO, Manning & Napier

    The image contains a picture of Dean Meyer.

    Dean Meyer

    President N. Dean Meyer and Associates Inc.

    The image contains a picture of Jimmy Williams.

    Jimmy Williams

    CIO, Chocktaw Nation of Oklahoma

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Cole Cioran, Managing Partner

    Dana Daher, Research Director

    Hans Eckman, Principal Research Director

    Ugbad Farah, Research Director

    Ari Glaizel, Practice Lead

    Valence Howden, Principal Research Director

    Youssef Kamar, Senior Manager, Consulting

    Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead

    Baird Miller, Executive Counsellor

    Josh Mori, Research Director

    Rajesh Parab, Research Director

    Gary Rietz, Executive Counsellor

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    Morales Pedraza, Jorge. Answer to posting, “What is the relationship between structure and strategy?” ResearchGate.net, 5 March 2014. Web.

    Nanjad, Len. “Five non-negotiables for effective organization design change.” MNP, 01 October 2021. Web.

    Neilson, Gary, Jaime Estupiñán, and Bhushan Sethi. “10 Principles of Organizational Design.” Strategy & Business, 23 March 2015. Web.

    Nicastro, Dom. “Understanding the Foundational Concepts of Organizational Design.” Reworked, 24 September 2020. Web.

    Obwegeser, Nikolaus, Tomoko Yokoi, Michael Wade, and Tom Voskes. “7 Key Principles to Govern Digital Initiatives.” MIT Sloan, 1 April 2020. Web.

    “Operating Models and Tools.” Business Technology Standard, 23 February 2021. Web.

    “Organizational Design Agility: Journey to a combined community.” ODF-BAI How Space, Organizational Design Forum, 2022. Web.

    “Organizational Design: Understanding and getting started.” Ingentis, 20 January 2021. Web.

    Padar, Katalin, et al. “Bringing project and change management roles into sync.” Journal of Change Management, 2017. Web.

    Partridge, Chris. “Evolve your Operating Model- It will drive everything.” CIO, 30 July 2021. Web.

    Pijnacker, Lieke. “HR Analytics: role clarity impacts performance.” Effectory, 25 September 2019. Web.

    Pressgrove, Jed. “Centralized vs. Federated: Breaking down IT Structures.” Government Technology, March 2020. Web.

    Sherman, Fraser. “Differences between Organizational Structure and Design.” Bizfluent, 20 September 2019. Web.

    Skelton, Matthew, and Manual Pais. “Team Cognitive Load.” IT Revolution, 19 January 2021. Web.

    Skelton, Matthew, and Manual Pais. Team Topologies. IT Revolution Press, 19 September 2019. Book

    Spencer, Janet, and Michael Watkins. “Why organizational change fails.” TLNT, 26 November 2019. Web.

    Storbakken, Mandy. “The Cloud Operating Model.” VMware, 27 January 2020. Web.

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    “Understanding Organizational Structures.” SHRM, 31 August 2021. Web.

    "unfix Pattern: Base.” AgilityScales, n.d. Web.

    Walker, Alex. “Half-Life: Alyx helped change Valve’s Approach to Development.” Kotaku, 10 July 2020. Web.

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    Wittig, Cynthia. “Employees' Reactions to Organizational Change.” OD Practioner, vol. 44, no. 2, 2012. Web.

    Woods, Dan. “How Platforms are neutralizing Conway’s Law.” Forbes, 15 August 2017. Web.

    Worren, Nicolay, Jeroen van Bree, and William Zybach. “Organization Design Challenges. Results from a practitioner survey.” Journal of Organizational Design, vol. 8, 25 July 2019. Web.

    Appendix

    IT Culture Framework

    This framework leverages McLean & Company’s adaptation of Quinn and Rohrbaugh’s Competing Values Approach.

    The image contains a diagram of the IT Culture Framework. The framework is divided into four sections: Competitive, Innovative, Traditional, and Cooperative, each with their own list of descriptors.

    Build Your Security Operations Program From the Ground Up

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Processes & Operations
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    • Analysts cannot monitor and track events coming from multiple tools because they have no visibility into the threat environment.
    • Incident management takes away time from problem management because processes are ad hoc and the continuous monitoring, collection, and analysis of massive volumes of security event data is responsive rather than tactical.
    • Organizations are struggling to defend against and prevent threats while juggling business, compliance, and consumer obligations.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Security operations is no longer a center but a process. The need for a physical security hub has evolved into the virtual fusion of prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts. When all four functions operate as a unified process, your organization will be able to proactively combat changes in the threat landscape.
    • Raw data without correlation is a waste of time, money, and effort. A SIEM on its own will not provide this contextualization and needs configuration. Prevention, detection, analysis, and response processes must contextualize threat data and supplement one another – true value will only be realized once all four functions operate as a unified process.
    • If you are not communicating, then you are not secure. Collaboration eliminates siloed decisions by connecting people, processes, and technologies. You leave less room for error, consume fewer resources, and improve operational efficiency with a transparent security operations process.

    Impact and Result

    • A centralized security operations process actively transforms security events and threat information into actionable intelligence, driving security prevention, detection, analysis, and response processes that address the increasing sophistication of cyberthreats while guiding continuous improvement.
    • This blueprint will walk through the steps of developing a flexible and systematic security operations program relevant to your organization.

    Build Your Security Operations Program From the Ground Up Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a security operations program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Establish your foundation

    Determine how to establish the foundation of your security operations.

    • Build Your Security Operations Program From the Ground Up – Phase 1: Establish Your Foundation
    • Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    2. Assess your current state

    Assess the maturity of your prevention, detection, analysis, and response processes.

    • Build Your Security Operations Program From the Ground Up – Phase 2: Assess Your Current State
    • Security Operations Roadmap Tool

    3. Design your target state

    Design a target state and improve your governance and policy solutions.

    • Build Your Security Operations Program From the Ground Up – Phase 3: Design Your Target State
    • Security Operations Policy

    4. Develop an implementation roadmap

    Make your case to the board and develop a roadmap for your prioritized security initiatives.

    • Build Your Security Operations Program From the Ground Up – Phase 4: Develop an Implementation Roadmap
    • In-House vs. Outsourcing Decision-Making Tool
    • Security Operations MSSP RFP Template
    • Security Operations Project Charter Template
    • Security Operations RACI Tool
    • Security Operations Metrics Summary Document
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build Your Security Operations Program From the Ground Up

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

    1 Establish Your Foundation

    The Purpose

    Identify security obligations and the security operations program’s pressure posture.

    Assess current people, process, and technology capabilities.

    Determine foundational controls and complete system and asset inventory.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identified the foundational elements needed for planning before a security operations program can be built

    Activities

    1.1 Define your security obligations and assess your security pressure posture.

    1.2 Determine current knowledge and skill gaps.

    1.3 Shine a spotlight on services worth monitoring.

    1.4 Assess and document your information system environment.

    Outputs

    Customized security pressure posture

    Current knowledge and skills gaps

    Log register of essential services

    Asset management inventory

    2 Assess Current Security Operations Processes

    The Purpose

    Identify the maturity level of existing security operations program processes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Current maturity assessment of security operations processes

    Activities

    2.1 Assess the current maturity level of the existing security operations program processes.

    Outputs

    Current maturity assessment

    3 Design a Target State

    The Purpose

    Design your optimized target state.

    Improve your security operations processes with governance and policy solutions.

    Identify and prioritize gap initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A comprehensive list of initiatives to reach ideal target state

    Optimized security operations with repeatable and standardized policies

    Activities

    3.1 Complete standardized policy templates.

    3.2 Map out your ideal target state.

    3.3 Identify gap initiatives.

    Outputs

    Security operations policies

    Gap analysis between current and target states

    List of prioritized initiatives

    4 Develop an Implementation Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Formalize project strategy with a project charter.

    Determine your sourcing strategy for in-house or outsourced security operations processes.

    Assign responsibilities and complete an implementation roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An overarching and documented strategy and vision for your security operations

    A thorough rationale for in-house or outsourced security operations processes

    Assigned and documented responsibilities for key projects

    Activities

    4.1 Complete a security operations project charter.

    4.2 Determine in-house vs. outsourcing rationale.

    4.3 Identify dependencies of your initiatives and prioritize initiatives in phases of implementation.

    4.4 Complete a security operations roadmap.

    Outputs

    Security operations project charter

    In-house vs. outsourcing rationale

    Initiatives organized according to phases of development

    Planned and achievable security operations roadmap

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization

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    Moreso than any other time, our world is changing. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their strategic plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    A new global change will impact your organizational strategy at any given time. So, make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential strategic impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes affect strategic plans.
    • Organizational leadership is often taken unaware during crises, and their plans lack the flexibility needed to adjust to significant market upheavals.

    Impact and Result

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
    • Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.
    • Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your strategic plan with our Strategic Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization Research & Tools

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

    1. Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts to Your Organization Deck – Use the research to better understand the negative impacts of vendor actions on your strategic plans.

    Use this research to identify and quantify the potential strategic impacts caused by vendors. Use Info-Tech’s approach to look at the strategic impact from various perspectives to better prepare for issues that may arise.

    • Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization Storyboard

    2. What If Vendor Strategic Impact Tool – Use this tool to help identify and quantify the strategic impacts of negative vendor actions

    By playing the “what if” game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible negative outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    • Strategic Risk Impact Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    The world is in a perpetual state of change. Organizations need to build adaptive resiliency into their strategic plans to adjust to ever-changing market dynamics.

    Analyst perspective

    Organizations need to build flexible resiliency into their strategic plans to be able to adjust to ever-changing market dynamics.

    This is a picture of Frank Sewell, Research Director, Vendor Management at Info-Tech Research Group

    Like most people, organizations are poor at assessing the likelihood of risk. If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that the probability of a risk occurring is far more flexible in the formula Risk = Likelihood * Impact than we ever thought possible. The impacts of these risks have been catastrophic, and organizations need to be more adaptive in managing them to strengthen their strategic plans.

    Frank Sewell,
    Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Moreso than any other time, our world is changing. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their strategic plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    A new global change will impact your organizational strategy at any given time. So, make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences.

    Common Obstacles

    Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential strategic impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes affect strategic plans.

    Organizational leadership is often taken unaware during crises, and their plans lack the flexibility needed to adjust to significant market upheavals.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.

    Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.

    Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.

    Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your strategic plan with our Strategic Impacts Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Organizations must evolve their strategic risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to global changes in the market. Ongoing monitoring of the market and the vendors tied to company strategies is imperative to achieving success.

    Info-Tech’s multi-blueprint series on vendor risk assessment

    There are many individual components of vendor risk beyond cybersecurity.

    This image depicts a cube divided into six different coloured sections. The sections are labeled: Financial; Reputational; Operational; Strategic; Security; Regulatory & Compliance.

    This series will focus on the individual components of vendor risk and how vendor management practices can facilitate organizations’ understanding of those risks.

    Out of Scope:

    This series will not tackle risk governance, determining overall risk tolerance and appetite, or quantifying inherent risk.

    Strategic risk impacts

    Potential losses to the organization due to risks to the strategic plan

    • In this blueprint, we’ll explore strategic risks (risks to the Strategic Plans of the organization) and their impacts.
    • Identify potentially disruptive events to assess the overall impact on organizations and implement adaptive measures to correct strategic plans.
    This image depicts a cube divided into six different coloured sections. The section labeled Strategic is highlighted.

    The world is constantly changing

    The IT market is constantly reacting to global influences. By anticipating changes, leaders can set expectations and work with their vendors to accommodate them.

    When the unexpected happens, being able to adapt quickly to new priorities ensures continued long-term business success.

    Below are some things no one expected to happen in the last few years:

    62%

    of IT professionals are more concerned about being a victim of ransomware than they were a year ago.

    82%

    of Microsoft’s non-essential employees shifted to working from home in 2020, joining the 18% already remote.

    89%

    of organizations invested in web conferencing technology to facilitate collaboration.

    Source: Info-Tech Tech Trends Survey 2022

    Strategic risks on a global scale

    Odds are at least one of these is currently affecting your strategic plans

    • Vendor Acquisitions
    • Global Pandemic
    • Global Shortages
    • Gas Prices
    • Poor Vendor Performance
    • Travel Bans
    • War
    • Natural Disasters
    • Supply Chain Disruptions
    • Security Incidents

    Make sure you have the right people at the table to identify and plan to manage impacts.

    Identify & manage strategic risks

    Global Pandemic

    Very few people could have predicted that a global pandemic would interrupt business on the scale experienced today. Organizations should look at their lessons learned and incorporate adaptable preparations into their strategic planning moving forward.

    Vendor Acquisitions

    The IT market is an ever-shifting environment. Larger companies often gobble up smaller ones to control their sectors. Incorporating plans to manage those shifts in ownership will be key to many strategic plans that depend on niche vendor solutions for success. Be sure to monitor the potentially affected markets on an ongoing cadence.

    Global Shortages

    Organizations need to accept that shortages will recur periodically and that preparing for them will significantly increase the success potential of long-term strategic plans. Understand what your business needs to stock for project needs and where those supplies are located, and plan how to rapidly access and distribute them as required if supply chain disruptions occur.

    What to look for in vendors

    Identify strategic risk impacts

    • A vendor acquires many smaller, seemingly irrelevant IT products. Suddenly their revenue model includes aggressive license compliance audits.
      • Ensure that your installed software meets license compliance requirements with good asset management practices.
      • Monitor the market for such acquisitions or news of audits hitting companies.
    • A vendor changes their primary business model from storage and hardware to becoming a self-proclaimed “professional services guru,” relying almost entirely on their name recognition to build their marketing.
      • Be wary of self-proclaimed experts and review their successes and failures with other organizations before adopting them into your business strategy.
      • Review the backgrounds their “experts” have and make sure they have the industry and technical skill sets to perform the services to the required level.

    Not preparing for your growth can delay your goals

    Why can’t I get a new laptop?

    For example:

    • An IT professional services organization plans to take advantage of the growing work-from-home trend to expand its staff by 30% over the coming year.
    • Logically, this should include a review of the necessary tasks involved, including onboarding.
      • Suppose the company does not order enough equipment in preparation to cover the new staff plus routine replacement. In that case, this will delay the output of the new team members immeasurably as they wait for their company equipment and will delay existing staff whose equipment breaks, preventing them from getting back to work efficiently.

    Sometimes an organization has the right mindset to take advantage of the changes in the market but can fail to plan for the particulars.

    When your strategic plan changes, you need to revisit all the steps in the processes to ensure a successful outcome.

    Strategic risks

    Poor or uninformed business decisions can lead to organizational strategic failures

    • Supply chain disruptions and global shortages
      • Geopolitical disruptions and natural disasters have caused unprecedented interruptions to business. Incorporate forecasting of product and ongoing business continuity planning into your strategic plans to adapt as events unfold.
    • Poor vendor performance
      • Consider the impact of a vendor that fails to perform midway through the implementation. Organizations need to be able to manage the impact of replacing that vendor and cutting their losses rather than continuing to throw good money away after bad performance.
    • Vendor acquisitions
      • A lot of acquisition is going on in the market today. Large companies are buying competitors and either imposing new terms on customers or removing the competing products from the market. Prepare options for any strategy tied to a niche product.

    It is important to identify potential risks to strategic plans to manage the risk and be agile enough in planning to adapt to the changing environments.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Few organizations are good at identifying risks to their strategic plan. As a result, almost none realistically plan to monitor, manage, and adapt their strategies to those risks.

    Prepare your strategic risk management for success

    Due diligence will enable successful outcomes

    1. Obtain top-level buy-in; it is critical to success.
    2. Build enterprise risk management (ERM) through incremental improvement.
    3. Focus initial efforts on the “big wins” to prove the process works.
    4. Use existing resources.
    5. Build on any risk management activities that already exist in the organization.
    6. Socialize ERM throughout the organization to gain additional buy‑in.
    7. Normalize the process long term with ongoing updates and continuing education for the organization.

    (Adapted from COSO)

    How to assess strategic risk

    1. Review Organizational Strategy
      Understand the organizational strategy to prepare for the “What If” game exercise.
    2. Identify & Understand Potential Strategic Risks
      Play the “What If” game with the right people at the table.
    3. Create a Risk Profile Packet for Leadership
      Pull all the information together in a presentation document.
    4. Validate the Risks
      Work with leadership to ensure that the proposed risks are in line with their thoughts.
    5. Plan to Manage the Risks
      Lower the overall risk potential by putting mitigations in place.
    6. Communicate the Plan
      It is important not only to have a plan but also to socialize it in the organization for awareness.
    7. Enact the Plan
      Once the plan is finalized and socialized, put it in place with continued monitoring for success.

    Insight summary

    Insight 1

    Organizations build portions of their strategies around chosen vendors and should protect those plans against the risks of unforeseen acquisitions in the market.
    Is your vendor solvent? Does it have enough staff to accommodate your needs? Has its long-term planning been affected by changes in the market? Is it unique in its space?

    Insight 2

    Organizations’ strategic plans need to be adaptable to avoid vendors’ negative actions causing an expedited shift in priorities.
    For example, Philip's recall of ventilators impacted its products and the availability of its competitor’s products as demand overwhelmed the market.

    Insight 3

    Organizations need to become better at risk assessment and actively manage the identified risks to their strategic plans.
    Few organizations are good at identifying risks to their strategic plan. As a result, almost none realistically plan to monitor, manage, and adapt their strategies to those risks.

    Strategic risk impacts are often unanticipated, causing unforeseen downstream effects. Anticipating the potential changes in the global IT market and continuously monitoring vendors’ risk levels can help organizations modify their strategic alignment with the new norms.

    Identifying strategic risk

    Who should be included in the discussion

    • While it is true that executive-level leadership defines the strategy for an organization, it is vital for those making decisions to make informed decisions.
    • Getting input from operational experts at your organization will enhance the long-term potential for success of your strategies.
    • Involving those who directly manage vendors and understand the market will aid operational experts in determining the forward path for relationships with your current vendors and identifying new emerging potential strategic partners.

    Review your strategic plans for new risks and evolving likelihood on a regular basis.

    Keep in mind Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I).

    Impact (I) tends to remain the same, while Likelihood (L) is a very flexible variable.

    See the blueprint Build an IT Risk Management Program

    Managing strategic risk impacts

    What can we realistically do about the risks?

    • Review business continuity plans and disaster recovery testing.
    • Institute proper contract lifecycle management.
    • Re-evaluate corporate policies frequently.
    • Develop IT governance and change control.
    • Ensure strategic alignment in contracts.
    • Introduce continual risk assessment to monitor the relevant vendor markets.
      • Regularly review your strategic plans for new risks and evolving likelihood.
      • Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I)
        • Impact (I) tends to remain the same and be well understood, while Likelihood (L) turns out to be highly variable.
    • Be adaptable and allow for innovations that arise from the current needs.
      • Capture lessons learned from prior incidents to improve over time, and adjust your strategy based on the lessons.

    Organizations need to be reviewing their strategic risk plans considering the likelihood of incidents in the global market.

    Pandemics, extreme weather, and wars that affect global supply chains are a current reality, not unlikely scenarios.

    Ongoing Improvement

    Incorporating lessons learned

    • Over time, despite everyone’s best observations and plans, incidents will catch us off guard.
    • When it happens, follow your incident response plans and act accordingly.
    • An essential step is to document what worked and what did not – collectively known as the “lessons learned.”
    • Use the lessons learned document to devise, incorporate, and enact a better risk management process.

    Sometimes disasters occur despite our best plans to manage them.

    When this happens, it is important to document the lessons learned and improve our plans going forward.

    The “what if” game

    1-3 hours

    Vendor management professionals are in an excellent position to help senior leadership identify and pull together resources across the organization to determine potential risks. By playing the "what if" game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible adverse outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    1. Break into smaller groups (or if too small, continue as a single group).
    2. Use the Strategic Risk Impact Tool to prompt discussion on potential risks. Keep this discussion flowing organically to explore all potentials but manage the overall process to keep the discussion pertinent and on track.
    3. Collect the outputs and ask the subject matter experts (SMEs) for management options for each one in order to present a comprehensive risk strategy. You will use this to educate senior leadership so that they can make an informed decision to accept or reject the solution.

    Download the Strategic Risk Impact Tool

    Input Output
    • List of identified potential risk scenarios scored by likelihood and financial impact
    • List of potential management of the scenarios to reduce the risk
    • Comprehensive strategic risk profile on the specific vendor solution
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Strategic Risk Impact Tool to help drive discussion
    • Vendor Management – Coordinator
    • Organizational Leadership
    • Operations Experts (SMEs)
    • Legal/Compliance/Risk Manager

    Case Study

    Airline Industry Strategic Adaptation

    Industry: Airline

    Impact categories: Pandemic, Lockdowns, Travel Bans, Increased Fuel Prices

    • In 2019 the airline industry yielded record profits of $35.5 billion.
    • In 2020 the pandemic devastated the industry with losses around $371 billion.
    • The industry leaders engaged experts to conduct a study on how the pandemic impacted them and propose measures to ensure the survival of their industry in the future after the pandemic.
    • They determined that “[p]recise decision-making based on data analytics is essential and crucial for an effective Covid-19 airline recovery plan.”

    Results

    The pandemic prompted systemic change to the overall strategic planning of the airline industry.

    Summary

    Be vigilant and adaptable to change

    • Organizations need to learn how to assess the likelihood of potential risks in the changing global world.
    • Those organizations that incorporate adaptive risk management processes can prepare their strategic plans for greater success.
    • Bring the right people to the table to outline potential risks in the market.
    • Socialize the risk management process throughout the organization to heighten awareness and enable employees to help protect the strategic plan.
    • Incorporate lessons learned from incidents into your risk management process to build better plans for future issues.

    Organizations must evolve their strategic risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to global changes in the market.

    Ongoing monitoring of the market and the vendors tied to company strategies is imperative to achieving success.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization.
    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential financial impacts that vendors may incur and suggest systems to help manage them.
    • Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.
    • Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage financial impacts with our Financial Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk
    • Customer maturity levels with Agile are low, with 67% of organizations using Agile for less than five years.
    • Customer competency levels with Agile are also low, with 84% of organizations stating they are below a high level of competency.
    • Contract disputes are the number one or two types of disputes faced by organizations across all industries.

    Build an IT Risk Management Program

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Build an IT Risk Management Program
    • Transform your ad hoc IT risk management processes into a formalized, ongoing program, and increase risk management success.
    • Take a proactive stance against IT threats and vulnerabilities by identifying and assessing IT’s greatest risks before they occur.
    • Involve key stakeholders including the business senior management team to gain buy-in and to focus on IT risks most critical to the organization.

    Bibliography

    Olaganathan, Rajee. “Impact of COVID-19 on airline industry and strategic plan for its recovery with special reference to data analytics technology.” Global Journal of Engineering and Technology Advances, vol 7, no 1, 2021, pp. 033-046.

    Tonello, Matteo. “Strategic Risk Management: A Primer for Directors.” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 23 Aug. 2012.

    Frigo, Mark L., and Richard J. Anderson. “Embracing Enterprise Risk Management: Practical Approaches for Getting Started.” COSO, 2011.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    • Frank Sewell
      Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Steven Jeffery
      Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Scott Bickley
      Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Donna Glidden
      Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Phil Bode
      Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • David Espinosa
      Senior Director, Executive Services, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Rick Pittman
      Vice President, Research, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Patrick Philpot
      CISSP
    • Gaylon Stockman
      Vice President, Information Security
    • Jennifer Smith
      Senior Director

    Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility

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    • Business is moving faster than ever and IT is getting more demands at a faster pace.
    • Many IT organizations have traditional structures and approaches that have served them well in the past. However, these frameworks and approaches alone are no longer sufficient for today’s challenges and rapidly changing environment.
    • The inability to adaptively design and deliver services as requirements change has led to diminishing service quality and an increase in shadow IT.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Being Agile is a mindset. It is not meant to be prescriptive, but to encourage you to leverage the best approaches, frameworks, and tools to meet your needs and get the job done now.
    • The goal of service management is to enable and drive value for the business. Service management practices have to be flexible and adaptable enough to manage and deliver the right service value at the right time at the right level of quality.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand Agile principles, how they align with service management principles, and what the optimal states for agility look like.
    • Use Info-Tech’s advice and tools to perform an assessment of your organization’s state of agility, identify the gaps, and create a custom roadmap to incorporate agility into your service management practice.
    • Increase business satisfaction. The ultimate outcome of having agility in your service delivery is satisfied customers.

    Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create a roadmap for service management agility, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Understand the optimal state for agility

    Understand the components of agility and what the optimal states are for service management agility.

    • Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility – Phase 1: Understand the Optimal States for Agility

    2. Assess your current state of agility

    Determine the current state of agility in the service management practice.

    • Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility – Phase 2: Assess Your Current State of Agility
    • Service Management Agility Assessment Tool

    3. Build the roadmap

    Create a roadmap for service management agility and present it to key stakeholders to obtain their support.

    • Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility – Phase 3: Build the Roadmap for Service Management Agility
    • Service Management Agility Roadmap Template
    • Building Agility Into Our Service Management Practice Stakeholders Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility

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

    1 Define the Optimal States for Agility in Service Management

    The Purpose

    Understand agility and how it can complement service management.

    Understand how the components of culture, structure, processes, and resources enable agility in service management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clear understanding of Agile principles.

    Identifying opportunities for agility.

    Understanding of how Agile principles align with service management.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand agility.

    1.2 Understand how Agile methodologies can complement service management through culture, structure, processes, and resources.

    Outputs

    Summary of Agile principles.

    Summary of optimal components in culture, structure, processes, and resources that enable agility.

    2 Assess Your Current State of Agility in Service Management

    The Purpose

    Assess your current organizational agility with respect to culture, structure, processes, and resources.

    Identify your agility strengths and weaknesses with the agility score.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand your organization’s current enablers and constraints for agility.

    Have metrics to identify strengths or weaknesses in culture, structure, processes, and resources.

    Activities

    2.1 Complete an agility assessment.

    Outputs

    Assessment score of current state of agility.

    3 Build the Roadmap for Service Management Agility

    The Purpose

    Determine the gaps between the current and optimal states for agility.

    Create a roadmap for service management agility.

    Create a stakeholders presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Have a completed custom roadmap that will help build sustainable agility into your service management practice.

    Present the roadmap to key stakeholders to communicate your plans and get organizational buy-in.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a custom roadmap for service management agility.

    3.2 Create a stakeholders presentation on service management agility.

    Outputs

    Completed roadmap for service management agility.

    Completed stakeholders presentation on service management agility.

    Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
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    • Many organizations forget the essential role IT plays during M&A integration. IT is often unaware of a merger or acquisition until the deal is announced, making it very difficult to adequately interpret business goals and appropriately assess the target organization.
    • IT-related integration activities are amongst the largest cost items in an M&A, yet these costs are often overlooked or underestimated during due diligence.
    • IT is expected to use the M&A team’s IT due diligence report and estimated IT integration budget, which may not have been generated appropriately.
    • IT involvement in integration is critical to providing a better view of risks, improving the ease of integration, and optimizing synergies.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Anticipate that you are going to be under pressure. Fulfill short-term, tactical operational imperatives while simultaneously conducting discovery and designing the technology end-state.
    • To migrate risks and guide discovery, select a high-level IT integration posture that aligns with business objectives.

    Impact and Result

    • Once a deal has been announced, use this blueprint to set out immediately to understand business M&A goals and expected synergies.
    • Assemble an IT Integration Program to conduct discovery and begin designing the technology end-state, while simultaneously identifying and delivering operational imperatives and quick-wins as soon as possible.
    • Following discovery, use this blueprint to build initiatives and put together an IT integration budget. The IT Integration Program has an obligation to explain the IT cost implications of the M&A to the business.
    • Once you have a clear understanding of the cost of your IT integration, use this blueprint to build a long-term action plan to achieve the planned technology end-state that best supports the business capabilities of the organization.

    Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should follow Info-Tech’s M&A IT integration methodology and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Launch the project

    Define the business’s M&A goals, assemble an IT Integration Program, and select an IT integration posture that aligns with business M&A strategy.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 1: Launch the Project
    • IT Integration Charter

    2. Conduct discovery and design the technology end-state

    Refine the current state of each IT domain in both organizations, and then design the end-state of each domain.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 2: Conduct Discovery and Design the Technology End-State
    • IT Integration Roadmap Tool

    3. Initiate operational imperatives and quick-wins

    Generate tactical operational imperatives and quick-wins, and then develop an interim action plan to maintain business function and capture synergies.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 3: Initiate Operational Imperatives and Quick-Wins

    4. Develop an integration roadmap

    Generate initiatives and put together a long-term action plan to achieve the planned technology end-state.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 4: Develop an Integration Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration

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

    1 Launch the Project

    The Purpose

    Identification of staffing and skill set needed to manage the IT integration.

    Generation of an integration communication plan to highlight communication schedule during major integration events.

    Identification of business goals and objectives to select an IT Integration Posture that aligns with business strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined IT integration roles & responsibilities.

    Structured communication plan for key IT integration milestones.

    Creation of the IT Integration Program.

    Generation of an IT Integration Posture.

    Activities

    1.1 Define IT Integration Program responsibilities.

    1.2 Build an integration communication plan.

    1.3 Host interviews with senior management.

    1.4 Select a technology end-state and IT integration posture.

    Outputs

    Define IT Integration Program responsibilities and goals

    Structured communication plan

    Customized interview guide for each major stakeholder

    Selected technology end-state and IT integration posture

    2 Conduct Discovery and Design the Technology End-State

    The Purpose

    Identification of information sources to begin conducting discovery.

    Definition of scope of information that must be collected about target organization.

    Definition of scope of information that must be collected about your own organization.

    Refinement of the technology end-state for each IT domain of the new entity. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A collection of necessary information to design the technology end-state of each IT domain.

    Adequate information to make accurate cost estimates.

    A designed end-state for each IT domain.

    A collection of necessary, available information to make accurate cost estimates. 

    Activities

    2.1 Define discovery scope.

    2.2 Review the data room and conduct onsite discovery.

    2.3 Design the technology end-state for each IT domain.

    2.4 Select the integration strategy for each IT domain.

    Outputs

    Tone set for discovery

    Key information collected for each IT domain

    Refined end-state for each IT domain

    Refined integration strategy for each IT domain

    3 Initiate Tactical Initiatives and Develop an Integration Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Generation of tactical initiatives that are operationally imperative and will help build business credibility.

    Prioritization and execution of tactical initiatives.

    Confirmation of integration strategy for each IT domain and generation of initiatives to achieve technology end-states.

    Prioritization and execution of integration roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Tactical initiatives generated and executed.

    Confirmed integration posture for each IT domain.

    Initiatives generated and executed upon to achieve the technology end-state of each IT domain. 

    Activities

    3.1 Build quick-win and operational imperatives.

    3.2 Build a tactical action plan and execute.

    3.3 Build initiatives to close gaps and redundancies.

    3.4 Finalize your roadmap and kick-start integration.

    Outputs

    Tactical roadmap to fulfill short-term M&A objectives and synergies

    Confirmed IT integration strategies

    Finalized integration roadmap

    Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
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    • IT leaders lack information to help inform and prioritize where improvements are most needed.
    • The service desk relies only on traditional metrics such as time to respond or percentage of SLAs met, but no measures of customer satisfaction with the service they receive.
    • There are signs of dissatisfied users, but no mechanism in place to formally capture those perceptions in order to address them.
    • Even if transactional (ticket) surveys are in use, often nothing is done with the data collected or there is a low response rate, and no broader satisfaction survey is in place.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • If customer satisfaction is not being measured, it’s often because service desk leaders don’t know how to design customer satisfaction surveys, don’t have a mechanism in place to collect feedback, or lack the resources to take accountability for a customer feedback program.
    • If customer satisfaction surveys are in place, it can be difficult to get full value out of them if there is a low response rate due to poor survey design or administration, or if leadership doesn’t understand the value of / know how to analyze the data.
    • It can actually be worse to ask your customers for feedback and do nothing with it than not asking for feedback at all. Customers may end up more dissatisfied if they take the time to provide value then see nothing done with it.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand how to ask the right questions to avoid survey fatigue.
    • Design and implement two complementary satisfaction surveys: a transactional survey to capture satisfaction with individual ticket experiences and inform immediate improvements, and a relationship survey to capture broader satisfaction among the entire user base and inform longer-term improvements.
    • Build a plan and assign accountability for customer feedback management, including analyzing feedback, prioritizing customer satisfaction insights and using them to improve performance, and communicating the results back to your users and stakeholders.

    Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback Research & Tools

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

    1. Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback Deck – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to measure customer satisfaction, design and implement transactional and relationship surveys, and analyze and act on user feedback.

    Whether you have no Service Desk customer feedback program in place or you need to improve your existing process for gathering and responding to feedback, this deck will help you design your surveys and act on their results to improve CSAT scores.

    • Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback Storyboard

    2. Transactional Service Desk Survey Template – A template to design a ticket satisfaction survey.

    This template provides a sample transactional (ticket) satisfaction survey. If your ITSM tool or other survey mechanism allows you to design or write your own survey, use this template as a starting point.

    • Transactional Service Desk Survey Template

    3. Sample Size Calculator – A tool to calculate the sample size needed for your survey.

    Use the Sample Size Calculator to calculate your ideal sample size for your relationship surveys.

  • Desired confidence level
  • Acceptable margin of error
  • Company population size
  • Ideal sample size
    • Sample Size Calculator

    4. End-User Satisfaction Survey Review Workflows – Visio templates to map your review process for both transactional and relationship surveys

    This template will help you map out the step-by-step process to review collected feedback from your end-user satisfaction surveys, analyze the data, and act on it.

    • End-User Satisfaction Survey Review Workflows

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

    Drive up CSAT scores by asking the right questions and effectively responding to user feedback.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Collecting feedback is only half the equation.

    The image contains a picture of Natalie Sansone.

    Natalie Sansone, PhD


    Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Often when we ask service desk leaders where they need to improve and if they’re measuring customer satisfaction, they either aren’t measuring it at all, or their ticket surveys are turned on but they get very few responses (or only positive responses). They fail to see the value of collecting feedback when this is their experience with it.

    Feedback is important because traditional service desk metrics can only tell us so much. We often see what’s called the “watermelon effect”: metrics appear “green”, but under the surface they’re “red” because customers are in fact dissatisfied for reasons unmeasured by standard internal IT metrics. Customer satisfaction should always be the goal of service delivery, and directly measuring satisfaction in addition to traditional metrics will help you get a clearer picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and where to prioritize improvements.

    It’s not as simple as asking customers if they were satisfied with their ticket, however. There are two steps necessary for success. The first is collecting feedback, which should be done purposefully, with clear goals in mind in order to maximize the response rate and value of responses received. The second – and most critical – is acting on that feedback. Use it to inform improvements and communicate those improvements. Doing so will not only make your service desk better, increasing satisfaction through better service delivery, but also will make your customers feel heard and valued, which alone increases satisfaction.

    The image contains a picture of Emily Sugerman.

    Emily Sugerman, PhD


    Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • The service desk relies only on traditional metrics such as time to respond, or percentage of SLAs met, but not on measures of customer satisfaction with the service they receive.
    • There are signs of dissatisfied users (e.g. shadow IT, users avoid the service desk, go only to their favorite technician) but no mechanism in place to formally capture those perceptions.
    • Transactional ticket surveys were turned on when the ITSM tool was implemented, but either nobody responds to them, or nobody does anything with the data received.
    • IT leaders lack information to help inform and prioritize where improvements are most needed.
    • Service desk leaders don’t know how to design survey questions to ask their users for feedback and/or they don’t have a mechanism in place to survey users.
    • If customer satisfaction surveys are in place, nothing is done with the results because service desk leaders either don’t understand the value of analyzing the data or don’t know how to analyze the data.
    • Executives only want a single satisfaction number to track and don’t understand the value of collecting more detailed feedback.
    • IT lacks the resources to take accountability for the feedback program, or existing resources don’t have time to do anything with the feedback they receive.
    • Understand how to ask the right questions to avoid survey fatigue (where users get overwhelmed and stop responding).
    • Design and implement a transactional survey to capture satisfaction with individual ticket experiences and use the results to inform immediate improvements.
    • Design and implement a relationship survey to capture broader satisfaction among the entire user base and use the results to inform longer-term improvements.
    • Build a plan and assign accountability for analyzing feedback, using it to prioritize and make actionable improvements to address feedback, and communicating the results back to your users and stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Asking your customers for feedback then doing nothing with it is worse than not asking for feedback at all. Your customers may end up more dissatisfied than they were before, if their opinion is sought out and then ignored. It’s valuable to collect feedback, but the true value for both IT and its customers comes from acting on that feedback and communicating those actions back to your users.

    Traditional service desk metrics can be misleading

    The watermelon effect

    When a service desk appears to hit all its targets according to the metrics it tracks, but service delivery is poor and customer satisfaction is low, this is known as the “watermelon effect”. Service metrics appear green on the outside, but under the surface (unmeasured), they’re red because customers are dissatisfied.

    Traditional SLAs and service desk metrics (such as time to respond, average resolution time, percentage of SLAs met) can help you understand service desk performance internally to prioritize your work and identify process improvements. However, they don’t tell you how customers perceive the service or how satisfied they are.

    Providing good service to your customers should be your end goal. Failing to measure, monitor, and act on customer feedback means you don’t have the whole picture of how your service desk is performing and whether or where improvements are needed to maximize satisfaction.

    There is a shift in ITSM to focus more on customer experience metrics over traditional ones

    The Service Desk Institute (SDI) suggests that customer satisfaction is the most important indicator of service desk success, and that traditional metrics around SLA targets – currently the most common way to measure service desk performance – may become less valuable or even obsolete in the future as customer experience-focused targets become more popular. (Service Desk Institute, 2021)

    SDI conducted a Customer Experience survey of service desk professionals from a range of organizations, both public and private, from January to March 2018. The majority of respondents said that customer experience is more important than other metrics such as speed of service or adherence to SLAs, and that customer satisfaction is more valuable than traditional metrics. (SDI, 2018).

    The image contains a screenshot of two pie graphs. The graph on the left is labelled: which of these is most important to your service desk? Customer experience is first with 54%. The graph on the right is labelled: Which measures do you find more value in? Customer satisfaction is first with 65%.

    However, many service desk leaders aren’t effectively measuring customer feedback

    Not only is it important to measure customer experience and satisfaction levels, but it’s equally important to act on that data and feed it into a service improvement program. However, many IT leaders are neglecting either one or both of those components.

    Obstacles to collecting feedback

    Obstacles to acting on collected feedback

    • Don’t understand the value of measuring customer feedback.
    • Don’t have a good mechanism in place to collect feedback.
    • Don’t think that users would respond to a survey (either generally unresponsive or already inundated with surveys).
    • Worried that results would be negative or misleading.
    • Don’t know what questions to ask or how to design a survey.
    • Don’t understand the importance of analyzing and acting on feedback collected.
    • Don’t know how to analyze survey data.
    • Lack of resources to take accountability over customer feedback (including analyzing data, monitoring trends, communicating results).
    • Executives or stakeholders only want a satisfaction score.

    A strong customer feedback program brings many benefits to IT and the business

    Insight into customer experience

    Gather insight into both the overall customer relationship with the service desk and individual transactions to get a holistic picture of the customer experience.

    Data to inform decisions

    Collect data to inform decisions about where to spend limited resources or time on improvement, rather than guessing or wasting effort on the wrong thing.

    Identification of areas for improvement

    Better understand your strengths and weaknesses from the customer’s point of view to help you identify gaps and priorities for improvement.

    Customers feel valued

    Make customers feel heard and valued; this will improve your relationship and their satisfaction.

    Ability to monitor trends over time

    Use the same annual relationship survey to be able to monitor trends and progress in making improvements by comparing data year over year.

    Foresight to prevent problems from occurring

    Understand where potential problems may occur so you can address and prevent them, or who is at risk of becoming a detractor so you can repair the relationship.

    IT staff coaching and engagement opportunities

    Turn negative survey feedback into coaching and improvement opportunities and use positive feedback to boost morale and engagement.

    Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

    The image contains a screenshot of a Thought Model titled: Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for measuring and acting on service desk customer feedback

    Phase

    1. Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

    2. Design and implement transactional surveys

    3. Design and implement relationship surveys

    4. Analyze and act on feedback

    Phase outcomes

    Understand the main types of customer satisfaction surveys, principles for survey design, and best practices for surveying your users.

    Learn why and how to design a simple survey to assess satisfaction with individual service desk transactions (tickets) and a methodology for survey delivery that will improve response rates.

    Understand why and how to design a survey to assess overall satisfaction with the service desk across your organization, or use Info-Tech’s diagnostic.

    Measure and analyze the results of both surveys and build a plan to act on both positive and negative feedback and communicate the results with the organization.

    Insight Summary

    Key Insight:

    Asking your customers for feedback then doing nothing with it is worse than not asking for feedback at all. Your customers may end up more dissatisfied than they were before if they’re asked for their opinion then see nothing done with it. It’s valuable to collect feedback, but the true value for both IT and its customers comes from acting on that feedback and communicating those actions back to your users.

    Additional insights:

    Insight 1

    Take the time to define the goals of your transactional survey program before launching it – it’s not as simple as just deploying the default survey of your ITSM tool out of the box. The objectives of the survey – including whether you want to keep a pulse on average satisfaction or immediately act on any negative experiences – will influence a range of key decisions about the survey configuration.

    Insight 2

    While transactional surveys provide useful indicators of customer satisfaction with specific tickets and interactions, they tend to have low response rates and can leave out many users who may rarely or never contact the service desk, but still have helpful feedback. Include a relationship survey in your customer feedback program to capture a more holistic picture of what your overall user base thinks about the service desk and where you most need to improve.

    Insight 3

    Satisfaction scores provide valuable data about how your customers feel, but don’t tell you why they feel that way. Don’t neglect the qualitative data you can gather from open-ended comments and questions in both types of satisfaction surveys. Take the time to read through these responses and categorize them in at least a basic way to gain deeper insight and determine where to prioritize your efforts.

    Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

    Phase 1

    Understand the main types of customer satisfaction surveys, principles for survey design, and best practices for surveying your users.

    Phase 1:

    Phase 2:

    Phase 3:

    Phase 4:

    Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

    Design and implement transactional surveys

    Design and implement relationship surveys

    Analyze and act on feedback

    Three methods of surveying your customers

    Transactional

    Relationship

    One-off

    Also known as

    Ticket surveys, incident follow-up surveys, on-going surveys

    Annual, semi-annual, periodic, comprehensive, relational

    One-time, single, targeted

    Definition

    • Survey that is tied to a specific customer interaction with the service desk (i.e. a ticket).
    • Assesses how satisfied customers are with how the ticket was handled and resolved.
    • Sent immediately after ticket is closed.
    • Short – usually 1 to 3 questions.
    • Survey that is sent periodically (i.e. semi-annually or annually) to the entire customer base to measure overall relationship with the service desk.
    • Assesses customer satisfaction with their overall service experience over a longer time period.
    • Longer – around 15-20 questions.
    • One-time survey sent at a specific, targeted point in time to either all customers or a subset.
    • Often event-driven or project-related.
    • Assesses satisfaction at one time point, or about a specific change that was implemented, or to inform a specific initiative that will be implemented.

    Pros and cons of the three methods

    Transactional

    Relationship

    One-off

    Pros

    • Immediate feedback
    • Actionable insights to immediately improve service or experience
    • Feeds into team coaching
    • Multiple touchpoints allow for trending and monitoring
    • Comprehensive insight from broad user base to improve overall satisfaction
    • Reach users who don’t contact the service desk often or respond to ticket surveys
    • Identify unhappy customers and reasons for dissatisfaction
    • Monitor broader trends over time
    • Targeted insights to measure the impact of a specific change or perception at a specific point of time

    Cons

    • Customer may become frustrated being asked to fill out too many surveys
    • Can lead to survey fatigue and low response rates
    • Tend to only see responses for very positive or negative experiences
    • High volume of data to analyze
    • Feedback is at a high-level
    • Covers the entire customer journey, not a specific interaction
    • Users may not remember past interactions accurately
    • A lot of detailed data to analyze and more difficult to turn into immediate action
    • Not as valuable without multiple surveys to see trends or change

    Which survey method should you choose?

    Only relying on one type of survey will leave gaps in your understanding of customer satisfaction. Include both transactional and relationship surveys to provide a holistic picture of customer satisfaction with the service desk.

    If you can only start with one type, choose the type that best aligns with your goals and priorities:

    If your priority is to identify larger improvement initiatives the service desk can take to improve overall customer satisfaction and trust in the service desk:

    If your priority is to provide customers with the opportunity to let you know when transactions do not go well so you can take immediate action to make improvements:

    Start with a relationship survey

    Start with a transactional survey

    The image contains a screenshot of a bar graph on SDI's 2018 Customer Experience in ITSM report.

    Info-Tech Insight

    One-off surveys can be useful to assess whether a specific change has impacted satisfaction, or to inform a planned change/initiative. However, as they aren’t typically part of an on-going customer feedback program, the focus of this research will be on transactional and relationship surveys.

    3 common customer satisfaction measures

    The three most utilized measures of customer satisfaction include CSAT, CES, and NPS.

    CSAT CES NPS
    Name Customer Satisfaction Customer Effort Score Net Promoter score
    What it measures Customer happiness Customer effort Customer loyalty
    Description Measures satisfaction with a company overall, or a specific offering or interaction Measures how much effort a customer feels they need to put forth in order to accomplish what they wanted Single question that asks consumers how likely they are to recommend your product, service, or company to other people
    Survey question How satisfied are/were you with [company/service/interaction/product]? How easy was it to [solve your problem/interact with company/handle my issue]? Or: The [company] made it easy for me to handle my issue How likely are you to recommend [company/service/product] to a friend?
    Scale 5, 7, or 10 pt scale, or using images/emojis 5, 7, or 10 pt scale 10-pt scale from highly unlikely to highly likely
    Scoring Result is usually expressed as a percentage of satisfaction Result usually expressed as an average Responses are divided into 3 groups where 0-6 are detractors, 7-8 are passives, 9-10 are promoters
    Pros
    • Well-suited for specific transactions
    • Simple and able to compare scores
    • Simple number, easy to analyze
    • Effort tends to predict future behavior
    • Actionable data
    • Simple to run and analyze
    • Widely used and can compare to other organizations
    • Allows for targeting customer segments
    Cons
    • Need high response rate to have representative numberEasy to ask the wrong questions
    • Not as useful without qualitative questions
    • Only measures a small aspect of the interaction
    • Only useful for transactions
    • Not useful for improvement without qualitative follow-up questions
    • Not as applicable to a service desk as it measures brand loyalty

    When to use each satisfaction measure

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that demonstrates which measure to use based off of what you would like to access, and which surveys it aligns with.

    How to choose which measure(s) to incorporate in your surveys

    The best measures are the ones that align with your specific goals for collecting feedback.

    • Most companies will use multiple satisfaction measures. For example, NPS can be tracked to monitor the overall customer sentiment, and CSAT used for more targeted feedback.
    • For internal-facing IT departments, CSAT is the most popular of the three methods, and NPS may not be as useful.
    • Choose your measure and survey types based on what you are trying to achieve and what kind of information you need to make improvements.
    • Remember that one measure alone isn’t going to give you actionable feedback; you’ll need to follow up with additional measures (especially for NPS and CES).
    • For CSAT surveys, customize the satisfaction measures in as many ways as you need to target the questions toward the areas you’re most interested in.
    • Don’t stick to just these three measures or types of surveys – there are other ways to collect feedback. Experiment to find what works for you.
    • If you’re designing your own survey, keep in mind the principles on the next slide.

    Info-Tech Insight

    While we focus mainly on traditional survey-based approaches to measuring customer satisfaction in this blueprint, there’s no need to limit yourselves to surveys as your only method. Consider multiple techniques to capture a wider audience, including:

    • Customer journey mapping
    • Focus groups with stakeholders
    • Lunch and learns or workshop sessions
    • Interviews – phone, chat, in-person
    • Kiosks

    Principles for survey design

    As you design your satisfaction survey – whether transactional or relational – follow these guidelines to ensure the survey delivers value and gets responses.

    1. Focus on your goal
    2. Don’t include unnecessary questions that won’t give you actionable information; it will only waste respondents’ time.

    3. Be brief
    4. Keep each question as short as possible and limit the total number of survey questions to avoid survey fatigue.

    5. Include open-ended questions
    6. Most of your measures will be close-ended, but include at least one comment box to allow for qualitative feedback.

    7. Keep questions clear and concise
    8. Ensure that question wording is clear and specific so that all respondents interpret it the same way.

    9. Avoid biased or leading questions
    10. You won’t get accurate results if your question leads respondents into thinking or answering a certain way.

    11. Avoid double-barreled questions
    12. Don’t ask about two different things in the same question – it will confuse respondents and make your data hard to interpret.

    13. Don’t restrict responses
    14. Response options should include all possible opinions (including “don’t know”) to avoid frustrating respondents.

    15. Make the survey easy to complete
    16. Pre-populate information where possible (e.g. name, department) and ensure the survey is responsive on mobile devices.

    17. Keep questions optional
    18. If every question is mandatory, respondents may leave the survey altogether if they can’t or don’t want to answer one question.

    19. Test your survey
    20. Test your survey with your target audience before launching, and incorporate feedback - they may catch issues you didn’t notice.

    Prevent survey fatigue to increase response rates

    If it takes too much time or effort to complete your survey – whether transactional or relational – your respondents won’t bother. Balance your need to collect relevant data with users’ needs for a simple and worthwhile task in order to get the most value out of your surveys.

    There are two types of survey fatigue:

    1. Survey response fatigue
    2. Occurs when users are overwhelmed by too many requests for feedback and stop responding.

    3. Survey taking fatigue
    4. Occurs when the survey is too long or irrelevant to users, so they grow tired and abandon the survey.

    Fight survey fatigue:

    • Make it as easy as possible to answer your survey:
      • Keep the survey as short as possible.
      • For transactional surveys, allow respondents to answer directly from email without having to click a separate link if possible.
      • Don’t make all questions mandatory or users may abandon it if they get to a difficult or unapplicable question.
      • Test the survey experience across devices for mobile users.
    • Communicate the survey’s value so users will be more likely to donate their time.
    • Act on feedback: follow up on both positive and negative responses so users see the value in responding.
    • Consider attaching an incentive to responding (e.g. name entered in a monthly draw).

    Design and implement transactional surveys

    Phase 2

    Learn why and how to design a simple survey to assess satisfaction with individual service desk transactions (tickets) and a methodology for survey delivery that will improve response rates.

    Phase 1:

    Phase 2:

    Phase 3:

    Phase 4:

    Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

    Design and implement transactional surveys

    Design and implement relationship surveys

    Analyze and act on feedback

    Use transactional surveys to collect immediate and actionable feedback

    Recall the definition of a transactional survey:

    • Survey that is tied to a specific customer interaction with the service desk (i.e. a ticket).
    • Assesses how satisfied customers are with how the ticket was handled and resolved.
    • Sent immediately after ticket is closed.
    • Short – usually 1 to 3 questions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    While feedback on transactional surveys is specific to a single transaction, even one negative experience can impact the overall perception of the service desk. Pair your transactional surveys with an annual relationship survey to capture broader sentiment toward the service desk.

    Transactional surveys serve several purposes:

    • Gives end users a mechanism to provide feedback when they want to.
    • Provides continual insight into customer satisfaction throughout the year to monitor for trends or issues in between broader surveys.
    • Provides IT leaders with actionable insights into areas for improvement in their processes, knowledge and skills, or customer service.
    • Gives the service desk the opportunity to address any negative experiences or perceptions with customers, to repair the relationship.
    • Feeds into individual or team coaching for service desk staff.

    Make key decisions ahead of launching your transactional surveys

    If you want to get the most of your surveys, you need to do more than just click a button to enable out-of-the-box surveys through your ITSM tool. Make these decisions ahead of time:

    Decision Considerations For more guidance, see
    What are the goals of your survey? Are you hoping to get an accurate pulse of customer sentiment (if so, you may want to randomly send surveys) or give customers the ability to provide feedback any time they have some (if so, send a survey after every ticket)? Slide 25
    How many questions will you ask? Keep the survey as short as possible – ideally only one mandatory question. Slide 26
    What questions will you ask? Do you want a measure of NPS, CES, or CSAT? Do you want to measure overall satisfaction with the interaction or something more specific about the interaction? Slide 27
    What will be the response options/scale? Keep it simple and think about how you will use the data after. Slide 28
    How often will you send the survey? Will it be sent after every ticket, every third ticket, or randomly to a select percentage of tickets, etc.? Slide 29
    What conditions would apply? For example, is there a subset of users who you never want to receive a survey or who you always want to receive a survey? Slide 30
    What mechanism/tool will you use to send the survey? Will your ITSM tool allow you to make all the configurations you need, or will you need to use a separate survey tool? If so, can it integrate to your ITSM solution? Slide 30

    Key decisions, continued

    Decision Considerations For more guidance, see
    What will trigger the survey? Typically, marking the ticket as either ‘resolved’ or ‘closed’ will trigger the survey. Slide 31
    How long after the ticket is closed will you send the survey? You’ll want to leave enough time for the user to respond if the ticket wasn’t resolved properly before completing a survey, but not so much time that they don’t remember the ticket. Slide 31
    Will the survey be sent in a separate email or as part of the ticket resolution email? A separate email might feel like too many emails for the user, but a link within the ticket closure email may be less noticeable. Slide 32
    Will the survey be embedded in email or accessed through a link? If the survey can be embedded into the email, users will be more likely to respond. Slide 32
    How long will the survey link remain active, and will you send any reminders? Leave enough time for the user to respond if they are busy or away, but not so much time that the data would be irrelevant. Balance the need to remind busy end users with the possibility of overwhelming them with survey fatigue. Slide 32
    What other text will be in the main body of the survey email and/or thank you page? Keep messaging short and straightforward and remind users of the benefit to them. Slide 33
    Where will completed surveys be sent/who will have access? Will the technician assigned to the ticket have access or only the manager? What email address/DL will surveys be sent to? Slide 33

    Define the goals of your transactional survey program

    Every survey should have a goal in mind to ensure only relevant and useful data is collected.

    • Your survey program must be backed by clear and actionable goals that will inform all decisions about the survey.
    • Survey questions should be structured around that goal, with every question serving a distinct purpose.
    • If you don’t have a clear plan for how you will action the data from a particular question, exclude it.
    • Don’t run a survey just for the sake of it; wait until you have a clear plan. If customers respond and then see nothing is done with the data, they will learn to avoid your surveys.

    Your survey objectives will also determine how often to send the survey:

    If your objective is:

    Keep a continual pulse on average customer satisfaction

    Gain the opportunity to act on negative feedback for any poor experience

    Then:

    Send survey randomly

    Send survey after every ticket

    Rationale:

    Sending a survey less often will help avoid survey fatigue and increase the chances of users responding whether they have good, bad, or neutral feedback

    Always having a survey available means users can provide feedback every time they want to, including for any poor experience – giving you the chance to act on it.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Service Managers often get caught up in running a transactional survey program because they think it’s standard practice, or they need to report a satisfaction metric. If that’s your only objective, you will fail to derive value from the data and will only turn customers away from responding.

    Design survey content and length

    As you design your survey, keep in mind the following principles:

    1. Keep it short. Your customers won’t bother responding if they see a survey with multiple questions or long questions that require a lot of reading, effort, or time.
    2. Make it simple. This not only makes it easier for your customers to complete, but easier for you to track and monitor.
    3. Tie your survey to your goals. Remember that every question should have a clear and actionable purpose.
    4. Don’t measure anything you can’t control. If you won’t be able to make changes based on the feedback, there’s no value asking about it.
    5. Include an (optional) open-ended question. This will allow customers to provide more detailed feedback or suggestions.

    Q: How many questions should the survey contain?

    A: Ideally, your survey will have only one mandatory question that captures overall satisfaction with the interaction.

    This question can be followed up with an optional open-ended question prompting the respondent for more details. This will provide a lot more context to the overall rating.

    If there are additional questions you need to ask based on your goals, clearly make these questions optional so they don’t deter respondents from completing the survey. For example, they can appear only after the respondent has submitted their overall satisfaction response (i.e. on a separate, thank you page).

    Additional (optional) measures may include:

    • Customer effort score (how easy or difficult was it to get your issue resolved?)
    • Customer service skills of the service desk
    • Technical skills/knowledge of the agents
    • Speed or response or resolution

    Design question wording

    Tips for writing survey questions:

    • Be clear and concise
    • Keep questions as short as possible
    • Cut out any unnecessary words or phrasing
    • Avoid biasing, or leading respondents to select a certain answer
    • Don’t attempt to measure multiple constructs in a single question.

    Sample question wording:

    How satisfied are you with this support experience?

    How would you rate your support experience?

    Please rate your overall satisfaction with the way your issue was handled.

    Instead of this….

    Ask this….

    “We strive to provide excellent service with every interaction. Please rate how satisfied you are with this interaction.”

    “How satisfied were you with this interaction?”

    “How satisfied were you with the customer service skills, knowledge, and responsiveness of the technicians?”

    Choose only one to ask about.

    “How much do you agree that the service you received was excellent?”

    “Please rate the service you received.”

    “On a scale of 1-10, thinking about your most recent experience, how satisfied would you say that you were overall with the way that your ticket was resolved?”

    “How satisfied were you with your ticket resolution?”

    Choose response options

    Once you’ve written your survey question, you need to design the response options for the question. Put careful thought into balancing ease of responding for the user with what will give you the actionable data you need to meet your goals. Keep the following in mind:

    When planning your response options, remember to keep the survey as easy to respond to as possible – this means allowing a one-click response and a scale that’s intuitive and simple to interpret.

    Think about how you will use the responses and interpret the data. If you choose a 10-point scale, for example, what would you classify as a negative vs positive response? Would a 5-point scale suffice to get the same data?

    Again, use your goals to inform your response options. If you need a satisfaction metric, you may need a numerical scale. If your goal is just to capture negative responses, you may only need two response options: good vs bad.

    Common response options:

    • Numerical scale (e.g. very dissatisfied to very satisfied on a 5-point scale)
    • Star rating (E.g. rate the experience out of 5 stars)
    • Smiley face scale
    • 2 response options: Good vs Bad (or Satisfied vs Dissatisfied)

    Investigate the capabilities of your ITSM tool. It may only allow one built-in response option style. But if you have the choice, choose the simplest option that aligns with your goals.

    Decide how often to send surveys

    There are two common choices for when to send ticket satisfaction surveys:

    After random tickets

    After every ticket

    Pros

    • May increase response rate by avoiding survey fatigue.
    • May be more likely to capture a range of responses that more accurately reflect sentiment (versus only negative).
    • Gives you the opportunity to receive feedback whenever users have it.
    • If your goal is to act on negative feedback whenever it arises, that’s only possible if you send a survey after every ticket.

    Cons

    • Overrepresents frequent service desk users and underrepresents infrequent users.
    • Users who have feedback to give may not get the chance to give it/service desk can’t act on it.
    • Customers who frequently contact the service desk will be overwhelmed by surveys and may stop responding.
    • Customers may only reply if they have very negative or positive feedback.

    SDI’s 2018 Customer Experience in ITSM survey of service desk professionals found:

    Almost two-thirds (65%) send surveys after every ticket.

    One-third (33%) send surveys after randomly selected tickets are closed.

    Info-Tech Recommendation:

    Send a survey after every ticket so that anyone who has feedback gets the opportunity to provide it – and you always get the chance to act on negative feedback. But, limit how often any one customer receives a ticket to avoid over-surveying them – restrict to anywhere between one survey a week to one per month per customer.

    Plan detailed survey logistics

    Decision #1

    Decision #2

    What tool will you use to deliver the survey?

    What (if any) conditions apply to your survey?

    Considerations

    • How much configuration does your ITSM tool allow? Will it allow you to configure the survey according to your decisions? Many ITSM tools, especially mid-market, do not allow you to change the response options or how often the survey is sent.
    • How does the survey look and act on mobile devices? If a customer receives the survey on their phone, they need to be able to easily respond from there or they won’t bother at all.
    • If you wish to use a different survey tool, does it integrate with your ITSM solution? Would agents have to manually send the survey? If so, how would they choose who to send the survey to, and when?

    Considerations

    Is there a subset of users who you never want to receive a survey (e.g. a specific department, location, role, or title)?

    Is there a subset of users who you always want to receive a survey, no matter how often they contact the service desk (e.g. VIP users, a department that scored low on the annual satisfaction survey, etc.)?

    Are there certain times of the year that you don’t want surveys to go out (e.g. fiscal year end, holidays)?

    Are there times of the day that you don’t want surveys to be sent (e.g. only during business hours; not at the end of the day)?

    Recommendations

    The built-in functionality of your ITSM tool’s surveys will be easiest to send and track; use it if possible. However, if your tool’s survey module is limited and won’t give you the value you need, consider a third-party solution or survey tool that integrates with your ITSM solution and won’t require significant manual effort to send or review the surveys.

    Recommendations

    If your survey module allows you to apply conditions, think about whether any are necessary to apply to either maximize your response rate (e.g. don’t send a survey on a holiday), avoid annoying certain users, or seek extra feedback from dissatisfied users.

    Plan detailed survey logistics

    Decision #2

    Decision #1

    What will trigger the survey?

    When will the survey be sent?

    Considerations

    • Usually a change of ticket status triggers the survey, but you may have the option to send it after the ticket is marked ‘resolved’ or ‘closed’. The risk of sending the survey after the ticket is ‘resolved’ is the issue may not actually be resolved yet, but waiting until it’s ‘closed’ means the user may be less likely to respond as more time has passed.
    • Some tools allow for a survey to be sent after every agent reply.
    • Some have the option to manually generate a survey, which may be useful in some cases; those cases would need to be well defined.

    Considerations

    • Once you’ve decided the trigger for the survey, decide how much time should pass after that trigger before the survey is sent.
    • The amount of time you choose will be highly dependent on the trigger you choose. For example, if you want the ‘resolved’ status to send a survey, you may want to wait 24h to send the survey in case the user responds that their issue hasn’t been properly resolved.
    • If you choose ‘closed’ as your trigger, you may want the survey to be sent immediately, as waiting any longer could further reduce the response rate.
    • Your average resolution time may also impact the survey wait time.

    Recommendations

    Only send the survey once you’re sure the issue has actually been resolved; you could further upset the customer if you ask them how happy they are with the resolution if resolution wasn’t achieved. This means sending the survey once the user confirms resolution (which closes ticket) or the agent closes the ticket.

    Recommendations

    If you are sending the survey upon ticket status moving to ‘resolved’, wait at least 24 hours before sending the survey in case the user responds that their issue wasn’t actually resolved. However, if you are sending the survey after the ticket has been verified resolved and closed, you can send the survey immediately while the experience is still fresh in their memory.

    Plan detailed survey logistics

    Decision #1

    Decision #2

    How will the survey appear in email?

    How long will the survey remain active?

    Considerations

    • If the survey link is included within the ticket resolution email, it’s one less email to fatigue users, but users may not notice there is a survey in the email.
    • If the survey link is included in its own separate email, it will be more noticeable to users, but could risk overwhelming users with too many emails.
    • Can users view the entire survey in the email and respond directly within the email, or do they need to click on a link and respond to the survey elsewhere?

    Considerations

    • Leaving the survey open at least a week will give users who are out of office or busy more time to respond.
    • However, if users respond to the survey too long after their ticket was resolved, they may not remember the interaction well enough to give any meaningful response.
    • Will you send any reminders to users to complete the survey? It may improve response rate, or may lead to survey fatigue from reaching out too often.

    Recommendations

    Send the survey separately from the ticket resolution email or users will never notice it. However, if possible, have the entire survey embedded within the email so users can click to respond directly from their email without having to open a separate link. Reduce effort, to make users more likely to respond.

    Recommendations

    Leave enough time for the user to respond if they are busy or away, but not so much time that the data will be irrelevant. Balance the need to remind busy end users, with the possibility of overwhelming them with survey fatigue. About a week is typical.

    Plan detailed survey logistics

    Decision #1

    Decision #2

    What will the body of the email/messaging say?

    Where will completed surveys be sent?

    Considerations

    • Communicate the value of responding to the survey.
    • Remember, the survey should be as short and concise as possible. A lengthy body of text before the actual survey can deter respondents.
    • Depending on your survey configuration, you may have a ‘thank you’ page that appears after respondents complete the survey. Think about what messaging you can save for that page and what needs to be up front.
    • Ensure there is a clear reference to which ticket the survey is referencing (with the subject of the ticket, not just ticket number).

    Considerations

    • Depending on the complexity of your ITSM tool, you may designate email addresses to receive completed surveys, or configure entire dashboards to display results.
    • Decide who needs to receive all completed surveys in order to take action.
    • Decide whether the agent who resolved the ticket will have access to the full survey response. Note that if they see negative feedback, it may affect morale.
    • Are there any other stakeholders who should receive the immediate completed surveys, or can they view summary reports and dashboards of the results?

    Recommendations

    Most users won’t read a long message, especially if they see it multiple times, so keep the email short and simple. Tell users you value their feedback, indicate which interaction you’re asking about, and say how long the survey should take. Thank them after they submit and tell them you will act on their feedback.

    Recommendations

    Survey results should be sent to the Service Manager, Customer Experience Lead, or whoever is the person responsible for managing the survey feedback. They can choose how to share feedback with specific agents and the service desk team.

    Response rates for transactional surveys are typically low…

    Most IT organizations see transactional survey response rates of less than 20%.

    The image contains a screenshot of a SDI survey taken to demonstrate customer satisfaction respond rate.

    Source: SDI, 2018

    SDI’s 2018 Customer Experience in ITSM survey of service desk professionals found that 69% of respondents had survey response rates of 20% or less. However, they did not distinguish between transactional and relationship surveys.

    Reasons for low response rates:

    • Users tend to only respond if they had a very positive or very negative experience worth writing about, but don’t typically respond for interactions that go as expected or were average.
    • Survey is too long or complicated.
    • Users receive too many requests for feedback.
    • Too much time has passed since the ticket was submitted/resolved and the user doesn’t remember the interaction.
    • Users think their responses disappear into a black hole or aren’t acted upon so they don’t see the value in taking the time to respond. Or, they don’t trust the confidentiality of their responses.

    “In my experience, single digits are a sign of a problem. And a downward trend in response rate is also a sign of a problem. World-class survey response rates for brands with highly engaged customers can be as high as 60%. But I’ve never seen it that high for internal support teams. In my experience, if you get a response rate of 15-20% from your internal customers then you’re doing okay. That’s not to say you should be content with the status quo, you should always be looking for ways to increase it.”

    – David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

    … but there are steps you can take to maximize your response rate

    It is still difficult to achieve high response rates to transactional surveys, but you can at least increase your response rate with these strategies:

    1. Reduce frequency
    2. Don’t over-survey any one user or they will start to ignore the surveys.

    3. Send immediately
    4. Ask for feedback soon after the ticket was resolved so it’s fresh in the user’s memory.

    5. Make it short and simple
    6. Keep the survey short, concise, and simple to respond to.

    7. Make it easy to complete
    8. Minimize effort involved as much as possible. Allow users to respond directly from email and from any device.

    9. Change email messaging
    10. Experiment with your subject line or email messaging to draw more attention.

    11. Respond to feedback
    12. Respond to customers who provide feedback – especially negative – so they know you’re listening.

    13. Act on feedback
    14. Demonstrate that you are acting on feedback so users see the value in responding.

    Use Info-Tech’s survey template as a starting point

    Once you’ve worked through all the decisions in this step, you’re ready to configure your transactional survey in your ITSM solution or survey tool.

    As a starting point, you can leverage Info-Tech’s Transactional Service Desk Survey Templatee to design your templates and wording.

    Make adjustments to match your decisions or your configuration limitations as needed.

    Refer to the key decisions tables on slides 24 and 25 to ensure you’ve made all the configurations necessary as you set up your survey.

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's survey templates.

    Design and implement relationship surveys

    Phase 3

    Understand why and how to design a survey to assess overall satisfaction with the service desk across your organization, or use Info-Tech’s diagnostic.

    Phase 1:

    Phase 2:

    Phase 3:

    Phase 4:

    Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

    Design and implement transactional surveys

    Design and implement relationship surveys

    Analyze and act on feedback

    How can we evaluate overall Service Desk service quality?

    Evaluating service quality in any industry is challenging for both those seeking feedback and those consuming the service: “service quality is more difficult for the consumer to evaluate than goods quality.”

    You are in the position of trying to measure something intangible: customer perception, which “result[s] from a comparison of consumer expectations with actual service performance,” which includes both the service outcome and also “the process of service delivery”

    (Source: Parasuraman et al, 1985, 42).

    Your mission is to design a relationship survey that is:

    • Comprehensive but not too long.
    • Easy to understand but complex enough to capture enough detail.
    • Able to capture satisfaction with both the outcome and the experience of receiving the service.

    Use relationship surveys to measure overall service desk service quality

    Recall the definition of a relationship survey:

    • Survey that is sent periodically (i.e. semi-annually or annually) to the entire customer base to measure the overall relationship with the service desk.
    • Shows you where your customer experience is doing well and where it needs improving.
    • Asks customers to rate you based on their overall experience rather than on a specific product or interaction.
    • Longer and more comprehensive than transactional surveys, covering multiple dimensions/ topics.

    Relationship surveys serve several purposes:

    • Gives end users an opportunity to provide overall feedback on a wider range of experiences with IT.
    • Gives IT the opportunity to respond to feedback and show users their voices are heard.
    • Provides insight into year-over-year trends and customer satisfaction.
    • Provides IT leaders the opportunity to segment the results by demographic (e.g. by department, location, or seniority) and target improvements where needed most.
    • Feeds into strategic planning and annual reports on user experience and satisfaction

    Info-Tech Insight

    Annual relationship surveys provide great value in the form of year-over-year internal benchmarking data, which you can use to track improvements and validate the impact of your service improvement efforts.

    Understand the gaps that decrease service quality

    The Service Quality Model (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985) shows how perceived service quality is negatively impacted by the gap between expectations for quality service and the perceptions of actual service delivery:

    Gap 1: Consumer expectation – Management perception gap:

    Are there differences between your assumptions about what users want from a service and what those users expect?

    Gap 2: Management perception – Service quality specification gap:

    Do you have challenges translating user expectations for service into standardized processes and guidelines that can meet those expectations?

    Gap 3: Service quality specifications – Service delivery gap:

    Do staff members struggle to carry out the service quality processes when delivering service?

    Gap 4: Service delivery – External communications gap:

    Have users been led to expect more than you can deliver? Alternatively, are users unaware of how the organization ensures quality service, and therefore unable to appreciate the quality of service they receive?

    Gap 5: Expected service – Perceived service gap:

    Is there a discrepancy between users’ expectations and their perception of the service they received (regardless of any user misunderstanding)?

    The image contains a screenshot of the Service Quality Model to demonstrate the consumer and consumers.

    Your survey questions about service and support should provide insight into where these gaps exist in your organization

    Make key decisions ahead of launch

    Decision/step Considerations
    Align the relationship survey with your goals Align what is motivating you to launch the survey at this time and the outcomes it is intended to feed into.
    Identify what you’re measuring Clarify the purpose of the questions. Are you measuring feedback on your service desk, specifically? On all of IT? Are you trying to capture user effort? User satisfaction? These decisions will affect how you word your questions.
    Determine a framework for your survey Reporting on results and tracking year-over-year changes will be easier if you design a basic framework that your survey questions fall into. Consider drawing on an existing service quality framework to match best practices in other industries.
    Cover logistical details Designing a relationship survey requires attention to many details that may initially be overlooked: the survey’s length and timing, who it should be sent to and how, what demographic info you need to collect to slice and dice the results, and if it will be possible to conduct the survey anonymously.
    Design question wording It is important to keep questions clear and concise and to avoid overly lengthy surveys.
    Select answer scales The answer scales you select will depend on how you have worded the questions. There is a wide range of answer scales available to you; decide which ones will produce the most meaningful data.
    Test the survey Testing the survey before widely distributing it is key. When collecting feedback, conduct at least a few in person observations of someone taking the survey to get their unvarnished first impressions.
    Monitor and maximize your response rate Ensure success by staying on top of the survey during the period it is open.

    Align the relationship survey with your goals

    What is motivating you to launch the survey at this time?

    Is there a renewed focus on customer service satisfaction? If so, this survey will track the initiative’s success, so its questions must align with the sponsors’ expectations.

    Are you surveying customer satisfaction in order to comply with legislation, or directives to measure customer service quality?

    What objectives/outcomes will this survey feed into?

    What do you need to report on to your stakeholders? Have they communicated any expectations regarding the data they expect to see?

    Does the CIO want the annual survey to measure end-user satisfaction with all of IT?

    • Or do you only want to measure satisfaction with one set of processes (e.g. Service Desk)?
    • Are you seeking feedback on a project (e.g. implementation of new ERP)?
    • Are you seeking feedback on the application portfolio?

    In 1993 the U.S. president issued an Executive Order requiring executive agencies to “survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services” and “post service standards and measure results against them.” (Clinton, 1993)

    Identify what you’re measuring

    Examples of Measures

    Clarify the purpose of the questions

    Each question should measure something specific you want to track and be phrased accordingly.

    Are you measuring feedback on the service desk?

    Service desk professionalism

    Are you measuring user satisfaction?

    Service desk timeliness

    Your customers’ happiness with aspects of IT’s service offerings and customer service

    Trust in agents’ knowledge

    Users’ preferred ticket intake channel (e.g. portal vs phone)

    Satisfaction with self-serve features

    Are you measuring user effort?

    Are you measuring feedback on IT overall?

    Satisfaction with IT’s ability to enable the business

    How much effort your customer needs to put forth to accomplish what they wanted/how much friction your service causes or alleviates

    Satisfaction with company-issued devices

    Satisfaction with network/Wi-Fi

    Satisfaction with applications

    Info-Tech Insight

    As you compose survey questions, decide whether they are intended to capture user satisfaction or effort: this will influence how the question is worded. Include a mix of both.

    Determine a framework for your survey

    If your relationship survey covers satisfaction with service support, ensure the questions cover the major aspects of service quality. You may wish to align your questions on support with existing frameworks: for example, the SERVQUAL service quality measurement instrument identifies 5 dimensions of service quality: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy, and Responsiveness (see below). As you design the survey, consider if the questions relate to these five dimensions. If you have overlooked any of the dimensions, consider if you need to revise or add questions.

    Service dimension

    Definition

    Sample questions

    Reliability

    “Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately”1

    • How satisfied are you with the effectiveness of Service Desk’s ability to resolve reported issues?

    Assurance

    “Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence”2

    • How satisfied are you with the technical knowledge of the Service Desk staff?
    • When you have an IT issue, how likely are you to contact Service Desk by phone?

    Tangibles

    “Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials”3

    • How satisfied are you that employees in your department have all the necessary technology to ensure optimal job performance?
    • How satisfied are you with IT’s ability to communicate to you regarding the information you need to perform your job effectively?

    Empathy

    “Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers”4

    • How satisfied are you that IT staff interact with end users in a respectful and professional manner?

    Responsiveness

    “Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service”5

    • How satisfied are you with the timeliness of Service Desk’s resolution to reported issues?
    1-5. Arlen, Chris,2022. Paraphrasing Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry, 1990.

    Cover logistical details of the survey

    Identify who you will send it to

    Will you survey your entire user base or a specific subsection? For example, a higher education institution may choose to survey students separately from staff and faculty. If you are gathering data on customer satisfaction with a specific implementation, only survey the affected stakeholders.

    Determine timing

    Avoid sending out the survey during known periods of time pressure or absence (e.g. financial year-end, summer vacation).

    Decide upon its length

    Consider what survey length your users can tolerate. Configure the survey to show the respondents’ progression or their percentage complete.

    Clearly introduce the survey

    The survey should begin with an introduction that thanks users for completing the survey, indicates its length and anonymity status, and conveys how the data will be used, along with who the participants should contact with any questions about the survey.

    Decide upon incentives

    Will you incentivize participation (e.g. by entering the participants in a draw or rewarding highest-participating department)?

    Collect demographic information

    Ensure your data can be “sliced and diced” to give you more granular insights into the results. Ask respondents for information such as department, location, seniority, and tenure to help with your trend analysis later.

    Clarify if anonymous

    Users may be more comfortable participating if they can do so anonymously (Quantisoft, n.d.). If you promise anonymity, ensure your survey software/ partner can support this claim. Note the difference between anonymity (identity of participant is not collected) and confidentiality (identifying data is collected but removed from the reported results).

    Decide how to deliver the survey

    Will you be distributing the survey yourself through your own licensed software (e.g. through Microsoft Forms if you are an MS shop)? Or, will you be partnering with a third-party provider? Is the survey optimized for mobile? Some find up to 1/3 of participants use mobile devices for their surveys (O’Reardon, 2018).

    Use the Sample Size Calculator to determine your ideal sample size

    Use Info-Tech’s Sample Size Calculator to calculate the number of people you need to complete your survey to have statistically representative results.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Sample Size Calculator.

    In the example above, the service desk supports 1000 total users (and sent the survey to each one). To be 95% confident that the survey results fall within 5% of the true value (if every user responded), they would need 278 respondents to complete their survey. In other words, to have a sample that is representative of the whole population, they would need 278 completed surveys.

    Explanation of terms:

    Confidence Level: A measure of how reliable your survey is. It represents the probability that your sample accurately reflects the true population (e.g. your entire user base). The industry standard is typically 95%. This means that 95 times out of 100, the true data value that you would get if you surveyed the entire population would fall within the margin of error.

    Margin of Error: A measure of how accurate the data is, also known as the confidence interval. It represents the degree of error around the data point, or the range of values above and below the actual results from a survey. A typical margin of error is 5%. This means that if your survey sample had a score of 70%, the true value if you sampled the entire population would be between 65% and 75%. To narrow the margin of error, you would need a bigger sample size.

    Population Size: The total set of people you want to study with your survey. For example, the total number of users you support.

    Sample Size: The number of people who participate in your survey (i.e. complete the survey) out of the total population.

    Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Diagnostics

    If you choose to leverage a third-party partner, an Info-Tech satisfaction survey may already be part of your membership. There are two options, depending on your needs:

    I need to measure and report customer satisfaction with all of IT:

    • IT’s ability to enable the organization to meet its existing goals, innovate, adapt to business needs, and provide the necessary technology.
    • IT’s ability to provide training, respond to feedback, and behave professionally.
    • Satisfaction with IT services and applications.

    Both products measure end-user satisfaction

    One is more general to IT

    One is more specific to service desk

    I need to measure and report more granularly on Service Desk customer satisfaction:

    • Efficacy and timeliness of resolutions
    • Technical and communication skills
    • Ease of contacting the service desk
    • Effectiveness of portal/ website
    • Ability to collect and apply user feedback

    Choose Info-Tech's End User Satisfaction Survey

    Choose Info-Tech’s Service Desk Satisfaction Survey

    Design question wording

    Write accessible questions:

    Instead of this….

    Ask this….

    48% of US adults meet or exceed PIACC literacy level 3 and thus able to deal with texts that are “often dense or lengthy.”

    52% of US adults meet level 2 or lower.

    Keep questions clear and concise. Avoid overly lengthy surveys.

    Source: Highlights of the 2017 U.S. PIAAC Results Web Report
    1. How satisfied are you with the response times of the service desk?
    2. How satisfied are you with the timeliness of the service desk?

    Users will have difficulty perceiving the difference between these two questions.

    1. How satisfied are you with the time we take to acknowledge receipt of your ticket?
    2. How satisfied are you with the time we take to completely resolve your ticket?

    Tips for writing survey questions:

    “How satisfied are you with the customer service skills, knowledge, and responsiveness of the technicians?”

    This question measures too many things and the data will not be useful.

    Choose only one to ask about.

    • Cut out any unnecessary words or phrasing. Highlight/bold key words or phrases.
    • Avoid biasing or leading respondents to select a certain answer.
    • Don’t attempt to measure multiple constructs in a single question.

    “On a scale of 1-10, thinking about the past year, how satisfied would you say that you were overall with the way that your tickets were resolved?”

    This question is too wordy.

    “How satisfied were you with your ticket resolution?”

    Choose answer scales that best fit your questions and reporting needs

    Likert scale

    Respondents select from a range of statements the position with which they most agree:

    E.g. How satisfied are you with how long it generally takes to resolve your issue completely?

    E.g. Very dissatisfied/Somewhat dissatisfied/ Neutral/ Somewhat satisfied/ Very satisfied/ NA

    Frequency scale

    How often does the respondent have to do something, or how often do they encounter something?

    E.g. How frequently do you need to re-open tickets that have been closed without being satisfactorily resolved?

    E.g. Never/ Rarely/ Sometimes/ Often/ Always/ NA

    Numeric scale

    By asking users to rate their satisfaction on a numeric scale (e.g., 1-5, 1-10), you can facilitate reporting on averages:

    E.g. How satisfied are you with IS’s ability to provide services to allow the organization to meet its goals?

    E.g. 1 – Not at all Satisfied to 10 – Fully Satisfied / NA

    Forced ranking

    Learn more about your users’ priorities by asking them to rank answers from most to least important, or selecting their top choices (Sauro, 2018):

    E.g. From the following list, drag and drop the 3 aspects of our service that are most important to you into the box on the right.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Always include an optional open-ended question, which allows customers to provide more feedback or suggestions.

    Test the survey before launching

    Review your questions for repetition and ask for feedback on your survey draft to discover if readers interpret the questions differently than you intended.

    Test the survey with different stakeholder groups:

    • IT staff: To discover overlooked topics.
    • Representatives of your end-user population: To discover whether they understand the intention of the questions.
    • Executives: To validate whether you are capturing the data they are interested in reporting on.

    Testing methodology:

    • Ask your test subjects to take the survey in your presence so you can monitor their experience as they take it.
    • Ask them to narrate their experience as they take the survey.
    • Watch for:
      • The time it takes to complete the survey.
      • Moments when they struggle or are uncertain with the survey’s wording.
      • Questions they find repetitive or pointless.

    Info-Tech Insight

    In the survey testing phase, try to capture at least a few real-time responses to the survey. If you collect survey feedback only once the test is over, you may miss some key insights into the user experience of navigating the survey.

    “Follow the golden rule: think of your audience and what they may or may not know. Think about what kinds of outside pressures they may bring to the work you’re giving them. What time constraints do they have?”

    – Sally Colwell, Project Officer, Government of Canada Pension Centre

    Monitor and maximize your response rate

    Ensure success by staying on top of the survey during the period it is open.

    • When will your users complete the survey? You know your own organization’s culture best, but SurveyMonkey found that weekday survey responses peaked at mid-morning and mid-afternoon (Wronski). Ensure you send the communication at a time it will not be overlooked. For example, some studies found Mondays to have higher response rates; however, the data is not consistent (Amaresan, 2021). Send the survey at a time you believe your users are least likely to be inundated with other notifications.
    • Have a trusted leader send out the first communication informing the end-user base of the survey. Ensure the recipient understands your motivation and how their responses will be used to benefit them (O’Reardon, 2016). Remind them that participating in the survey benefits them: since IT is taking actions based on their feedback, it’s their chance to improve their employee experience of the IT services and tools they use to do their job.
    • In the introductory communication, test different email subject lines and email body content to learn which versions increase respondents’ rates of opening the survey link, and “keep it short and clear” (O’Reardon, 2016).
    • If your users tend to mistrust emailed links due to security training, tell them how to confirm the legitimacy of the survey.

    “[Send] one reminder to those who haven’t completed the survey after a few days. Don’t use the word ‘reminder’ because that’ll go straight in the bin, better to say something like, ‘Another chance to provide your feedback’”

    – David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

    Analyze and act on feedback

    Phase 4

    Measure and analyze the results of both surveys and build a plan to act on both positive and negative feedback and communicate the results with the organization.

    Phase 1:

    Phase 2:

    Phase 3:

    Phase 4:

    Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

    Design and implement transactional surveys

    Design and implement relationship surveys

    Analyze and act on feedback

    Leverage the service recovery paradox to improve customer satisfaction

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate the service recovery paradox.

    A service failure or a poor experience isn’t what determines customer satisfaction – it’s how you respond to the issue and take steps to fix it that really matters.

    This means one poor experience with the service desk doesn’t necessarily lead to an unhappy user; if you quickly and effectively respond to negative feedback to repair the relationship, the customer may be even happier afterwards because you demonstrated that you value them.

    “Every complaint becomes an opportunity to turn a bad IT customer experience into a great one.”

    – David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

    Collecting feedback is only the first step in the customer feedback loop

    Closing the feedback loop is one of the most important yet forgotten steps in the process.

    1. Collect Feedback
    • Send transactional surveys after every ticket is resolved.
    • Send a broader annual relationship survey to all users.
  • Analyze Feedback
    • Calculate satisfaction scores.
    • Read open-ended comments.
    • Analyze for trends, categories, common issues and priorities.
  • Act on Feedback
    • Respond to users who provided feedback.
    • Make improvements based on feedback.
  • Communicate Results
    • Communicate feedback results and improvements made to respondents and to service desk staff.
    • Summarize results and actions to key stakeholders and business leaders.

    Act on feedback to get the true value of your satisfaction program

    • SDI (2018) survey data shows that the majority of service desk professionals are using their customer satisfaction data to feed into service improvements. However, 30% still aren’t doing anything with the feedback they collect.
    • Collecting feedback is only one half of a good customer feedback program. Acting on that feedback is critical to the success of the program.
    • Using feedback to make improvements not only benefits the service desk but shows users the value of responding and will increase future response rates.
    The image contains a screenshot of a bar graph that demonstrates SDI: What do service desk professionals do with customer satisfaction data?

    “Your IT service desk’s CSAT survey should be the means of improving your service (and the employee experience), and something that encourages people to provide even more feedback, not just the means for understanding how well it’s doing”

    – Joe the IT Guy, SysAid

    Assign responsibility for acting on feedback

    If collecting and analyzing customer feedback is something that happens off the side of your desk, it either won’t get done or won’t get done well.

    • Formalize the customer satisfaction program. It’s not a one-time task, but an ongoing initiative that requires significant time and dedication.
    • Be clear on who is accountable for the program and who is responsible for all the tasks involved for both transactional and relationship survey data collection, analysis, and communication.

    Assign accountability for the customer feedback program to one person (i.e. Service Desk Manager, Service Manager, Infrastructure & Operations Lead, IT Director), who may take on or assign responsibilities such as:

    • Designing surveys, including survey questions and response options.
    • Configuring survey(s) in ITSM or survey tool.
    • Sending relationship surveys and subsequent reminders to the organization.
    • Communicating results of both surveys to internal staff, business leaders, and end users.
    • Analyzing results.
    • Feeding results into improvement plans, coaching, and training.
    • Creating reports and dashboards to monitor scores and trends.

    Info-Tech Insight

    While feedback can feed into internal coaching and training, the goal should never be to place blame or use metrics to punish agents with poor results. The focus should always be on improving the experience for end users.

    Determine how and how often to analyze feedback data

    • Analyze and report scores from both transactional and relationship surveys to get a more holistic picture of satisfaction across the organization.
    • Determine how you will calculate and present satisfaction ratings/scores, both overall and for individual questions. See tips on the right for calculating and presenting NPS and CSAT scores.
    • A single satisfaction score doesn’t tell the full story; calculate satisfaction scores at multiple levels to determine where improvements are most needed.
      • For example, satisfaction by service desk tier, team or location, by business department or location, by customer group, etc.
    • Analyze survey data regularly to ensure you communicate and act on feedback promptly and avoid further alienating dissatisfied users. Transactional survey feedback should be reviewed at least weekly, but ideally in real time, as resources allow.

    Calculating NPS Scores

    Categorize respondents into 3 groups:

    • 9-10 = Promoters, 7-8 = Neutral, 1-6 = Detractors

    Calculate overall NPS score:

    • % Promoters - % Detractors

    Calculating CSAT Scores

    • CSAT is usually presented as a percentage representing the average score.
    • To calculate, take the total of all scores, divide by the maximum possible score, then multiply by 100. For example, a satisfaction rating of 80% means on average, users gave a rating of 4/5 or 8/10.
    • Note that some organizations present CSAT as the percentage of “satisfied” users, with satisfied being defined as either “yes” on a two-point scale or a score of 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale. Be clear how you are defining your satisfaction rating.

    Don’t neglect qualitative feedback

    While it may be more difficult and time-consuming to analyze, the reward is also greater in terms of value derived from the data.

    Why analyze qualitative data

    How to analyze qualitative data

    • Quantitative data (i.e. numerical satisfaction scores) tells you how many people are satisfied vs dissatisfied, but it doesn’t tell you why they feel that way.
    • If you limit your data analysis to only reporting numerical scores, you will miss out on key insights that can be derived from open-ended feedback.
    • Qualitative data from open-ended survey questions provides:
      • Explanations for the numbers
      • More detailed insight into why respondents feel a certain way
      • More honest and open feedback
      • Insight into areas you may not have thought to ask about
      • New ideas and recommendations

    Methods range in sophistication; choose a technique depending on your tools available and goals of your program.

    1. Manual 2. Semi-automated 3. AI & Analysis Tools
    • Read all comments.
    • Sort into positive vs negative groups.
    • Add tags to categorize comments (e.g. by theme, keyword, service).
    • Look for trends and priorities, differences across groups.
    • Run a script to search for specific keywords.
    • Use a word cloud generator to visualize the most commonly mentioned words (e.g. laptop, email).
    • Due to limitations, manual analysis will still be necessary.
    • Use a feedback analysis/text analysis tool to mine feedback.
    • Software will present reports and data visualizations of common themes.
    • AI-powered tools can automatically detect sentiment or emotion in comments or run a topic analysis.

    Define a process to respond to both negative and positive feedback

    Successful customer satisfaction programs respond effectively to both positive and negative outcomes. Late or lack of responses to negative comments may increase customer frustration, while not responding at all to the positive comments may give the perception of indifference.

    1. Define what qualifies as a positive vs negative score
    2. E.g. Scores of 1 to 2 out of 5 are negative, scores of 4 to 5 out of 5 are positive.

    3. Define process to respond to negative feedback
    • Negative responses should go directly to the Service Desk Manager or whoever is accountable for feedback.
    • Set an SLO for when the user will be contacted. It should be within 24h but ideally much sooner.
    • Investigate the issue to understand exactly what happened and get to the root cause.
    • Identify remediation steps to ensure the issue does not occur again.
    • Communicate to the customer the action you have taken to improve.
  • Define process to respond to positive feedback
    • Positive responses should also be reviewed by the person accountable for feedback, but the timeline to respond may be longer.
    • Show respondents that you value their time by thanking them for responding. Showing appreciate helps to build a long-term relationship with the user.
    • Share positive results with the team to improve morale, and as a coaching/training mechanism.
    • Consider how to use positive feedback as an incentive or reward.

    Build a plan to communicate results to various stakeholders

    Regular communication about your feedback results and action plan tied to those results is critical to the success of your feedback program. Build your communication plan around these questions:

    1. Who should receive communication?

    Each audience will require different messaging, so start by identifying who those audiences are. At a minimum, you should communicate to your end users who provided feedback, your service desk/IT team, and business leaders or stakeholders.

    2. What information do they need?

    End users: Thank them for providing feedback. Demonstrate what you will do with that feedback.

    IT team: Share results and what you need them to do differently as a result.

    Business leaders: Share results, highlight successes, share action plan for improvement.

    3. Who is responsible for communication?

    Typically, this will be the person who is accountable for the customer feedback program, but you may have different people responsible for communicating to different audiences.

    4. When will you communicate?

    Frequency of communication will depend on the survey type – relationship or transactional – as well as the audience, with internal communication being much more frequent than end-user communication.

    5. How will you communicate?

    Again, cater your approach to the audience and choose a method that will resonate with them. End users may view an email, an update on the portal, a video, or update in a company meeting; your internal IT team can view results on a dashboard and have regular meetings.

    Communication to your users impacts both response rates and satisfaction

    Based on the Customer Communication Cycle by David O’Reardon, 2018
    1. Ask users to provide feedback through transactional and relationship surveys.
    2. Thank them for completing the survey – show that you value their time, regardless of the type of feedback they submitted.
    3. Be transparent and summarize the results of the survey(s). Make it easy to digest with simple satisfaction scores and a summary of the main insights or priorities revealed.
    4. Before asking for feedback, explain how you will use feedback to improve the service. After collecting feedback, share your plan for making improvements based on what the data told you.
    5. After you’ve made changes, communicate again to share the results with respondents. Make it clear that their feedback had a direct result on the service they receive. Communicating this before running another survey will also increase the likelihood of respondents providing feedback again.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Focus your communications to users around them, not you. Demonstrate that you need feedback to improve their experience, not just for you to collect data.

    Translate feedback into actionable improvements

    Taking action on feedback is arguably the most important step of the whole customer feedback program.

    Prioritize improvements

    Prioritize improvements based on low scores and most commonly received feedback, then build into an action plan.

    Take immediate action on negative feedback

    Investigate the issue, diagnose the root cause, and repair both the relationship and issue – just like you would an incident.

    Apply lessons learned from positive feedback

    Don’t neglect actions you can take from positive feedback – identify how you can expand upon or leverage the things you’re doing well.

    Use feedback in coaching and training

    Share positive experiences with the team as lessons learned, and use negative feedback as an input to coaching and training.

    Make the change stick

    After making a change, train and communicate it to your team to ensure the change sticks and any negative experiences don’t happen again.

    “Without converting feedback into actions, surveys can become just a pointless exercise in number watching.”

    – David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

    Info-Tech Insight

    Outline exactly what you plan to do to address customer feedback in an action plan, and regularly review that action plan to select and prioritize initiatives and monitor progress.

    For more guidance on tracking and prioritizing ongoing improvement initiatives, see the blueprints Optimize the Service Desk with a Shift Left Strategy and Build a Continual Improvement Plan for the Service Desk.

    Leverage Info-Tech resources to guide your improvement efforts

    Map your identified improvements to the relevant resource that can help:

    Improve service desk processes:

    Improve end-user self-service options:

    Assess and optimize service desk staffing:

    Improve ease of contacting the service desk:

    Standardize the Service Desk Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy Staff the Service Desk to Meet Demand Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake

    Improve service desk processes:

    Improve end-user self-service options:

    Assess and optimize service desk staffing:

    Improve ease of contacting the service desk::

    Improve Incident and Problem Management Improve Incident and Problem Management Deliver a Customer Service Training Program to Your IT Department Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy

    Map process for acting on relationship survey feedback

    Use Info-Tech’s Relationship Satisfaction Survey Review Process workflow as a template to define your own process.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Relationship Satisfaction Survey Review Process.

    Map process for acting on transactional survey feedback

    Use Info-Tech’s Transactional Satisfaction Survey Review Process workflow as a template to define your own process.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Transactional Satisfaction Survey Review Process.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Standardize the Service Desk

    This project will help you build and improve essential service desk processes, including incident management, request fulfillment, and knowledge management to create a sustainable service desk.

    Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

    This project will help you build a strategy to shift service support left to optimize your service desk operations and increase end-user satisfaction.

    Build a Continual Improvement Plan

    This project will help you build a continual improvement plan for the service desk to review key processes and services and manage the progress of improvement initiatives.

    Deliver a Customer Service Training Program to Your IT Department

    This project will help you deliver a targeted customer service training program to your IT team to enhance their customer service skills when dealing with end users, improve overall service delivery and increase customer satisfaction.

    Sources Cited

    Amaresan, Swetha. “The best time to send a survey, according to 5 studies.” Hubspot. 15 Jun 2021. Accessed October 2022.
    Arlen, Chris. “The 5 Service Dimensions All Customers Care About.” Service Performance Inc. n.d. Accessed October 2022.
    Clinton, William Jefferson. “Setting Customer Service Standards.” (1993). Federal Register, 58(176).
    “Understanding Confidentiality and Anonymity.” The Evergreen State College. 2022. Accessed October 2022.
    "Highlights of the 2017 U.S. PIAAC Results Web Report" (NCES 2020-777). U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.
    Joe the IT Guy. “Are IT Support’s Customer Satisfaction Surveys Their Own Worst Enemy?” Joe the IT Guy. 29 August 2018. Accessed October 2022.
    O’Reardon, David. “10 Ways to Get the Most out of your ITSM Ticket Surveys.” LinkedIn. 2 July 2019. Accessed October 2022.
    O'Reardon, David. "13 Ways to increase the response rate of your Service Desk surveys".LinkedIn. 8 June 2016. Accessed October 2022.
    O’Reardon, David. “IT Customer Feedback Management – A Why & How Q&A with an Expert.” LinkedIn. 13 March 2018. Accessed October 2022.
    Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). "A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research." Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41–50.
    Quantisoft. "How to Increase IT Help Desk Customer Satisfaction and IT Help Desk Performance.“ Quantisoft. n.d. Accessed November 2022.
    Rumberg, Jeff. “Metric of the Month: Customer Effort.” HDI. 26 Mar 2020. Accessed September 2022.
    Sauro, Jeff. “15 Common Rating Scales Explained.” MeasuringU. 15 August 2018. Accessed October 2022.
    SDI. “Customer Experience in ITSM.” SDI. 2018. Accessed October 2022.
    SDI. “CX: Delivering Happiness – The Series, Part 1.” SDI. 12 January 2021. Accessed October 2022.
    Wronski, Laura. “Who responds to online surveys at each hour of the day?” SurveyMonkey. n.d. Accessed October 2022.

    Research contributors

    Sally Colwell

    Project Officer

    Government of Canada Pension Centre

    Effective IT Communications

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}429|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Lead
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    IT communications are often considered ineffective. This is demonstrated by:

    • A lack of inclusion or time to present in board meetings.
    • Confusion around IT priorities and how they align to organizational objectives.
    • Segregating IT from the rest of the organization.
    • The inability to secure the necessary funding for IT-led initiatives.
    • IT employees not feeling supported or engaged.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • No one is born a good communicator. Every IT employee needs to spend the time and effort to grow their communication skills; with constant change and worsening IT crises, IT cannot afford to communicate poorly anymore.
    • The skills needed to communicate effectively as a front=line employee or CIO are the same. It is important to begin the development of these skills from the beginning of one's career.
    • Time is a non-renewable resource. Any communication needs to be considered valuable and engaging by the audience or they will be unforgiving.

    Impact and Result

    Communications is a responsibility of all members of IT. This is demonstrated through:

    • Engaging in two-way communications that are continuous and evolving.
    • Establishing a communications strategy – and following the plan.
    • Increasing the skills of all IT employees when it comes to communications.
    • Identifying audiences and their preferred means of communication.

    Effective IT Communications Research & Tools

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

    1. Effective IT Communications Capstone Deck – A resource center to ensure you never start communications from a blank page again.

    This capstone blueprint highlights the components, best practices, and importance of good communication for all IT employees.

    • Effective IT Communications Storyboard

    2. IT Townhall Template – A ready-to-use template to help you engage with IT employees and ensure consistent access to information.

    IT town halls must deliver value to employees, or they will withdraw and miss key messages. To engage employees, use well-crafted communications in an event that includes crowd-sourced contents, peer involvement, recognition, significant Q&A time allotment, organizational discussions, and goal alignment.

    • IT Townhall Template

    3. IT Year in Review Template – A ready-to-use template to help communicate IT successes and future objectives.

    This template provides a framework to build your own IT Year In Review presentation. An IT Year In Review presentation typically covers the major accomplishments, challenges, and initiatives of an organization's information technology (IT) department over the past year.

    • IT Year in Review Template

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Effective IT Communications

    Empower IT employees to communicate well with any stakeholder across the organization.

    Analyst perspective

    There has never been an expectation for IT to communicate well.

    Brittany Lutes

    Brittany Lutes
    Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Diana MacPherson

    Diana MacPherson
    Senior Research Analyst
    Info-Tech Research Group

    IT rarely engages in proper communications. We speak at, inform, or tell our audience what we believe to be important. But true communications seldom take place.

    Communications only occur when channels are created to ensure the continuous opportunity to obtain two-way feedback. It is a skill that is developed over time, with no individual having an innate ability to be better at communications. Each person in IT needs to work toward developing their personal communications style. The problem is we rarely invest in development or training related to communications. Information and technology fields spend time and money developing hard skills within IT, not soft ones.

    The benefits associated with communications are immense: higher business satisfaction, funding for IT initiatives, increased employee engagement, better IT to business alignment, and the general ability to form ongoing partnerships with stakeholders. So, for IT departments looking to obtain these benefits through true communications, develop the necessary skills.

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech’s Approach
    IT communications are often considered ineffective. This is demonstrated by:
    • A lack of inclusion or time to present in board meetings.
    • Confusion around IT priorities and how they align to organizational objectives.
    • Segregating IT from the rest of the organization.
    • An inability to secure the necessary funding for IT-led initiatives.
    • IT employees not feeling supported or engaged.
    Frequently, these barriers have prevented IT communications from being effective:
    • Using technical jargon when a universal language is needed.
    • Speaking at organization stakeholders rather than engaging through dialogue.
    • Understanding the needs of the audience.
    Overall, IT has not been expected to engage in good communications or taken a proactive approach to communicate effectively.
    Communications is a responsibility of all members of IT. This is demonstrated through:
    • Engaging in two-way communications that are continuous and evolving.
    • Establishing a communications strategy – and following the plan.
    • Increasing the skills of all IT employees when it comes to communications.
    • Identifying audiences and their preferred means of communication.

    Info-Tech Insight
    No one is born a good communicator. Every IT employee needs to spend the time and effort to grow their communication skills as constant change and worsening IT crises mean that IT cannot afford to communicate poorly anymore.

    Your challenge

    Overall satisfaction with IT is correlated to satisfaction with IT communications

    Chart showing satisfaction with it and communications

    The bottom line? For every 10% increase in communications there 8.6% increase in overall IT satisfaction. Therefore, when IT communicates with the organization, stakeholders are more likely to be satisfied with IT overall.

    Info-Tech Diagnostic Programs, N=330 organizations

    IT struggles to communicate effectively with the organization:

    • CIOs are given minimal time to present to the board or executive leaders about IT’s value and alignment to business goals.
    • IT initiatives are considered complicated and confusing.
    • The frequency and impact of IT crises are under planned for, making communications more difficult during a major incident.
    • IT managers do not have the skills to communicate effectively with their team.
    • IT employees do not have the skills to communicate effectively with one another and end users.

    Common obstacles

    IT is prevented from communicating effectively due to these barriers:

    • Difficulty assessing the needs of the audience to inform the language and means of communication that should be used.
    • Using technical jargon rather than translating the communication into commonly understood terms.
    • Not receiving the training required to develop communication skills across IT employees.
    • Frequently speak at organization stakeholders rather than engaging through dialogue.
    • Beginning many communications from a blank page, especially crisis communications.
    • Difficulty presenting complex concepts in a short time to an audience in a digestible and concise manner without diluting the point.

    Effective IT communications are rare:

    53% of CXOs believe poor communication between business and IT is a barrier to innovation.
    Source: Info-Tech CEO-CIO Alignment Survey, 2022

    69% of those in management positions don’t feel comfortable even communicating with their staff.”
    Source: TeamStage, 2022

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Effective communications is not a broadcast but a dialogue between communicator and audience in a continuous feedback loop.

    Continuous loop of dialogue

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Always treat every communication as a dialogue, enabling the receiver of the message to raise questions, concerns, or ideas.
    2. Different audiences will require different communications. Be sure to cater the communication to the needs of the receiver(s).
    3. Never assume the communication was effective. Create measures and adjust the communications to get the desired outcome.

    Common IT communications

    And the less common but still important communications

    Communicating Up to Board or Executives

    • Board Presentations
    • Executive Leadership Committee Meetings
    • Technology Updates
    • Budget Updates
    • Risk Updates
    • Year in Review

    Communicating Across the Organization

    • Townhalls – external to IT
    • Year in Review
    • Crisis Email
    • Intranet Communication
    • Customer/Constituent Requests for Information
    • Product Launches
    • Email
    • Watercooler Chat

    Communicating Within IT

    • Townhalls – internal to IT
    • Employee 1:1s
    • Team Meetings
    • Project Updates
    • Project Collaboration Sessions
    • Year in Review
    • All-Hands Meeting
    • Employee Interview
    • Onboarding Documentation
    • Vendor Negotiation Meetings
    • Vendor Product Meetings
    • Email
    • Watercooler Chat

    Insight Summary

    Overarching insight
    IT cannot afford to communicate poorly given the overwhelming impact and frequency of change related to technology. Learn to communicate well or get out of the way of someone who can.

    Insight 1: The skills needed to communicate effectively as a frontline employee or a CIO are the same. It’s important to begin the development of these skills from the beginning of one’s career.
    Insight 2: Time is a non-renewable resource. Any communication needs to be considered valuable and engaging by the audience or they will be unforgiving.
    Insight 3: Don’t make data your star. It is a supporting character. People can argue about the collection methods or interpretation of the data, but they cannot argue the story you share.
    Insight 4: Measure if the communication is being received and resulting in the desired outcome. If not, modify what and how the message is being expressed.
    Insight 5: Messages are also non-verbal. Practice using your voice and body to set the right tone and impact your audience.

    Communication principles

    Follow these principles to support all IT communications.

    Two-Way

    Incorporate feedback loops into your communication efforts. Providing stakeholders with the opportunity to voice their opinions and ideas will help gain their commitment and buy-in.

    Timely

    Frequent communications mitigate rumors and the spread of misinformation. Provide warning before the implementation of any changes whenever possible. Communicate as soon as possible after decisions have been made.

    Consistent

    Make sure the messaging is consistent across departments, mediums, and presenters. Provide managers with key phrases to support the consistency of messages.

    Open & Honest

    Transparency is a critical component of communication. Always tell employees that you will share information as soon as you can. This may not be as soon as you receive the information but as soon as sharing it is acceptable.

    Authentic

    Write messages in a way that embodies the personality of the organization. Don’t spin information; position it within the wider organizational context.

    Targeted

    Use your target audience profiles to determine which audiences need to consume which messages and what mediums should be employed.

    Importance of IT being a good communicator

    Don’t pay the price for poor communication.

    IT needs to communicate well because:

    • IT risk mitigation and technology initiative funding are dependent on critical stakeholders comprehending the risk impact and initiative benefit in easy-to-understand terms.
    • IT employees need clear and direct information to feel empowered and accountable to do their jobs well.
    • End users who have a good experience engaging in communications with IT employees have an overall increase in satisfaction with IT.
    • Continuously demonstrating IT’s value to the organization comes when those initiatives are clearly aligned to overall objectives.
    • Communication prevents assumptions and further miscommunication from happening among IT employees who are usually impacted and fear change the most.

    “Poor communication results in employee misunderstanding and errors that cost approximately $37 billion.”
    – Intranet Connections, 2019

    Effective communication enables organizational strategy and facilitates a two-way exchange

    Effective communication facilitates a two-way exchange

    What makes internal communications effective?

    To be effective, internal communications must be strategic. They should directly support organizational objectives, reinforce key messages to make sure they drive action, and facilitate two-way dialogue, not just one-way messaging.

    Measure the value of the communication

    Communication effectiveness can be measured through a variety of metrics:

    • Increase in Productivity
    • “When employees are offered better communication technology and skills, productivity can increase by up to 30%” (Expert Market, 2022).
    • Increase in Understanding Decision Rationale
    • Employees who report understanding the rationale behind the business decisions made by the executive leadership team (ELT) are 3.6x more likely to be engaged, compared to those who were not (McLean & Company Engagement Survey Database, 2022; N=133,167 responses, 187 organizations).
    • Increase in Revenue
    • Collaboration amongst C-suite executives led to a 27% increase in revenue compared to low collaborating C-suites (IBM, 2021).
    • Increase in End-User Satisfaction
    • 80.9% of end users are satisfied with IT’s ability to communicate with them regarding the information they need to perform their job (Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Survey Database, N=20,617 end users from 126 organizations).

    Methods to determine effectiveness:

    • CIO Business Vision Survey
    • Engagement surveys
    • Focus groups
    • Suggestion boxes
    • Team meetings
    • Random sampling
    • Informal feedback
    • Direct feedback
    • Audience body language
    • Repeating the message back

    How to navigate the research center

    This research center is intended to ensure that IT never starts their communications from a blank page again:

    Tools to help IT be better communicators

    “‘Effectiveness’ can mean different things, and effectiveness for your project is going to look different than it would for any other project.”
    – Gale McCreary in WikiHow, 2022

    Audience: Organizational leadership

    Speaking with Board and executive leaders about strategy, risk, and value

    Keep in mind:

    1 2 3
    Priorities Differ Words Matter The Power of Three
    What’s important to you as CIO is very different from what is important to a board or executive leadership team or even the individual members of these groups. Share only what is important or relevant to the stakeholder(s). Simplify the message into common language whenever possible. A good test is to ensure that someone without any technical background could understand the message. Keep every slide to three points with no more than three words. You are the one to translate this information into a worth-while story to share.

    “Today’s CIOs have a story to tell. They must change the old narrative and describe the art of the (newly) possible. A great leader rises to the occasion and shares a vision that inspires the entire organization.”
    – Dan Roberts, CIO, 2019

    Communications for board presentations

    Secure funding and demonstrate IT as a value add to business objectives.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Stop presenting what is important to you as the CIO and present to the board what is important to them.

    Why does IT need to communicate with the board?

    • To get their buy-in and funding for critical IT initiatives.
    • To ensure that IT risks are understood and receive the funding necessary to mitigate.
    • To change the narrative of IT as a service provider to a business enabler.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for board presentations

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating Board Presentations:

    Do: Ensure you know all the members of the board and their strengths/areas of focus.

    Do: Ensure the IT objectives and initiatives align to the business objectives.

    Do: Avoid using any technical jargon.

    Do: Limit the amount of data you are using to present information. If it can’t stand alone, it isn’t a strong enough data point.

    Do: Avoid providing IT service metrics or other operational statistics.

    Do: Demonstrate how the organization’s revenue is impacted by IT activities.

    Do: Tell a story that is compelling and excited.

    OUTCOME

    Organization Alignment

    • Approved organization objectives and IT objectives are aligned and supporting one another.

    Stakeholder Buy-In

    • Board members all understand what the future state of IT will look like – and are excited for it!

    Awareness on Technology Trends

    • It is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure the board is aware of critical technology trends that can impact the future of the organization/industry.

    Risks

    • Risks are understood, the impact they could have on the organization is clear, and the necessary controls required to mitigate the risk are funded.

    Communications for business updates

    Continuously build strong relationships with all members of business leadership.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Business leaders care about themselves and their goals – present ideas and initiatives that lean into this self-interest.

    Why does IT need to communicate business updates?

    • The key element here is to highlight how IT is impacting the organization’s overall ability to meet goals and targets.
    • Ensure all executive leaders know about and understand IT’s upcoming initiatives – and how they will be involved.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for business updates

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating Business Updates:

    Do: Ensure IT is given sufficient time to present with the rest of the business leaders.

    Do: Ensure the goals of IT are clear and can be depicted visually.

    Do: Tie every IT goal to the objectives of different business leaders.

    Do: Avoid using any technical jargon.

    Do: Reinforce the positive benefits business leaders can expect.

    Do: Avoid providing IT service metrics or other operational statistics.

    Do: Demonstrate how IT is driving the digital transformation of the organization.

    OUTCOME

    Better Reputation

    • Get other business leaders to see IT as a value add to any initiative, making IT an enabler not an order taker.

    Executive Buy-In

    • Executives are concerned about their own budgets; they want to embrace all the innovation but within reason and minimal impact to their own finances.

    Digital Transformation

    • Indicate and commit to how IT can help the different leaders deliver on their digital transformation activities.

    Relationship Building

    • Establish trust with the different leaders so they want to engage with you on a regular basis.

    Audience: Organization wide

    Speaking with all members of the organization about the future of technology – and unexpected crises.

    1 2 3
    Competing to Be Heard Measure Impact Enhance the IT Brand
    IT messages are often competing with a variety of other communications simultaneously taking place in the organization. Avoid the information-overload paradox by communicating necessary, timely, and relevant information. Don’t underestimate the benefit of qualitative feedback that comes from talking to people within the organization. Ensure they read/heard and absorbed the communication. IT might be a business enabler, but if it is never communicated as such to the organization, it will only be seen as a support function. Use purposeful communications to change the IT narrative.

    Less than 50% of internal communications lean on a proper framework to support their communication activities.
    – Philip Nunn, iabc, 2020

    Communications for strategic IT initiatives

    Communicate IT’s strategic objectives with all business stakeholders and users.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    IT leaders struggle to communicate how the IT strategy is aligned to the overall business objectives using a common language understood by all.

    Why does IT need to communicate its strategic objectives?

    • To ensure a clear and consistent view of IT strategic objectives can be understood by all stakeholders within the organization.
    • To demonstrate that IT strategic objectives are aligned with the overall mission and vision of the organization.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for IT strategic initiatives

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating IT Strategic Objectives:

    Do: Ensure all IT leaders are aware of and understand the objectives in the IT strategy.

    Do: Ensure there is a visual representation of IT’s goals.

    Do: Ensure the IT objectives and initiatives align to the business objectives.

    Do: Avoid using any technical jargon.

    Do: Provide metrics if they are relevant, timely, and immediately understandable.

    Do: Avoid providing IT service metrics or other operational statistics.

    Do: Demonstrate how the future of the organization will benefit from IT initiatives.

    OUTCOME

    Organization Alignment

    • All employees recognize the IT strategy as being aligned, even embedded, into the overall organization strategy.

    Stakeholder Buy-In

    • Business and IT stakeholders alike understand what the future state of IT will look like – and are excited for it!

    Role Clarity

    • Employees within IT are clear on how their day-to-day activities impact the overall objectives of the organization.

    Demonstrate Growth

    • Focus on where IT is going to be maturing in the coming one to two years and how this will benefit all employees.

    Communications for crisis management

    Minimize the fear and chaos with transparent communications.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    A crisis communication should fit onto a sticky note. If it’s not clear, concise, and reassuring, it won’t be effectively understood by the audience.

    Why does IT need to communicate when a crisis occurs?

    • To ensure all members of the organization have an understanding of what the crisis is, how impactful that crisis is, and when they can expect more information.
    • “Half of US companies don’t have a crisis communication plan” (CIO, 2017).

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for crisis management

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating During a Crisis:

    Do: Provide timely and regular updates about the crisis to all stakeholders.

    Do: Involve the Board or ELT immediately for transparency.

    Do: Avoid providing too much information in a crisis communication.

    Do: Have crisis communication statements ready to be shared at any time for possible or common IT crises.

    Do: Highlight that employee safety and wellbeing is top priority.

    Do: Work with members of the public relations team to prepare any external communications that might be required.

    OUTCOME

    Ready to Act

    • Holding statements for possible crises will eliminate the time and effort required when the crisis does occur.

    Reduce Fears

    • Prevent employees from spreading concerns and not feeling included in the crisis.

    Maintain Trust

    • Ensure Board and ELT members trust IT to respond in an appropriate manner to any crisis or major incident.

    Eliminate Negative Reactions

    • Any crisis communication should be clear and concise enough when done via email.

    Audience: IT employees

    IT employees need to receive and obtain regular transparent communications to better deliver on their expectations.

    Keep in mind:

    1 2 3
    Training for All Listening Is Critical Reinforce Collaboration
    From the service desk technician to CIO, every person within IT needs to have a basic ability to communicate. Invest in the training necessary to develop this skill set. It seems simple, but as humans we do an innately poor job at listening to others. It’s important you hear employee concerns, feedback, and recommendations, enabling the two-way aspect of communication. IT employees will reflect the types of communications they see. If IT leaders and managers cannot collaborate together, then teams will also struggle, leading to productivity and quality losses.

    “IT professionals who […] enroll in communications training have a chance to both upgrade their professional capabilities and set themselves apart in a crowded field of technology specialists.”
    – Mark Schlesinger, Forbes, 2021

    Communications for IT activities and tactics

    Get IT employees aligned and clear on their daily objectives.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Depending on IT goals, the structure might need to change to support better communication among IT employees.

    Why does IT need to communicate IT activities?

    • To ensure all members of the project team are aligned with their tasks and responsibilities related to the project.
    • To be able to identify, track, and mitigate any problems that are preventing the successful delivery of the project.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for IT activities & tactics

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating IT Activities:

    Do: Provide metrics that define how success of the project will be measured.

    Do: Demonstrate how each project aligns to the overarching objectives of the organization.

    Do: Avoid having large meetings that include stakeholders from two or more projects.

    Do: Consistently create a safe space for employees to communicate risks related to the project(s).

    Do: Ensure the right tools are being leveraged for in-office, hybrid, and virtual environments to support project collaboration.

    Do: Leverage a project management software to reduce unnecessary communications.

    OUTCOME

    Stakeholder Adoption

    • Create a standard communication template so stakeholders can easily find and apply communications.

    Resource Allocation

    • Understand what the various asks of IT are so employees can be adequately assigned to tasks.

    Meet Responsibly

    • Project status meetings are rarely valuable or insightful. Use meetings for collaboration, troubleshooting, and knowledge sharing.

    Encourage Engagement

    • Recognize employees and their work against critical milestones, especially for projects that have a long timeline.

    Communications for everyday IT

    Engage employees and drive results with clear and consistent communications.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Employees are looking for empathy to be demonstrated by those they are interacting with, from their peers to managers. Yet, we rarely provide it.

    Why does IT need to communicate on regularly with itself?

    • Regular communication ensures employees are valued, empowered, and clear about their expectations.
    • 97% of employees believe that their ability to perform their tasks efficiently is impacted by communication (Expert Market, 2022).

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for everyday IT

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating within IT:

    Do: Have responses for likely questions prepared and ready to go.

    Do: Ensure that all leaders are sharing the same messages with their teams.

    Do: Avoid providing irrelevant or confusing information.

    Do: Speak with your team on a regular basis.

    Do: Reinforce the messages of the organization every chance possible.

    Do: Ensure employees feel empowered to do their jobs effectively.

    Do: Engage employees in dialogue. The worst employee experience is when they are only spoken at, not engaged with.

    OUTCOME

    Increased Collaboration

    • Operating in a vacuum or silo is no longer an option. Enable employees to successfully collaborate and deliver holistic results.

    Role Clarity

    • Clear expectations and responsibilities eliminate confusion and blame game. Engage employees and create a positive work culture with role clarity.

    Prevent Rumors

    • Inconsistent communication often leads to information sharing and employees spreading an (in)accurate narrative.

    Organizational Insight

    • Employees trust the organization’s direction because they are aware of the different activities taking place and provided with a rationale about decisions.

    Case Study

    Amazon

    INDUSTRY
    E-Commerce

    SOURCE
    Harvard Business Review

    Jeff Bezos has definitely taken on unorthodox approaches to business and leadership, but one that many might not know about is his approach to communication. Some of the key elements that he focused on in the early 2000s when Amazon was becoming a multi-billion-dollar empire included:

    • Banning PowerPoint for all members of the leadership team. They had to learn to communicate without the crutch of the most commonly used presentation tool.
    • Leveraging memos that included specific action steps and clear nouns
    • Reducing all communication to an eighth-grade reading level, including pitches for new products (e.g. Kindle).

    Results

    While he was creating the Amazon empire, 85% of Jeff Bezos’ communication was written in a way that an eighth grader could read. Communicating in a way that was easy to understand and encouraging his leadership team to do so as well is one of the many reasons this business has grown to an estimated value of over $800B.

    “If you cannot simplify a message and communicate it compellingly, believe me, you cannot get the masses to follow you.”
    – Indra Nooyi, in Harvard Business Review, 2022

    Communication competency expectations

    Communication is a business skill; not a technical skill.

    Demonstrated Communication Behavior
    Level 1: Follow Has sufficient communication skills for effective dialogue with others.
    Level 2: Assist Has sufficient communication skills for effective dialogue with customers, suppliers, and partners.
    Level 3: Apply Demonstrates effective communication skills.
    Level 4: Enable Communicates fluently, orally, and in writing and can present complex information to both technical and non-technical audiences.
    Level 5: Ensure, Advise Communicates effectively both formally and informally.
    Level 6: Initiate, Influence Communicates effectively at all levels to both technical and non-technical audiences.
    Level 7: Set Strategy, Inspire, Mobilize Understands, explains, and presents complex ideas to audiences at all levels in a persuasive and convincing manner.

    Source: Skills Framework for the Information Age, 2021

    Key KPIs for communication with any stakeholder

    Measuring communication is hard; use these to determine effectiveness.

    Goal Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Related Resource
    Obtain board buy-in for IT strategic initiatives X% of IT initiatives that were approved to be funded. Number of times technical initiatives were asked to be explained further. Using our Board Presentation Review service
    Establish stronger relationships with executive leaders X% of business leadership satisfied with the statement “IT communicates with your group effectively.” Using the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic
    Organizationally, people know what products and services IT provides X% of end users who are satisfied with communications around changing services or applications. Using the End-User Satisfaction Survey
    Organizational reach and understanding of the crisis. Number of follow-up tickets or requests related to the crisis after the initial crisis communication was sent. Using templates and tools for crisis communications
    Project stakeholders receive sufficient communication throughout the initiative. X% overall satisfaction with the quality of the project communications. Using the PPM Customer Satisfaction Diagnostic
    Employee feedback is provided, heard, and acted on X% of satisfaction employees have with managers or IT leadership to act on employee feedback. Using the Employee Engagement Diagnostic Program

    Standard workshop communication activities

    Introduction
    Communications overview.

    Plan
    Plan your communications using a strategic tool.

    Compose
    Create your own message.

    Deliver
    Practice delivering your own message.

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

    Research contributors and experts

    Anuja Agrawal, National Communications Director, PwC

    Anuja Agrawal
    National Communications Director
    PwC

    Anuja is an accomplished global communications professional, with extensive experience in the insurance, banking, financial, and professional services industries in Asia, the US, and Canada. She is currently the National Communications Director at PwC Canada. Her prior work experience includes communication leadership roles at Deutsche Bank, GE, Aviva, and Veritas. Anuja works closely with senior business leaders and key stakeholders to deliver measurable results and effective change and culture building programs. Anuja has experience in both internal and external communications, including strategic leadership communication, employee engagement, PR and media management, digital and social media, and M&A/change and crisis management. Anuja believes in leveraging digital tools and technology-enabled solutions, combined with in-person engagement, to help improve the quality of dialogue and increase interactive communication within the organization to help build an inclusive culture of belonging.

    Nastaran Bisheban, Chief Technology Officer, KFC Canada

    Nastaran Bisheban
    Chief Technology Officer
    KFC Canada

    A passionate technologist, and seasoned transformational leader. A software engineer and computer scientist by education, a certified Project Manager that holds an MBA in Leadership with Honors and Distinction from University of Liverpool. A public speaker on various disciplines of technology and data strategy with a Harvard Business School executive leadership program training to round it all. Challenges status quo and conventional practices; is an advocate for taking calculated risk and following the principle of continuous improvement. With multiple computer software and project management publications she is a strategic mentor and board member on various non-profit organizations. Nastaran sees the world as a better place only when everyone has a seat at the table and is an active advocate for diversity and inclusion.

    Heidi Davidson, Co-Founder & CEO, Galvanize Worldwide and Galvanize On Demand

    Heidi Davidson
    Co-Founder & CEO
    Galvanize Worldwide and Galvanize On Demand

    Dr. Heidi Davidson is the co-founder and CEO of Galvanize Worldwide, the largest distributed network of marketing and communications experts in the world. She also is the co-founder and CEO of Galvanize On Demand, a tech platform that matches marketing and communications freelancers with client projects. Now with 167 active experts, the Galvanize team delivers startup advisory work, outsourced marketing, training, and crisis communications to organizations of all sizes. Before Galvanize, Heidi spent four years as part of the turnaround team at BlackBerry as the Chief Communications Officer and SVP of Corporate Marketing, where she helped the company move from a device manufacturer to a security software provider.

    Eli Gladstone, Co-Founder, Speaker Labs

    Eli Gladstone
    Co-Founder
    Speaker Labs

    Eli is a co-founder of Speaker Labs. He has spent over six years helping countless individuals overcome their public speaking fears and communicate with clarity and confidence. When he’s not coaching others on how to build and deliver the perfect presentation, you’ll probably find him reading some weird books, teaching his kids how to ski or play tennis, or trying to develop a good-enough jumpshot to avoid being a liability on the basketball court.

    Francisco Mahfuz, Keynote Speaker & Storytelling Coach

    Francisco Mahfuz
    Keynote Speaker & Storytelling Coach

    Francisco Mahfuz has been telling stories in front of audiences for a decade and even became a National Champion of public speaking. Today, Francisco is a keynote speaker and storytelling coach and offers communication training to individuals and international organizations and has worked with organizations like Pepsi, HP, the United Nations, Santander, and Cornell University. He’s the author of Bare: A Guide to Brutally Honest Public Speaking and the host of The Storypowers Podcast, and he’s been part of the IESE MBA communications course since 2020. He’s received a BA in English Literature from Birkbeck University in London.

    Sarah Shortreed, EVP & CTO, ATCO Ltd.

    Sarah Shortreed
    EVP & CTO
    ATCO Ltd.

    Sarah Shortreed is ATCO’s Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Her responsibilities include leading ATCO’s Information Technology (IT) function as it continues to drive agility and collaboration throughout ATCO’s global businesses and expanding and enhancing its enterprise IT strategy, including establishing ATCO’s technology roadmap for the future. Ms. Shortreed’s skill and expertise are drawn from her more than 30-year career that spans many industries and includes executive roles in business consulting, complex multi-stakeholder programs, operations, sales, customer relationship management, and product management. She was recently the Chief Information Officer at Bruce Power and has previously worked at BlackBerry, IBM, and Union Gas. She sits on the Board of Governors for the University of Western Ontario and is the current Chair of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Committee at the Conference Board of Canada.

    Eric Silverberg, Co-Founder, Speaker Labs

    Eric Silverberg
    Co-Founder
    Speaker Labs

    Eric is a co-founder of Speaker Labs and has helped thousands of people build their public speaking confidence and become more dynamic and engaging communicators. When he’s not running workshops to help people grow in their careers, there’s a good chance you’ll find him with his wife and dog, drinking Diet Coke, and rewatching iconic episodes of the reality TV show Survivor! He’s such a die-hard fan, that you’ll probably see him playing the game one day.

    Stephanie Stewart, Communications Officer & DR Coordinator, Info Security Services Simon Fraser University

    Stephanie Stewart
    Communications Officer & DR Coordinator
    Info Security Services Simon Fraser University

    Steve Strout, President, Miovision Technologies

    Steve Strout
    President
    Miovision Technologies

    Mr. Strout is a recognized and experienced technology leader with extensive experience in delivering value. He has successfully led business and technology transformations by leveraging many dozens of complex global SFDC, Oracle, and SAP projects. He is especially adept at leading what some call “Project Rescues” – saving people’s careers where projects have gone awry; always driving “on-time and on-budget.” Mr. Strout is the current President of Miovision Technologies and the former CEO and board member of the Americas’ SAP Users” Group (ASUG). His wealth of practical knowledge comes from 30 years of extensive experience in many CxO and executive roles at some prestigious organizations such as Vonage, Sabre, BlackBerry, Shred-it, The Thomson Corporation (now Thomson Reuters), and Morris Communications. He has served on boards including Customer Advisory Boards of Apple, AgriSource Data, Dell, Edgewise, EMC, LogiSense, Socrates.ai, Spiro Carbon Group, and Unifi.

    Info-Tech Research Group Contributors:

    Sanchia Benedict, Research Lead
    Antony Chan Executive Counsellor
    Janice Clatterbuck, Executive Counsellor
    Ahmed Jowar, Research Specialist
    Dave Kish, Practice Lead
    Nick Kozlo, Senior Research Analyst
    Heather Leier Murray, Senior Research Analyst
    Amanda Mathieson, Research Director
    Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead
    Joe Meier, Executive Counsellor
    Andy Neill, AVP Research
    Thomas Randall, Research Director

    Plus an additional two contributors who wish to remain anonymous.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Boardroom Presentation Review

    • You will come away with a clear, concise, and compelling board presentation that IT leaders can feel confident presenting in front of their board of directors.
    • Add improvements to your current board presentation in terms of visual appeal and logical flow to ensure it resonates with your board of directors.
    • Leverage a best-of-breed presentation template.

    Build a Better Manager

    • Management skills training is needed, but organizations are struggling to provide training that makes a long-term difference in the skills managers actually use in their day to day.
    • Many training programs are ineffective because they offer the wrong content, deliver it in a way that is not memorable, and are not aligned with the IT department’s business objectives.

    Crisis Communication Guides

    During a crisis it is important to communicate to employees through messages that convey calm and are transparent and tailored to your audience. Use the Crisis Communication Guides to:

    • Draft a communication strategy.
    • Tailor messages to your audience.
    • Draft employee crisis communications.
    Use this guide to equip leadership to communicate in times of crisis.

    Bibliography

    “Communication in the Workplace Statistics: Importance and Effectiveness in 2022.” TeamStage, 2022.

    Gallo, Carmine. “How Great Leaders Communicate.” Harvard Business Review, 23 November 2022

    Guthrie, Georgina. “Why Good Internal Communications Matter Now More than Ever.” Nulab, 15 December 2021.

    Lambden, Duncan. “The Importance of Effective Workplace Communication – Statistics for 2022.” Expert Market, 13 June 2022.

    “Mapping SFIA Levels of Responsibilities to Behavioural Factors.” Skills Framework for the Information Age, 2021.

    McCreary, Gale. “How to Measure the Effectiveness of Communication: 14 Steps.” WikiHow, 31 March 2023.

    Nowak, Marcin. “Top 7 Communication Problems in the Workplace.” MIT Enterprise Forum CEE, 2021.

    Nunn, Philip. “Messaging That Works: A Unique Framework to Maximize Communication Success.” iabc, 26 October 2020.

    Picincu, Andra. “How to Measure Effective Communications.” Small Business Chron. 12 January 2021.

    Price. David A. “Pixar Story Rules.” Stories From the Frontiers of Knowledge, 2011.

    Roberts, Dan. “How CIOs Become Visionary Communicators.” CIO, 2019.

    Schlesinger, Mark. “Why building effective communication skill in IT is incredibly important.” Forbes, 2021.

    Stanten, Andrew. “Planning for the Worst: Crisis Communications 101.” CIO, 25 May 2017.

    State of the American Workplace Report. Gallup, 6 February 2020.

    “The CIO Revolution.” IBM, 2021.

    “The State of High Performing Teams in Tech 2022.” Hypercontex, 2022.

    Walters, Katlin. “Top 5 Ways to Measure Internal Communication.” Intranet Connections, 30 May 2019.

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    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The vast majority of your corporate data is not being properly leveraged. Modernize the data warehouse to get value from the 80% of unstructured data that goes unused.
    • Avoid rip and replace. Develop a future state that complements your existing data warehouse with emerging technologies.
    • Be flexible in your roadmap. Create an implementation roadmap that’s incremental and adapts to changing business priorities.

    Impact and Result

    • Establish both the business and IT perspectives of today’s data warehouse environment.
    • Explore the art-of-the-possible. Don’t get stuck trying to gather technical requirements from business users who don’t know what they don’t know. Use Info-Tech’s interview guide to discuss the pains of the current environment, and more importantly, where stakeholders want to be in the future.
    • Build an internal knowledgebase with respect to emerging technologies. The technology landscape is constantly shifting and often difficult for IT staff to keep track of. Use Info-Tech’s Data Warehouse Modernization Technology Education Deck to ensure that IT is able to appropriately match the right tools to the business’ use cases.
    • Create a compelling business case to secure investment and support.

    Build a Data Warehouse Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should be looking to modernize the relational data warehouse, review Info-Tech’s framework for identifying modernization opportunities, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Assess the current data warehouse environment

    Review the business’ perception and architecture of the current data warehouse environment.

    • Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment – Phase 1: Assess the Current Data Warehouse Environment
    • Data Warehouse Maturity Assessment Tool

    2. Define modernization drivers

    Collaborate with business users to identify the strongest motivations for data warehouse modernization.

    • Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment – Phase 2: Define Modernization Drivers
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Stakeholder Interview Guide
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Technology Education Deck
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Initiative Building Tool

    3. Create the modernization future state

    Combine business ideas with modernization initiatives and create a roadmap.

    • Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment – Phase 3: Create the Modernization Future State
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Technology Architectural Template
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Deployment Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Data Warehouse

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

    1 Assess the Current Data Warehouse Environment

    The Purpose

    Discuss the general project overview for data warehouse modernization.

    Establish the business and IT perspectives of the current state.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Holistic understanding of the current data warehouse.

    Business user engagement from the start of the project.

    Activities

    1.1 Review data warehouse project history.

    1.2 Evaluate data warehouse maturity.

    1.3 Draw architecture diagrams.

    1.4 Review supporting data management practices.

    Outputs

    Data warehouse maturity assessment

    Data architecture diagrams

    2 Explore Business Opportunities

    The Purpose

    Conduct a user workshop session to elicit the most pressing needs of business stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Modernization technology selection is directly informed by business drivers.

    In-depth IT understanding of the business pains and opportunities.

    Activities

    2.1 Review general trends and drivers in your industry.

    2.2 Identify primary business frustrations, opportunities, and risks.

    2.3 Identify business processes to target for modernization.

    2.4 Capture business ideas for the future state.

    Outputs

    Business ideas for modernization

    Defined strategic direction for data warehouse modernization

    3 Review the Technology Landscape

    The Purpose

    Educate IT staff on the most common technologies for data warehouse modernization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Improved ability for IT to match technology with business ideas.

    Activities

    3.1 Appoint Modernization Advisors.

    3.2 Hold an open education and discussion forum for modernization technologies.

    Outputs

    Modernization Advisors identified

    Modernization technology education deck

    4 Define Modernization Solutions

    The Purpose

    Consolidate business ideas into modernization initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Refinement of the strategic direction for data warehouse modernization.

    Activities

    4.1 Match business ideas to technology solutions.

    4.2 Group similar ideas to create modernization initiatives.

    4.3 Create future-state architecture diagrams.

    Outputs

    Identified strategic direction for data warehouse modernization

    Defined modernization initiatives

    Future-state architecture for data warehouse

    5 Establish a Modernization Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Validate and build out initiatives with business users.

    Define benefits and costs to establish ROI.

    Identify enablers and barriers to modernization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Completion of materials for a compelling business case and roadmap.

    Activities

    5.1 Validate use cases with business users.

    5.2 Define initiative benefits.

    5.3 Identify enablers and barriers to modernization.

    5.4 Define preliminary activities for initiatives.

    5.5 Evaluate initiative costs.

    5.6 Determine overall ROI.

    Outputs

    Validated modernization initiatives

    Data warehouse modernization roadmap

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}558|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact: N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
    • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
    • Sellers' emails go unopened and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Marketing leaders in possession of well-researched and up-to-date buyer personas and journeys dramatically improve product market fit, lead gen, and sales results.
    • Success starts with product, marketing, and sales alignment on targeted personas.
    • Speed to deploy is enabled via initial buyer persona attribute discovery internally.
    • However, ultimate success requires buyer interviews, especially for the buyer journey.
    • Leading marketers update journey maps every six months as disruptive events such as COVID-19 and new media and tech platform advancements require continual innovation.

    Impact and Result

    • Reduce time and treasure wasted chasing the wrong prospects.
    • Improve product-market fit.
    • Increase open and click-through rates in your lead gen engine.
    • Perform more effective sales discovery and increase eventual win rates.

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Our Executive Brief summarizes the challenges faced when buyer persona and journeys are ill-defined. It describes the attributes of, and the benefits that accrue from, a well-defined persona and journey and the key steps to take to achieve success.

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

    1. Drive an aligned initial draft of buyer persona

    Define and align your team on target persona, outline steps to capture and document a robust buyer persona and journey, and capture current team buyer knowledge.

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2. Interview buyers and validate persona and journey

    Hold initial buyer interviews, test initial results, and continue with interviews.

    3. Prepare communications and educate stakeholders

    Consolidate interview findings, present to product, marketing, and sales teams. Work with them to apply to product design, marketing launch/campaigning, and sales and customer success enablement.

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

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

    1 Align Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge

    The Purpose

    Organize, drive alignment on target persona, and capture initial views.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Steering committee and project team roles and responsibilities clarified.

    Product, marketing, and sales aligned on target persona.

    Build initial team understanding of persona.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

    1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

    1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

    Outputs

    Documented steering committee and working team

    Executive Brief on personas and journey

    Personas and initial targets

    Documented team knowledge

    2 Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees

    The Purpose

    Build list of buyer interviewees, finalize interview guide, and validate current findings with analyst input.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Interview efficiently using 75-question interview guide.

    Gain analyst help in persona validation, reducing workload.

    Activities

    2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

    2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

    2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

    2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

    Outputs

    Analyst-validated initial findings

    Target interviewee types

    3 Schedule and Hold Buyer Interviews

    The Purpose

    Validate current persona hypothesis and flush out those attributes only derived from interviews.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Get to a critical mass of persona and journey understanding quickly.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

    3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides over the course of weeks.

    3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

    3.4 Complete interviews.

    Outputs

    List of interviewees; calls scheduled

    Initial review – “are you going in the right direction?”

    Completed interviews

    4 Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues

    The Purpose

    Summarize persona and journey attributes and provide activation guidance to team.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of product market fit requirements, messaging, and marketing, and sales asset content.

    Activities

    4.1 Summarize findings.

    4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

    4.3 Convene steering committee/executives and working team for final review.

    4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

    Outputs

    Complete findings

    Action items for team members

    Plan for activation

    5 Measure Impact and Results

    The Purpose

    Measure results, adjust, and improve.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Activation of outcomes; measured results.

    Activities

    5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

    5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

    5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

    Outputs

    Activation review

    List of suggested next steps

    Further reading

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    Make it easier to market, sell, and achieve product-market fit with deeper buyer understanding.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    B2B marketers without documented personas and journeys often experience the following:

    • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
    • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
    • Sellers’ emails go unopened, and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

    Without a deeper understanding of buyer needs and how they buy, B2B marketers will waste time and precious resources targeting the incorrect personas.

    Common Obstacles

    Despite being critical elements, organizations struggle to build personas due to:

    • A lack of alignment and collaboration among marketing, product, and sales.
    • An internal focus; or a lack of true customer centricity.
    • A lack of tools and techniques for building personas and buyer journeys.

    In today’s Agile development environment, combined with the pressure to generate revenues quickly, high tech marketers often skip the steps necessary to go deeper to build buyer understanding.

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    With a common framework and target output, clients will:

    • Align marketing, sales, and product, and collaborate together to share current knowledge on buyer personas and journeys.
    • Target 12-15 customers and prospects to interview and validate insights. Share that with customer-facing staff.
    • Activate the insights for more customer-centric lead generation, product development, and selling.

    Clients who activate findings from buyer personas and journeys will see a 50% results improvement.

    SoftwareReviews Insight:
    Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

    Buyer personas and journeys: A go-to-market critical success factor

    Marketers – large and small – will fail to optimize product-market fit, lead generation, and sales effectiveness without well-defined buyer personas and a buyer journey.

    Critical Success Factors of a Successful G2M Strategy:

    • Opportunity size and business case
    • Buyer personas and journey
    • Competitively differentiated product hypothesis
    • Buyer-validated commercial concept
    • Sales revenue plan and program cost budget
    • Consolidated communications to steering committee

    Jeff Golterman, Managing Director, SoftwareReviews Advisory

    “44% of B2B marketers have already discovered the power of Personas.”
    – Hasse Jansen, Boardview.io!, 2016

    Documenting buyer personas enables success beyond marketing

    Documenting buyer personas has several essential benefits to marketing, sales, and product teams:

    • Achieve a better understanding of your target buyer – by building a detailed buyer persona for each type of buyer and keeping it fresh, you take a giant step toward becoming a customer-centric organization.
    • Team alignment on a common definition – will happen when you build buyer personas collaboratively and among those teams that touch the customer.
    • Improved lead generation – increases dramatically when messaging and marketing assets across your lead generation engine better resonate with buyers because you have taken the time to understand them deeply.
    • More effective selling – is possible when sellers apply persona development output to their interactions with prospects and customers.
    • Better product-market fit – increases when product teams more deeply understand for whom they are designing products. Documenting buyer challenges, pain points, and unmet needs gives product teams what they need to optimize product adoption.

    “It’s easier buying gifts for your best friend or partner than it is for a stranger, right? You know their likes and dislikes, you know the kind of gifts they’ll have use for, or the kinds of gifts they’ll get a kick out of. Customer personas work the same way, by knowing what your customer wants and needs, you can present them with content targeted specifically to their wants and needs.”
    – Emma Bilardi, Product Marketing Alliance, 2020

    Buyer understanding activates just about everything

    Without the deep buyer insights that persona and journey capture enables, marketers are suboptimized.

    Buyer Persona and Journey

    • Product design
    • Customer targeting
    • Personalization
    • Messaging
    • Content marketing
    • Lead gen & scoring
    • Sales Effectiveness
    • Customer retention

    “Marketing eutopia is striking the all-critical sweet spot that adds real value and makes customers feel recognized and appreciated, while not going so far as to appear ‘big brother’. To do this, you need a deep understanding of your audience coming from a range of different data sets and the capability to extract meaning.”
    – Plexure, 2020

    Does your organization need buyer persona and journey updating?

    “Yes,” if experiencing one or more key challenges:

    • Sales time is wasted on unqualified leads
    • Website abandon rates are high
    • Lead gen engine click-through rates are low
    • Ideal customer profile is ill defined
    • Marketing asset downloads are low
    • Seller discovery with prospects is ineffective
    • Sales win/loss rates drop due to poor product-market fit
    • Higher than desired customer churn

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers developing buyer personas and journeys that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, and Product of personas to target will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer targeting and acquisition process.

    Outcomes and benefits

    Building your buyer persona and journey using our methodology will enable:

    • Greater stakeholder alignment – when marketing, product, and sales agree on personas, less time is wasted on targeting alternate personas.
    • Improved product-market fit – when buyers see both pain-relieving features and value-based pricing, “because you asked vs. guessed,” win rates increase.
    • Greater open and click-through rates – because you understood buyer pain points and motivations for solution seeking, you’ll see higher visits and engagement with your lead gen engine, and because you asked “what asset types do you find most helpful” your CTAs become ”lead-gen magnets” because you’ve offered the right asset types in your content marketing strategy.
    • More qualified leads – because you defined a more accurate ideal customer profile (ICP) and your lead scoring algorithm has improved, sellers see more qualified leads.
    • Increased sales cycle velocity – since you learned from personas their content and engagement preferences and what collateral types they need during the down-funnel sales discussions, sales calls are more productive and sales cycles shrink.

    Our methodology for buyer persona and journey creation

    1. Document Team Knowledge of Buyer Persona and Drive Alignment 2. Interview Target Buyer Prospects and Customers 3. Create Outputs and Apply to Marketing, Sales, and Product
    Phase Steps
    1. Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.
    2. Pull stakeholders together, identify initial buyer persona, and begin to document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).
    3. Validate with industry and marketing analyst’s initial buyer persona, and identify list of buyer interviewees.
    1. Hold interviews and document and share findings.
    2. Validate initial drafts of buyer persona and create initial documented buyer journey. Review findings among key stakeholders, steering committee, and supporting analysts.
    3. Complete remaining interviews.
    1. Summarize findings.
    2. Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.
    3. Communicate to key stakeholders in product, marketing, sales, and customer success for activation.
    Phase Outcomes
    1. Steering committee and team selection
    2. Team insights about buyer persona documented
    3. Buyer persona validation with industry and marketing analysts
    4. Sales, marketing, and product alignment
    1. Interview guide
    2. Target interviewee list
    3. Buyer-validated buyer persona
    4. Buyer journey documented with asset types, channels, and “how buyers buy” fully documented
    1. Education deck on buyer persona and journey ready for use with all stakeholders: product, field marketing, sales, executives, customer success, partners
    2. Activation will update product-market fit, optimize lead gen, and improve sales effectiveness

    Our approach provides interview guides and templates to help rebuild buyer persona

    Our methodology will enable you to align your team on why it’s important to capture the most important attributes of buyer persona including:

    • Functional – helps you find and locate your target personas
    • Emotive – deepens team understanding of buyer initiatives, motivations for seeking alternatives, challenges they face, pain points for your offerings to address, and terminology that describes the “space”
    • Solution – enables greater product market fit
    • Behavioral – clarifies how to communicate with personas and understand their content preferences
    Functional – “to find them”
    Job Role Title Org. Chart Dynamics Buying Center Firmographics
    Emotive – “what they do and jobs to be done”
    Initiatives: What programs/projects the persona is tasked with and their feelings and aspirations about these initiatives. Motivations? Build credibility? Get promoted? Challenges: Identify the business issues, problems, and pain points that impede attainment of objectives. What are their fears, uncertainties, and doubts about these challenges? Buyer Need: They may have multiple needs; which need is most likely met with the offering? Terminology: What are the keywords/phrases they organically use to discuss the buyer need or business issue?
    Decision Criteria – “how they decide”
    Buyer Role: List decision-making criteria and power level. The five common buyer roles are champion, influencer, decision maker, user, and ratifier (purchaser/negotiator). Evaluation and Decision Criteria: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
    Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look like”
    Steps in “Jobs to Be Done” Elements of the “Ideal Solution” Business outcomes from ideal solution Opportunity scope; other potential users Acceptable price for value delivered Alternatives that see consideration Solution sourcing: channel, where to buy
    Behavioral Attributes – “how to approach them successfully”
    Content Preferences: List the persona’s content preferences – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, conducting research via Web, mobile, and social? Watering Holes: Which physical or virtual places do they go to network or exchange info with peers (e.g. LinkedIn)?

    Buyer journeys are constantly shifting

    If you didn’t remap buyer journeys in 2021, you may be losing to competitors that did. Leaders remap buyer journey frequently.

    • The multi-channel buyer journey is constantly changing. Today’s B2B buyer uses industry research sites, vendor content marketing assets, software reviews sites, contacts with vendor salespeople, events participation, peer networking, consultants, emails, social media sites, and electronic media to research purchasing decisions.
    • COVID-19 has dramatically decreased face-to-face interaction. We estimate a B2B buyer spent 20-25% more time online in 2021 than pre-COVID-19 researching software buying decisions. This has diminished the importance of face-to-face selling and given dramatic rise to digital selling and outbound marketing.
    • Content marketing has exploded, but without mapping the buyer journey and knowing where – by channel –and when – by buyer journey step – to offer content marketing assets, we will fail to convert prospects into buyers.

    “~2/3 of [B2B] buyers prefer remote human interactions or digital self-service.” And during Aug. ‘20 to Feb. ‘21, use of digital self-service to interact with sales reps leapt by more than 10% for both researching and evaluating new suppliers.”
    – Liz Harrison, Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai McKinsey & Company, 2021

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers are advised to update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is affected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR shifts asset-type usage and engagement options.

    Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

    Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

    You’ll be more successful by following our overall guidance

    Overarching insight

    Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

    Align Your Team

    Marketers developing buyer personas and journeys that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, and Product of personas to target will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer targeting and acquisition process.

    Jump-Start Persona Development

    Marketing leaders leverage the buyer persona knowledge not only from in-house experts in areas such as sales and executives but from analysts that speak with their buyers each and every day.

    Buyer Interviews Are a Must

    While leaders will get a fast start by interviewing sellers, executives, and analysts, you will fail to craft the right messages, build the right marketing assets, and design the best buyer journey if you skip buyer interviews.

    Watch for Disruption

    Leaders will update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is effected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR and VR shifts the way buyers engage.

    Advanced Buyer Journey Discovery

    Digital marketers that ramp up lead gen engine capabilities to capture “wins” and measure engagement back through the lead gen and nurturing engines will build a more data-driven view of the buyer journey. Target to build this advanced capability in your initial design.

    Tools and templates to speed your success

    This blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you gather team insights, interview customers and prospects, and summarize results for ease in communications.

    To support your buyer persona and journey creation, we’ve created the enclosed tools

    Buyer Persona Creation Template

    A PowerPoint template to aid the capture and summarizing of your team’s insights on the buyer persona.

    Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    For interviewing customers and prospects, this tool is designed to help you interview personas and summarize results for up to 15 interviewees.

    Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    A PowerPoint template into which you can drop your buyer persona and journey interviewees list and summary findings.

    SoftwareReviews offers two levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

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

    The "do-it-yourself" step-by-step instructions begin with Phase 1.

    Guided Implementation

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

    A Guided Implementation is a series of analysts inquiries with you and your team.

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout each option.

    Guided Implementation

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst.

    Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    What does our GI on buyer persona and journey mapping look like?

    Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

    • Call #1: Collaborate on vision for buyer persona and the buyer journey. Review templates and sample outputs. Identify your team.
    • Call #2: Review work in progress on capturing working team knowledge of buyer persona elements.
    • Call #3: (Optional) Review Info-Tech’s research-sourced persona insights.
    • Call #4: Validate the persona WIP with Info-Tech analysts. Review buyer interview approach and target list.

    Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

    • Call #5: Revise/review interview guide and final interviewee list; schedule interviews.
    • Call #6: Review interim interview finds; adjust interview guide.
    • Call #7: Use interview findings to validate/update persona and build journey map.
    • Call #8: Add supporting analysts to final stakeholder review.

    Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

    • Call #9: Review output templates completed with final persona and journey findings.
    • Call #10: Add supporting analysts to stakeholder education meetings for support and help with addressing questions/issues.

    Workshop overview

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

    Day1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Align Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees Schedule and Hold Buyer interviews Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues Measure Impact and Results
    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

    1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

    1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

    2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

    2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

    2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

    2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

    3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

    A gap of up to a week for scheduling of interviews.

    3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides (over the course of weeks).

    3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

    3.4 Complete interviews.

    4.1 Summarize findings.

    4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

    4.3 Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.

    4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

    5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

    5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

    A period of weeks will likely intervene to execute and gather results.

    5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

    Deliverables
    1. Documented steering committee and working team
    2. Executive Brief on personas and journey
    3. Personas and initial targets
    4. Documented team knowledge
    1. Analyst-validated initial findings
    2. Target interviewee types
    1. List of interviewees; calls scheduled
    2. Initial review – “are we going in the right direction?”
    3. Completed interviews
    1. Complete findings
    2. Action items for team members
    3. Plan for activation
    1. Activation review
    2. List of suggested next steps

    Phase 1
    Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Develop an understanding of what comprises a buyer persona and journey, including their importance to overall go-to-market strategy and execution.
    • Sample outputs.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Representative(s) from Sales
    • Executive Leadership

    1.1 Establish the team and align on shared vision

    Input

    • Typically a joint recognition that buyer personas have not been fully documented.
    • Identify working team members/participants (see below), and an executive sponsor.

    Output

    • Communication of team members involved and the make-up of steering committee and working team
    • Alignment of team members on a shared vision of “Why Build Buyer Personas and Journey” and what key attributes define both.

    Materials

    • N/A

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    60 minutes

    1. Schedule inquiry with working team members and walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation.
    2. Optional: Have the (SoftwareReviews Advisory) SRA analyst walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation as part of your session.

    Review the Create a Buyer Persona Executive Brief (Slides 3-14)

    1.2 Document team knowledge of buyer persona

    Input

    • Working team member knowledge

    Output

    • Initial draft of your buyer persona

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    2-3 sessions of 60 minutes each

    1. Schedule meeting with working team members and, using the Buyer Persona Template, lead the team in a discussion that documents current team knowledge of the target buyer persona.
    2. Lead the team to prioritize an initial, single, most important persona and to collaborate to complete the template (and later, the buyer journey). Once the team learns the process for working on the initial persona, the development of additional personas will become more efficient.
    3. Place the PowerPoint template in a shared drive for team collaboration. Expect to schedule several 60-minute meets. Quicken collaboration by encouraging team to “do their homework” by sharing persona knowledge within the shared drive version of the template. Your goal is to get to an initial agreed upon version that can be shared for additional validation with industry analyst(s) in the next step.

    Download the Buyer Persona Creation Template

    1.3 Validate with industry analysts

    Input

    • Identify gaps in persona from previous steps

    Output

    • Further validated buyer persona

    Materials

    • Bring your Buyer Persona Creation Template to the meeting to share with analysts

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • Info-Tech analyst covering your product category and SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    30 minutes

    1. Schedule meeting with working team members and discuss which persona areas require further validation from an Info-Tech analyst who has worked closely with those buyers within your persona.

    60 minutes

    1. Schedule an inquiry with the appropriate Info-Tech analyst and SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to share current findings and see:
      1. Info-Tech analyst provide content feedback given what they know about your target persona and product category.
      2. SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst provide feedback on persona approach and to coach any gaps or important omissions.
    2. Tabulate results and update your persona summary. At this point you will likely require additional validation through interviews with customers and prospects.

    1.4 Identify interviewees and prepare for interviews

    Input

    • Identify segments within which you require persona knowledge
    • Understand your persona insight gaps

    Output

    • List of interviewees

    Materials

    • Interviewee recording template on following slide
    • Interview guide questions found within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Identify the types of customers and prospects that will best represent your target persona. Choose interviewees that when interviewed will inform key differences among key segments (geographies, company size, mix of customers and prospects, etc.).
    2. Recruit interviewees and schedule interviews for 45 minutes.
    3. Keep track of Interviewees using the slide following this one.
    4. In preparation for interviews, review the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool. Review the two sets of questions:
      1. Buyer Persona-Related – use to validate areas where you still have gaps in your persona, OR if you are starting with a blank persona and wish to build your personas entirely based on customer and prospect interviews.
      2. Buyer-Journey Related, which we will focus on in the next phase.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    The image shows a table titled ‘Interviewee List.’ A note next to the title indicates: Here you will document your interviewee list and outreach plan. A note in the Segment column indicates: Ensure you are interviewing personas across segments that will give you the insights you need, e.g. by size, by region, mix of customers and prospects. A note in the Title column reads: Vary your title types up or down in the “buying center” if you are seeking to strengthen buying center dynamics understanding. A note in the Roles column reads: Vary your role types according to decision-making roles (decision maker, influencer, ratifier, coach, user) if you are seeking to strengthen decision-making dynamics understanding.

    Phase 2
    Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Developing final interview guide.
    • Interviewing buyers and customers.
    • Adjusting approach.
    • Validating buyer persona.
    • Crafting buyer journey
    • Gaining analyst feedback.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Representative(s) from Sales

    2.1 Hold interviews

    Input

    • List of interviewees
    • Final list of questions

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Hold interviews and adjust your interviewing approach as you go along. Uncover where you are not getting the right answers, check with working team and analysts, and adjust.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2.2 Use interview findings to validate what’s needed for activation

    Input

    • List of interviewees
    • Final list of questions

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys
    • Stakeholder feedback that actionable insights are resulting from interviews

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    2 hours

    1. Convene your team, with marketing analysts, and test early findings: It’s wise to test initial interview results to check that you are getting the right insights to understand and validate key challenges, pain points, needs, and other vital areas pertaining to the buyer persona. Are the answers you are getting enabling you to complete the Summary slides for later communications and training for Sales?
    2. Check when doing buyer journey interviews that you are getting actionable answers that drive messaging, what asset types are needed, what the marketing channel mix is, and other vital insights to activate the results. Are the answers you are getting adequate to give guidance to campaigners, content marketers, and sales enablement?
    3. See the following slides for detailed questions that need to be answered satisfactorily by your team members that need to “activate” the results.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2.2.1 Are you getting what you need from interviews to inform the buyer persona?

    Test that you are on the right track:

    1. Are you getting the functional answers so you can guide sellers to the right roles? Can you guide marketers/campaigners to the right “Ideal Customer Profile” for lead scoring?
    2. Are you capturing the right emotive areas that will support message crafting? Solutioning? SEM/SEO?
    3. Are you capturing insights into “how they decide” so sellers are well informed on the decision-making dynamics?
    4. Are you getting a strong understanding of content, interaction preferences, and news and information sources so sellers can outreach more effectively, you can pinpoint media spend, and content marketing can create the right assets?
    Functional – “to find them”
    Job Role Title Org. Chart Dynamics Buying Center Firmographics
    Emotive – “what they do and jobs to be done”
    Initiatives: What programs/projects the persona is tasked with and their feelings and aspirations about these initiatives. Motivations? Build credibility? Get promoted? Challenges: Identify the business issues, problems, and pain points that impede attainment of objectives. What are their fears, uncertainties, and doubts about these challenges? Buyer Need: They may have multiple needs; which need is most likely met with the offering? Terminology: What are the keywords/phrases they organically use to discuss the buyer need or business issue?
    Decision Criteria – “how they decide”
    Buyer Role: List decision-making criteria and power level. The five common buyer roles are champion, influencer, decision maker, user, and ratifier (purchaser/negotiator). Evaluation and Decision Criteria: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
    Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look like”
    Steps in “Jobs to Be Done” Elements of the “Ideal Solution” Business outcomes from ideal solution Opportunity scope; other potential users Acceptable price for value delivered Alternatives that see consideration Solution sourcing: channel, where to buy
    Behavioral Attributes – “how to approach them successfully”
    Content Preferences: List the persona’s content preferences – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, conducting research via Web, mobile, and social? Watering Holes: Which physical or virtual places do they go to network or exchange info with peers (e.g. LinkedIn)?

    2.2.2 Are you getting what you need from interviews to support the buyer journey?

    Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

    Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

    2.3 Continue interviews

    Input

    • Final adjustments to list of interview questions

    Output

    • Final buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Continue customer and prospect interviews.
    2. Ensure you are gaining the segment perspectives needed.
    3. Complete the “Summary” columns within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Phase 3
    Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Creating outputs for key stakeholders
    • Communicating final findings and supporting marketing, sales, and product activation.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Sales
    • Field Marketing/Campaign Management
    • Executive Leadership

    3.1 Summarize interview results and convene full working team and steering committee for final review

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews detail

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    1-2 hours

    1. Summarize interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    3.2 Convene executive steering committee and working team to review results

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 hours

    1. Present final persona and journey results to the steering committee/executives and to working group using the summary slides interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template to finalize results.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    3.3 Convene stakeholder meetings to activate results

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

    Output

    Activation of key learnings to drive:

    • Better product –market fit
    • Lead gen
    • Sales effectiveness
    • Awareness

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • Stakeholder team members (see left)

    4-5 hours

    Present final persona and journey results to each stakeholder team. Key presentations include:

    1. Product team to validate product market fit.
    2. Content marketing to provide messaging direction for the creation of awareness and lead gen assets.
    3. Campaigners/Field Marketing for campaign-related messaging and to identify asset types required to be designed and delivered to support the buyer journey.
    4. Social media strategists for social post copy, and PR for other awareness-building copy.
    5. Sales enablement/training to enable updating of sales collateral, proposals, and sales training materials. Sellers to help with their targeting, prospecting, and crafting of outbound messaging and talk tracks.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    With the help of this blueprint, you have deepened your and your colleagues’ buyer understanding at both the persona “who they are” level and the buyer journey “how do they buy” level. You are among the minority of marketing leaders that have fully documented a buyer persona and journey – congratulations!

    The benefits of having led your team through the process are significant and include the following:

    • Better alignment of customer/buyer-facing teams such as in product, marketing, sales, and customer success.
    • Messaging that can be used by marketing, sales, and social teams that will resonate with buyer initiatives, pain points, sought-after “pain relief,” and value.
    • Places in the digital and physical universe where your prospects “hang out” so you can optimize your media spend.
    • More effective use of marketing assets and sales collateral that align with the way your prospect needs to consume information throughout their buyer journey to make a decision in your solution area.

    And by capturing and documenting your buyer persona and journey even for a single buyer type, you have started to build the “institutional strength” to apply the process to other roles in the decision-making process or for when you go after new and different buyer types for new products. And finally, by bringing your team along with you in this process, you have also led your team in becoming a more customer-focused organization – a strategic shift that all organizations should pursue.

    If you would like additional support, contact us and we’ll make sure you get the professional expertise you need.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    info@softwarereviews.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Related Software Reviews Research

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    • Save time and money and improve your sales win rates when you apply our methodology to score contacts with your lead gen engine more accurately and pass better qualified leads over to your sellers.
    • Our methodology teaches marketers to develop your own lead scoring approach based upon lead/contact profile vs. your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and scores contact engagement. Applying the methodology to arrive at your own approach to scoring will mean reduced lead gen costs, higher conversion rates, and increased marketing-influenced wins.

    Bibliography

    Bilardi, Emma. “How to Create Buyer Personas.” Product Marketing Alliance, July 2020. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Harrison, Liz, Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai. “Omnichannel in B2B sales: The new normal in a year that has been anything but.” McKinsey & Company, 15 March 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Jansen, Hasse. “Buyer Personas – 33 Mind Blowing Stats.” Boardview.io!, 19 Feb. 2016. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Raynor, Lilah. “Understanding The Changing B2B Buyer Journey.” Forbes Agency Council, 18 July 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Simpson, Jon. “Finding Your Audience: The Importance of Developing a Buyer Persona.” Forbes Agency Council, 16 May 2017. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    “Successfully Executing Personalized Marketing Campaigns at Scale.” Plexure, 6 Jan. 2020. Accessed Dec 2020.

    Ulwick, Anthony W. JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice. E-book, Strategyn, 1 Jan. 2017. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}509|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Requirements & Design
    • Parent Category Link: /requirements-and-design
    • It can be difficult to secure alignment between the many lines of business, IT included, in your organization.
    • Historically, we have drawn a dividing line between IT and "the business.”
    • The reality of organizational politics and stakeholder bias means that, with selection and prioritization, sometimes the highest value option is dismissed to make way for the loudest voice’s option.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Enterprise business analysis can help you stop the debate between IT and “the business,” as it sees everyone as part of the business. It can effectively break down silos, support the development of holistic strategies to address internal and external risks, and remove the bias and politics in decision making all too common in organizations.
    • The business analyst is the only role that can connect the strategic with the tactical, the systems, and the operations and do so objectively. It is the one source to show how people, process, and technology connect and relate, and the most skilled can remove bias and politics from their lens of view.
    • Maturity can’t be rushed. Build your enterprise business analysis program on a solid foundation of leading and consistent business analysis practices to secure buy-in and have a program that is sustainable in the long term.

    Impact and Result

    Let’s make the case for enterprise business analysis!

    • Organizations that have higher business analysis maturity and deploy enterprise analysis deliver better quality outcomes, with higher value, lower cost, and higher user satisfaction.
    • Business analysts should be contributing at the strategic level, as they need to understand multiple horizons simultaneously and be able to zoom in and out as the context calls for it. Business analysts aren’t only for projects.

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Research & Tools

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

    1. Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Storyboard – Take your business analysis from tactics to strategy.

    • Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Storyboard

    2. Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Template – Make the case for enterprise business analysis.

    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis

    Putting the strategic and tactical puzzle together.

    Analyst Perspective

    We commonly recognize the value of effective business analysis at a project or tactical level. A good business analysis professional can support the business by identifying its needs and recommending solutions to address them.
    Now, wouldn't it be great if we could do the same thing at a higher level?
    Enterprise (or strategic) business analysis is all about seeing that bigger picture, an approach that makes any business analysis professional a highly valuable contributor to their organization. It focuses on the enterprise, not a specific project or line of business.
    Leading the business analysis effort at an enterprise level ensures that your business is not only doing things right, but also doing the right things; aligned with the strategic vision of your organization to improve the way decisions are made, options are analyzed, and successful results are realized.

    Vincent Mirabelli

    Vincent Mirabelli
    Principal Research Director, Applications Delivery and Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Difficulty properly aligning between the many lines of business in your organization.
    • Historically, we have drawn a dividing line between IT and the business.
    • The reality of organizational politics and stakeholder bias means that, with selection and prioritization, sometimes the highest value option is dismissed in favor of the loudest voice.

    Common Obstacles

    • Difficulty aligning an ever-changing backlog of projects, products, and services while simultaneously managing risks, external threats, and stakeholder expectations.
    • Many organizations have never heard of enterprise business analysis and only see the importance of business analysts at the project and delivery level.
    • Business analysis professionals rarely do enough to advocate for a seat at the strategic tables in their organizations.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Let's make the case for enterprise business analysis!

    • Organizations that have higher business analysis maturity and deploy enterprise business analysis deliver better quality outcomes with higher value, lower cost, and higher user satisfaction.
    • Business analysts aren't only for projects. They should contribute at the strategic level, since they need to understand multiple horizons simultaneously and be able to zoom in and out as the context requires.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Enterprise business analysis can help you reframe the debate between IT and the business, since it sees everyone as part of the business. It can effectively break down silos, support the development of holistic strategies to address internal and external risks, and remove bias and politics from decision making.

    Phase 1

    Build the case for enterprise business analysis

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Define enterprise business analysis

    1.2 Identify your pains and opportunities

    2.1 Set your vision

    2.2 Define your roadmap and next steps

    2.3 Complete your executive communications deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.1.1 Discuss how business analysis is used in our organization
    • 1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics
    • 1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    How business analysis supports our success today

    Delivering value at the tactical level

    Effective business analysis helps guide an organization through improvements to processes, products, and services. Business analysts "straddle the line between IT and the business to help bridge the gap and improve efficiency" in an organization (CIO, 2019).
    They are most heavily involved in:

    • Defining needs
    • Modeling concepts, processes, and solutions
    • Conducting analysis
    • Maintaining and managing requirements
    • Managing stakeholders
    • Monitoring progress
    • Doing business analysis planning
    • Conducting elicitation

    In a survey, business analysts indicated that of their total working time, they spend 31% performing business analysis planning and 41% performing elicitation and analysis (PMI, 2017).

    By including a business analyst in a project, organizations benefit by:
    (IAG, 2009)

    87%

    Reduced time overspending

    75%

    Prevented budget overspending

    78%

    Reduction in missed functionality

    1.1.1 Discuss how business analysis is used in your organization

    15-30 minutes

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their knowledge, experience, and perspectives on business analysis. This should relate to their experience and not a future or aspirational usage.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Brainstorm and document all shared thoughts and perspectives.
    4. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives and record the results for the group to review and discuss.
    5. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A shared understanding of how your organization leverages its business analysis function

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Executives and leadership are satisfied with IT when there is alignment between tactics and goals

    Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision Survey data highlights the importance of IT projects in supporting the business to achieve its strategic goals.

    However, Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124) data indicates that CEOs perceive IT as poorly aligned with the business' strategic goals.

    Info-Tech's CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostics

    43%

    of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.

    60%

    of CEOs believe that IT must improve understanding of business goals.

    80%

    of CIOs/CEOs are misaligned on the target role of IT.

    30%

    of business stakeholders support their IT departments.

    Addressing problems solely with tactics does not always have the desired effect

    94%

    Source: "Out of the Crisis", Deming (via Harvard Business Review)

    According to famed management and quality thought leader and pioneer W. Edwards Deming, 94% of issues in the workplace are systemic cause significant organizational pain.

    Yet we continue to address them on the surface, rather than acknowledge how ingrained they are in our culture, systems, and processes.

    For example, we:

    • Create workarounds to address process and solution constraints
    • Expect that poor (or lack of ) leadership can be addressed in a course or seminar
    • Expect that "going Agile" will resolve our problems, and that decision making, governance, and organizational alignment will happen organically.

    Band-aid solutions rarely have the desired effect, particularly in the long-term.

    Our solutions should likewise focus on the systemic/macro environment. We can do this via projects, products and services, but those don't always address the larger issues.

    If we take the work our business analysis currently does in defining needs and solutions, and elevate this to the strategic level, the results can be impactful.

    Many organizations would benefit from enhancing their business analysis maturity

    The often-overlooked strategic value of the role comes with maturing your practices.

    Only 18% of organizations have mature (optimized or established) business analysis practices.

    With that higher level of maturity comes increased levels of capability, efficiency, and effectiveness in delivering value to people, processes, and technology. Through such efforts, they're better equipped and able to connect the strategy of their organization to the projects, processes, and products they deliver.

    They shift focus from "figuring business analysis out" to truly unleashing its potential, with business analysts contributing in strategic and tactical ways.

    an image showing the following data: Optimized- 5; Established- 13; Improving- 37; Starting- 25; Ad hoc- 21

    (Adapted from PMI, 2017)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Business analysts are best suited to connect the strategic with the tactical, the systems, and the operations. They maintain the most objective lens regarding how people, process, and technology connect and relate, and the most skilled of them can remove bias and politics from their perspective.

    1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics

    30-60 minutes

      1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their knowledge, experience, and perspectives regarding failures that resulted from disconnects between strategy and tactics.
      2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
      3. Brainstorm and document all shared thoughts and perspectives.
      4. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives and record the results.
      5. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Input

    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A shared understanding and list of failures due to disconnects between strategy and tactics

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Defining enterprise business analysis

    Terms may change, but the function remains the same.

    Enterprise business analysis (sometimes referred to as strategy analysis) "…focuses on defining the future and transition states needed to address the business need, and the work required is defined both by that need and the scope of the solution space. It covers strategic thinking in business analysis, as well as the discovery or imagining of possible solutions that will enable the enterprise to create greater value for stakeholders and/or capture more value for itself."
    (Source: "Business Analysis Body of Knowledge," v3)

    Define the function of enterprise business analysis

    This is a competitive advantage for mature organizations.

    Organizations with high-performing business analysis programs experience an enhanced alignment between strategy and operations. This contributes to improved organizational performance. We see this in financial (69% vs. 45%) and strategic performance (66% vs. 21%), also organizational agility (40% vs. 14%) and management of operational projects (62% vs. 29%). (PMI, 2017)

    When comparing enterprise with traditional business analysis, we see stark differences in the size and scope of their view, where they operate, and the role they play in organizational decision making.

    Enterprise Traditional
    Decision making Guides and influences Executes
    Time horizon 2-10 years 0-2 years
    Focus Strategy, connecting the strategic to the operational Operational, optimizing how business is done, and keeping the lights on
    Domain

    Whole organization

    Broader marketplace

    Only stakeholder lines of business relevant to the current project, product or service
    Organizational Level Executive/Leadership Project

    (Adapted from Schulich School of Business)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Maturity can't be rushed. Build your enterprise business analysis program on a solid foundation of leading and consistent business analysis practices to secure buy-in and have a program that is sustainable in the long term.

    An image showing the percentages of high- and low- maturity organizations, for the following categories: Financial performance; Strategy implementation; Organizational agility; Management of projects.

    (Adapted from PMI, 2017)

    How enterprise business analysis is used to improve organizations

    The biggest sources of project failure include:

    • Wrong (or poor) requirements
    • Unrealistic (or incomplete) business case
    • Lack of appropriate governance and oversight
    • Poor implementation
    • Poor benefits management
    • Environmental changes

    Source: MindTools.com, 2023.

    Enterprise business analysis addresses these sources and more.

    It brings a holistic view of the organization, improving collaboration and decision making across the many lines of business, effectively breaking down silos.

    In addition to ensuring we're doing the right things, not just doing things right in the form of improved requirements and more accurate business cases, or ensuring return on investment (ROI) and monitoring the broader landscape, enterprise business analysis also supports:

    • Reduced rework and waste
    • Understanding and improving operations
    • Making well-informed decisions through improved objectivity/reduced bias
    • Identifying new opportunities for growth and expansion
    • Identifying and mitigating risk
    • Eliminating projects and initiatives that do not support organizational goals or objectives
    • A career-pathing option for business analysts

    Identify your pains and opportunities

    There are many considerations in enterprise business analysis.

    Pains, gains, threats, and opportunities can come at your organization from anywhere. Be it a new product launch, an international expansion, or a new competitor, it can be challenging to keep up.

    This is where an enterprise business analyst can be the most helpful.

    By keeping a pulse on the external and internal environments, they can support growth, manage risks, and view your organization through multiple lenses and perspectives to get a single, complete picture.

    External

    Internal

    Identifying competitive forces

    In the global environment

    Organizational strengths and weaknesses

    • Monitoring and maintaining your competitive advantage.
    • Understanding trends, risks and threats in your business domain, and how they affect your organization.
    • Benchmarking performance against like and unlike organizations, to realize where you stand and set a baseline for continuous improvement and business development.
    • Leveraging tools and techniques to scan the broader landscape on an ongoing basis. Using PESTLE analysis, they can monitor the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that impact when, where, how, and with who you conduct your business and IT operations.
    • Supporting alignment between a portfolio or program of projects and initiatives.
    • Improving alignment between the various lines of business, who often lack full visibility outside of their silo, and can find themselves clashing over time, resources, and attention from leaders.
    • Improving solutions and outcomes through objective option selection.

    1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    30-60 minutes

    1. As a group, generate a list of the current pains and opportunities facing your organization. You can focus on a particular type (competitive, market, or internal) or leave it open. You can also focus on pains or opportunities separately, or simultaneously.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Record the results for the group to review, discuss, and prioritize.
      1. Discuss the impact and likelihood of each item. This can be formally ranked and quantified if there is data to support the item or leveraging the wisdom of the group.
      2. Prioritize the top three to five items of each type, as agreed by the group, and document the results.
    4. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Attendee knowledge
    • Supporting data, if available

    Output

    • A list of identified organizational pains and opportunities that has been prioritized by the group

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Phase 2

    Prepare the foundations for your enterprise business analysis program

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Define enterprise business analysis

    1.2 Identify your pains and opportunities

    2.1 Set your vision

    2.2 Define your roadmap and next steps

    2.3 Complete your executive communications deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.1.1 Define your vision and goals
    • 2.1.2 Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory
    • 2.2.1 Now, Next, Later

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Set your vision

    Your vision becomes your "north star," guiding your journey and decisions.

    When thinking about a vision statement for enterprise business analysis, think about:

    • Who are we doing this for? Who will benefit?
    • What do our business partners need? What do our customers need?
    • What value do we provide them? How can we best support them?
    • Why is this special/different from how we usually do business?

    Always remember: Your goal is not your vision!

    Not knowing the difference will prevent you from both dreaming big and achieving your dream.

    Your vision represents where you want to go. It's what you want to do.

    Your goals represent how you want to achieve your vision.

    • They are a key element of operationalizing your vision.
    • Your strategy, initiatives, and features will align with one or more goals.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Your vision shouldn't be so far out that it doesn't feel real, nor so short term that it gets bogged down in details. Finding balance will take some trial and error and will be different depending on your organization.

    2.1.1 Define your vision and goals

    1-2 hours

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their vision for enterprise business analysis. It should address the questions used in framing your vision statement.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Review your current organizational vision and goals.
    4. Discuss and document all shared thoughts and perspectives on how enterprise business analysis can align with the organizational vision.
    5. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives to create a vision statement.
    6. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Stakeholder vision, knowledge, and experience
    • Current organizational vision and goals

    Output

    • A documented vision and goals for your enterprise business analysis program

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Components of successful enterprise business analysis programs

    Ensure you're off to the best start by examining where you are and where you want to go.

    Training

    • Do the current team members have the right level of training?
    • Can we easily obtain training to close any gaps?

    Competencies and capabilities

    • Do our business analysts have the right skills, attributes, and behaviors to be successful?

    Structure and alignment

    • Would the organizational culture support enterprise business analysis (EBA)?
    • How might we structure the EBA unit to maximize effectiveness?
    • How can we best support the organization's goals and objectives?

    Methods and processes

    • How do we plan on managing the work to be done?
    • Can we define our processes and workflows?

    Tools, techniques, and templates

    • Do we have the most effective tools, techniques, and templates?

    Governance

    • How will we make decisions?
    • How will the program be managed?

    2.1.2 Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory

    30-60 minutes

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss the current business analysis assets, which could be leveraged for enterprise business analysis. This includes people, processes, and technologies which cover skills, knowledge, resources, experience, knowledge, and competencies. Focus on what the organization currently has, and not what it needs.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Record the results for the group to review and discuss.
    4. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Your current business analysis assets and resources Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A list of assets and resources to enable enterprise business analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Define your roadmap and next steps

    What do we have? What do we need?

    From completing the enterprise business analysis inventory, you will have a comprehensive list of all available assets.

    The next question is, how can this be leveraged to start building for the future?

    To operationalize enterprise business analysis, consider:

    • What do we still need to do?
    • How important are the identified gaps? Can we still operate?
    • What decisions do we need to make?
    • What stakeholders do we need to involve? Have we engaged them all?

    Lay out your roadmap

    Taking steps to mature your enterprise business analysis practice.

    The Now, Next, Later technique is a method for prioritizing and planning improvements or tasks. This involves breaking down a list of tasks or improvements into three categories:

    • Now tasks are those that must be completed immediately. These tasks are usually urgent or critical, and they must be completed to keep the project or organization running smoothly.
    • Next tasks are those that should be completed soon. These tasks are not as critical as Now tasks, but they are still important and should be tackled relatively soon.
    • Later tasks are those that can be completed later. These tasks are less critical and can be deferred without causing major problems.

    By using this technique, you can prioritize and plan the most important tasks, while allowing the flexibility to adjust as necessary.

    This technique also helps clarify what must be done first vs. what can wait. This prioritizes the most important things while keeping track of what must be done next, maintaining a smooth development/improvement process.

    An image of the now - next - later roadmap technique.

    2.2.1 Now, Next, Later

    1-2 hours

    1. Use the list of items created in 2.1.2 (Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory). Add any you feel are missing during this exercise.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. In the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template, categorize these items according to Now, Next and Later, where:
      1. Now = Critically important items that may require little effort to complete. These must be done within the next six months.
      2. Next = Important items that may require more effort or depend on other factors. These must be done in six to twelve months.
      3. Later = Less important items that may require significant effort to complete. These must be done at some point within twelve months.

    Ultimately, the choice of priority and timing is yours. Recognize that items may change categories as new information arises.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Your enterprise business analysis inventory and gaps
    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A prioritized list of items to enable enterprise business analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    2.3 Complete your executive communication deck

    Use the results of your completed exercises to build your executive communication slide deck, to make the case for enterprise business analysis

    Slide Header Associated Exercise Rationale
    Pains and opportunities

    1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics

    1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    This helps build the case for enterprise business analysis (EBA), leveraging the existing pains felt in the organization. This will draw the connection for your stakeholders.
    Our vision and goals 2.1.1 Define your vision and goals Defines where you want to go and what effort will be required.
    What is enterprise business analysis

    1.1.1 How is BA being used in our organization today?
    Pre-populated supporting content

    Defines the discipline of EBA and how it can support and mature your organization.
    Expected benefits Pre-populated supporting content What's in it for us? This section helps answer that question. What benefits can we expect, and is this worth the investment of time and effort?
    Making this a reality 2.1.2 Identify your EBA inventory Identifies what the organization presently has that makes the effort easier. It doesn't feel as daunting if there are existing people, processes, and technologies in place and in use today.
    Next steps 2.2.1 Now, Next, Later A prioritized list of action items. This will demonstrate the work involved, but broken down over time, into smaller, more manageable pieces.

    Track metrics

    Track metrics throughout the project to keep stakeholders informed.

    As the project nears completion:

    1. You will have better-aligned and more satisfied stakeholders.
    2. You will see fewer projects and initiatives that don't align with the organizational goals and objectives.
    3. There will be a reduction in costs attributed to misaligned projects and initiatives (as mentioned in #2) and the opportunity to allocate valuable time and resources to other, higher-value work.
    Metric Description Target Improvement/Reduction
    Improved stakeholder satisfaction Lines of business and previously siloed departments/divisions will be more satisfied with time spent on solution involvement and outcomes. 10% year 1, 20% year 2
    Reduction in misaligned/non-priority project work Reduction in projects, products, and services with no clear alignment to organizational goals. With that, resource costs can be allocated to other, higher-value solutions. 10% year 1, 25% year 2
    Improved delivery agility/lead time With improved alignment comes reduced conflict and political infighting. As a result, the velocity of solution delivery will increase. 10%

    Bibliography

    Bossert, Oliver and Björn Münstermann. "Business's 'It's not my problem' IT problem." McKinsey Digital. 30 March, 2023.
    Brule, Glenn R. "The Lay of the Land: Enterprise Analysis." Modern Analyst.
    "Business Analysis: Leading Organizations to Better Outcomes." Project Management Institute (PMI), 2017
    Corporate Finance Institute. "Strategic Analysis." Updated 14 March 2023
    IAG Consulting. Business Analysis Benchmark Report, 2009.
    International Institute of Business Analysis. "A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge" (BABOK Guide) version 3.
    Mirabelli, Vincent. "Business Analysis Foundations: Enterprise" LinkedIn Learning, February 2022.
    - - "Essential Techniques in Enterprise Analysis" LinkedIn Learning, September 2022.
    - - "The Essentials of Enterprise Analysis" Love the Process Academy. May 2020.
    - - "The Value of Enterprise Analysis." VincentMirabelli.com
    Praslova, Ludmila N. "Today's Most Critical Workplace Challenges Are About Systems." Harvard Business Review. 10 January 2023.
    Pratt, Mary K. and Sarah K. White. "What is a business analyst? A key role for business-IT efficiency." CIO. 17 April, 2019.
    Project Management Institute. "Business Analysis: Leading Organizations to Better Outcomes." October 2017.
    Sali, Sema. "The Importance of Strategic Business Analysis in Successful Project Outcomes." International Institute of Business Analysis. 26 May 2022.
    - - "What Does Enterprise Analysis Look Like? Objectives and Key Results." International Institute of Business Analysis. 02 June 2022.
    Shaker, Kareem. "Why do projects really fail?" Project Management Institute, PM Network. July 2010.
    "Strategic Analysis: Definition, Types and Benefits" Voxco. 25 February 2022.
    "The Difference Between Enterprise Analysis and Business Analysis." Schulich School of Business, Executive Education Center. 24 September 2018 (Updated June 2022)
    "Why Do Projects Fail: Learning How to Avoid Project Failure." MindTools.com. Accessed 24 April 2023.

    Enterprise Storage Solution Considerations

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    • Parent Category Name: Storage & Backup Optimization
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    • Enterprise storage technology and options are challenging to understand.
    • There are so many options. How do you decide what the best solution is for your storage challenge??
    • Where do you start when trying to solve your enterprise storage challenge?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Take the time to understand the various data storage formats, disk types, and associated technology, as well as the cloud-based and on-premises options. This will help you select the right tool for your needs.

    Impact and Result

    Look to existing use cases based on actual Info-Tech analyst calls to help in your decision-making process.

    Enterprise Storage Solution Considerations Research & Tools

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

    1. Enterprise Storage Solution Considerations – Narrow your focus with the right product type and realize efficiencies.

    Explore the building blocks of enterprise storage so you can select the best solution, narrow your focus with the correct product type, explore the features that should be considered when evaluating enterprise storage offerings, and examine use cases based on actual Info-Tech analyst calls to find a storage solution for your situation.

    • Enterprise Storage Solution Considerations Storyboard

    2. Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook – Understand your data requirements.

    The first step in solving your enterprise storage challenge is identifying your data sources, data volumes, and growth rates. This information will give you insight into what data sources could be stored on premises or in the cloud, how much storage you will require for the coming five to ten years, and what to consider when exploring enterprise storage solutions. This tool can be a valuable asset for determining your current storage drivers and future storage needs, structuring a plan for future storage purchases, and determining timelines and total cost of ownership.

    • Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Enterprise Storage Solution Considerations

    Narrow your focus with the right product type and realize efficiencies.

    Analyst Perspective

    The vendor landscape is continually evolving, as are the solutions they offer. The options and features are increasing and appealing.

    The image contains a picture of P.J. Ryan.

    To say that the current enterprise storage landscape looks interesting would be an understatement. The solutions offered by vendors continue to grow and evolve. Flash and NVMe are increasing the speed of storage media and reducing latency. Software-defined storage is finding the most efficient use of media to store data where it is best served while managing a variety of vendor storage and older storage area networks and network-attached storage devices.

    Storage as a service is taking on a new meaning with creative solutions that let you keep the storage appliance on premises or in a colocated data center while administration, management, and support are performed by the vendor for a nominal monthly fee.

    We cannot discuss enterprise storage without mentioning the cloud. Bring a thermometer because you must understand the difference between hot, warm, and cold storage when discussing the cloud options. Very hot and very cold may also come into play.

    Storage hardware can assume a higher total cost of ownership with support options that replace the controllers on a regular basis. The options with this type of service are also varied, but the concept of not having to replace all disks and chassis nor go through a data migration is very appealing to many companies.

    The cloud is growing in popularity when it comes to enterprise storage, but on-premises solutions are still in demand, and whether you choose cloud or on premises, you can be guaranteed an array of features and options to add stability, security, and efficiency to your enterprise storage.

    P.J. Ryan
    Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech Insight

    The vendor landscape is continually evolving, as are the solutions they offer.

    Storage providers are getting acquired by bigger players, “outside the box” thinking is disrupting the storage support marketplace, “as a service” storage offerings are evolving, and what is a data lake and do I need one? The traditional storage vendors are not alone in the market, and the solutions they offer are no longer traditional either. Explore the landscape and understand your options before you make any enterprise storage solution purchases.

    Understand the building blocks of storage so you can select the best solution.

    There are multiple storage formats for data, along with multiple hardware form factors and disk types to hold those various data formats. Software plays a significant role in many of these storage solutions, and cloud offerings take advantage of all the various formats, form factors, and disks. The challenge is matching your data type with the correct storage format and solution.

    Look to existing use cases to help in your decision-making process.

    Explore previous experiences from others by reading use cases to determine what the best solution is for your challenge. You’re probably not the first to encounter the challenge you’re facing. Another organization may have previously reached out for assistance and found a viable solution that may be just what you also need.

    Enterprise storage has evolved, with more options than ever

    Data is growing, data security will always be a concern, and vendors are providing more and more options for enterprise storage.

    “By 2025, it’s estimated that 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally – that’s the equivalent of 212,765,957 DVDs per day!” (Visual Capitalist)

    “Modern criminal groups target not only endpoints and servers, but also central storage systems and their backup infrastructure.” (Continuity Software)

    Cloud or on premises? Maybe a hybrid approach with both cloud and on premises is best for you. Do you want to remove the headaches of storage administration, management, and support with a fully managed storage-as-a-service solution? Would you like to upgrade your controllers every three or four years without a major service interruption? The options are increasing and appealing.

    High-Level Considerations

    1. Understand Your Data

    Understand how much data you have and where it is located. This will be crucial when evaluating enterprise storage solutions.

    2. Plan for Growth

    Your enterprise storage considerations should include your data needs now and in the future.

    3. Understand the Mechanics

    Take the time to understand the various data storage formats, disk types, and associated technology, as well as the cloud-based and on-premises options. This will help you select the right tool for your needs.

    Storage formats, disk drives, and technology

    Common data storage formats, technology, and drive types are outlined below. Understanding how data is stored as well as the core building blocks for larger systems will help you decide which solution is best for your storage needs.

    Format

    What it is

    Disk Drives and Technology

    File Storage

    File storage is hierarchical storage that uses files, folders, subfolders, and directories. You enter a specific filename and path to access the file, such as P:\users\johndoe\strategy\cloud.doc. If you ever saved a file on a server, you used file storage. File storage is usually managed by some type of file manager, such as File Explorer in Windows. Network-attached storage (NAS) devices use file storage.

    Hard Disk Drives (HDD)

    HDD use a platter of spinning disks to magnetically store data. The disks are thick enough to make them rigid and are referred to as hard disks.

    HDD is older technology but is still in demand and offered by vendors.

    Object Storage

    Object storage is when data is broken into distinct units, called objects. These objects are stored in a flat, non-hierarchical structure in a single location or repository. Each object is identified by its associated ID and metadata. Objects are accessed by an application programming interface (API).

    Flash

    Flash storage uses flash memory chips to store data. The flash memory chips are written with electricity and contain no moving parts. Flash storage is very fast, which is how the technology got its name (“Flash vs. SSD Storage,” Enterprise Storage Forum, 2018).

    Block Storage

    Block storage is when data is divided up into fixed-size blocks and stored with a unique identifier. Blocks can be stored in different environments, such as Windows or Linux. Storage area networks (SANs) use block storage.

    Solid-State Drive (SSD)

    SSD is a storage mechanism that also does not use any moving parts. Most SSD drives use flash storage, but other options are available for SSD.

    Nonvolatile Memory Express (NVMe)

    NVMe is a communications standard developed specially for SSDs by a consortium of vendors including Intel, Samsung, SanDisk, Dell, and Seagate. It operates across the PCIe bus (hence the “Express” in the name), which allows the drives to act more like the fast memory that they are rather than the hard disks they imitate (PCWorld).

    Narrow your focus with the right product type

    On-premises enterprise storage solutions fit into a few distinct product types.

    Network-Attached Storage

    Storage Area Network

    Software-Defined Storage

    Hyperconverged Infrastructure

    NAS refers to a storage device that is connected directly to your network. Any user or device with access to your network can access the available storage provided by the NAS. NAS storage is easily scalable and can add data redundancy through RAID technology. NAS uses the file storage format.

    NAS storage may or may not be the first choice in terms of enterprise storage, but it does have a solid market appeal as an on-premises primary backup storage solution.

    A SAN is a dedicated network of pooled storage devices. The dedicated network, separate from the regular network, provides high speed and scalability without concern for the regular network traffic. SANs use block storage format and can be divided into logical units that can be shared between servers or segregated from other servers. SANs can be accessed by multiple servers and systems at the same time. SANs are scalable and offer high availability and redundancy through RAID technology.

    SANs can use a variety of disk types and sizes and are quite common among on-premises storage solutions.

    “Software-defined storage (SDS) is a storage architecture that separates storage software from its hardware. Unlike traditional network-attached storage (NAS) or storage area network (SAN) systems, SDS is generally designed to perform on any industry-standard or x86 system, removing the software’s dependence on proprietary hardware.” (RedHat)

    SDS uses software-based policies and rules to grow and protect storage attached to applications.

    SDS allows you to use server-based storage products to add management, protection, and better usage.

    Hyperconverged storage uses virtualization and software-defined storage to combine the storage, compute, and network resources along with a hypervisor into one appliance.

    Hyperconverged storage can scale out by adding more nodes or appliances, but scaling up, or adding more resources to each appliance, can have limitations. There is flexibility as hyperconverged storage can work with most network and compute manufacturers.

    Cloud storage

    • Cloud storage is online storage offered by a cloud provider. Cloud storage is available almost anywhere and is set up with high availability features such as data duplication, redundancy, backup, and power failure protection.
    • Cloud storage is very scalable and typically is offered as object storage, block storage, or file storage. Cloud storage vendors may have their own naming scheme for object, block, or file storage.
    • Cloud-hosted data is marketed according to the frequency of access and length of time in storage. There are typically three main levels of storage: hot, warm, or cold. Vendors may have their own naming convention for hot, warm, and cold storage. Some may also add more layers such as very hot or very cold.
      • Hot storage is for data that is frequently accessed and modified. It is available on demand and is the most costly of the storage levels.
      • Cold storage is for data that will sit for a long period of time and not need to be accessed. Cold storage is usually only available after several hours or days. Cold storage is very low cost and, in some cases, even free, but retrieval or restoration for the free services can be costly.
      • Warm storage sits in between hot and cold storage. It is for data that is infrequently needed. The cost of warm storage is also in between hot and cold storage costs, and access times are measured in terms of minutes or hours.
      • It is not uncommon for data to start in hot storage and, as it ages, move to warm and eventually cold storage.

    “Enterprise cloud storage offers nearly unlimited scalability. Enterprises can add storage quickly and easily as it is needed, eliminating the risk and cost of over-provisioning.”

    – Spectrum Enterprise

    “Hot data will operate on fresh data. Cold data will operate on less frequent data and [is] used mainly for reporting and planning. Warm data is a balance between the two.”

    – TechBlost

    Enterprise storage features

    The features listed below, while not intended to cover all features offered by all vendors, should be considered and could act as a baseline for discussions with storage providers when evaluating enterprise storage offerings.

    • Scalability
      • What are the options to expand, and how easy or difficult it is to expand capacity in the future?
    • Security
      • Does the solution offer data encryption options as well as ransomware protections?
    • Integration options
      • Can the solution support seamless connectivity with other solutions and applications, such as cloud-based storage or backup software?
    • Storage reduction
      • Does the solution offer space-reduction options such as deduplication or data compression?
    • Replication
      • Does the solution offer replication options such as device to device on premises, device to device when geographically separated, device to cloud, or a combination of these scenarios?
    • Performance
      • “Enterprise storage systems have two main ‘speed’ measurements: throughput and IOPS. Throughput is the data transfer rate to and from storage media, measured in bytes per second; IOPS measures the number of reads and writes – input/output (I/O) operations – per second.” (Computer Weekly)
    • Protocol support
      • Does the solution support object-based, block-based, and file-based storage protocols?
    • Storage Efficiency
      • How efficient is the solution? Can they prove it?
      • Storage efficiencies must be available and baselined.
    • Management platform
      • A management/reporting platform should be a component included in the system.
    • Multi-parity
      • Does the solution offer multi-level block “parity” for RAID 6 protection equivalency, which would allow for the simultaneous failure of two disks?
    • Proactive support
      • Features such as call home, dial in, or remote support must be available on the system.
    • Financial considerations
      • The cost is always a concern, but are there subscription-based or “as-a-service” options?
      • Internally, is it better for this expenditure to be a capital expenditure or an ongoing operating expense?

    What’s new in enterprise storage

    • Data warehouses are not a new concept, but the data storage evolution and growth of data means that data lakes and data lakehouses are growing in popularity.
      • “A data lake is a centralized repository that allows you to store all your structured and unstructured data at any scale. You can store your data as-is, without having to first structure the data” (Amazon Web Services).
      • Analytics with a data lake is possible, but manipulation of the data is hindered due to the nature of the data. A data lakehouse adds data management and analytics to a data lake, similar to the data warehouse functionality added to databases.
    • Options for on-premises hardware support is changing.
      • Pure Storage was the first to shake up the SAN support model with its Evergreen support option. Evergreen//Forever support allows for storage controller upgrades without having to migrate data or replace your disks or chassis (Pure Storage).
      • In response to the Pure Storage Evergreen offering, Dell, HPE, NetApp, and others have come out with similar programs that offer controller upgrades while maintaining the data, disks, and chassis.
    • “As a service” is available as a hybrid solution.
      • Storage as a service (STaaS) originally referred to hosted, fully cloud-based offerings without the need for any on-premises hardware.
      • The latest STaaS offerings provide on-premises or colocated hardware with pay-as-you-go subscription pricing for data consumption. Administration, management, and support are included. The vendor will supply support and manage everything on your behalf.
      • Most of the major storage vendors offer a variation of storage as a service.

    “Because data lakes mostly consist of raw unprocessed data, a data scientist with specialized expertise is typically needed to manipulate and translate the data.”

    – DevIQ

    “A Lakehouse is also a type of centralized data repository, integrated from heterogeneous sources. As can be expected from its name, It shares features with both datawarehouses and data lakes.”

    – Cesare

    “Storage as a service (STaaS) eliminates Capex, simplifies management and offers extensive flexibility.”

    – TechTarget

    Major vendors

    The current vendor landscape for enterprise storage solutions represents a range of industry veterans and the brands they’ve aggregated along the way, as well as some relative newcomers who have come to the forefront within the past ten years.

    Vendors like Dell EMC and HPE are longstanding veterans of storage appliances with established offerings and a back catalogue of acquisitions fueling their growth. Others such as Pure Storage offer creative solutions like all-flash arrays, which are becoming more and more appealing as flash storage becomes more commoditized.

    Cloud-based vendors have become popular options in recent years. Cloud storage provides many options and has attracted many other vendors to provide a cloud option in addition to their on-premises solutions. Some software and hardware vendors also partner with cloud vendors to offer a complete solution that includes storage.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Explore your current vendor’s solutions as a starting point, then use that understanding as a reference point to dive into other players in the market

    Key Players

    • Amazon
    • Cisco
    • Dell EMC
    • Google
    • Hewlett Packard Enterprise
    • Hitachi Vantara
    • IBM
    • Microsoft
    • NetApp
    • Nutanix
    • Pure Storage

    Enterprise Storage Use Cases

    Block, object, or file storage? NAS, SAN, SDS, or HCI? Cloud or on prem? Hot, warm, or cold?
    Which one do you choose?
    The following use cases based on actual Info-Tech analyst calls may help you decide.

    1. Offsite backup solution
    2. Infrastructure consolidation
    3. DR/BCP datacenter duplication
    4. Expansion of existing storage
    5. Complete backup solution
    6. Existing storage solution going out of support soon
    7. Video storage
    8. Classify and offload storage

    Offsite backup solution

    “Offsite” may make you think of geographical separation or even cloud-based storage, but what is the best option and why?

    Use Case: How a manufacturing company dealt with retired applications

    • A leading manufacturing company had to preserve older applications no longer in use.
    • The company had completed several acquisitions and ended up with multiple legacy applications that had been merged or migrated into replacement solutions. These legacy applications were very important to the original companies, and although the data they held had been migrated to a replacement solution, executives felt they should hold on to these applications for a period of time, just in case.
    • A modern archiving solution was considered, but a research advisor from Info-Tech Research joined a call with the manufacturing company and helped the client realize that the solution was a modified backup. The application data had already been preserved through the migration, so data could be accessed in the production environment.
    • The data could be exported from the legacy application into a nonsequential database, compressed, and stored in cloud-based cold storage for less than $5 per terabyte per month. The manufacturing company staff realized that they could apply this same approach to several of their legacy applications and save tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
    • Cold storage is inexpensive until you start retrieving that data frequently. The manufacturing company knew they did not have a requirement to retrieve the application and data for a very long time, so cloud-based cold storage was ideal.

    “Data retrieval from cold storage is harder and slower than it is from hot storage. … Because of the longer retrieval time, online cold storage plans are often much cheaper. … The downside is that you’d incur additional costs when retrieving the data.”

    – Ben Stockton, Cloudwards

    Infrastructure consolidation

    Hyperconverged infrastructure combines storage, virtual infrastructure, and associated management into one piece of equipment.

    Use Case: How one company dealt with equipment and storage needs

    • One Info-Tech client had recently started in the role of IT director and realized he had inherited aging infrastructure along with a serious data challenge. The storage appliances were old and out of support. The appliances were performing inadequately, and the client was in need of more data due to ongoing growth, but he also realized that the virtual environment was running on very old servers that were no longer supported. The IT director reached out to Info-Tech to find solutions to the virtualization challenge, but the storage problem also came up throughout the course of the conversation with an analyst.
    • The analyst quickly realized that the IT director was an ideal candidate for a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) storage solution, which would also provide the necessary virtual environment.
    • The analyst explained the benefits of having a single appliance that would provide virtualization needs as well as storage needs. The built-in management features would ease the burden of administration, and the software-defined nature of the HCI would allow for the migration of data as well as future expansion options.
    • Hyperconverged infrastructure is offered by many vendors under a variety of names. Most are similar but some may have a better interface or other features. The expansion process is simple, and HCI is a good fit for many organizations looking to consolidate virtual infrastructure and storage.

    “HCI environments use a hypervisor, usually running on a server that uses direct-attached storage (DAS), to create a data center pool of systems and resources.”

    – Samuel Greengard, Datamation

    Datacenter duplication

    SAN providers offer a varied range of options for their products, and those options are constantly evolving.

    Use Case: Independent school district provides better data access using SAN technology

    • An independent school district was expanding by adding a second data center in a new school. This new data center would be approximately 20 miles away from the original data center used by the district. The intent was not to replace the original data center but to use both centers to store data and provide services concurrently. The district’s ideal scenario would be that users would not know or care which data center they were reaching, and there would be no difference in the service received from each data center. The school district reached out to Info-Tech when planning discussions reached the topic of data duplication and replication software.
    • An Info-Tech analyst joined a call with the school district and guided the conversation toward the existing environment to understand what options might be available. The analyst quickly discovered that all the district’s servers were virtual, and all associated data was stored on a single SAN.
    • The analyst informed the school district staff about SAN options, including SAN-to-SAN replication. If the school district had a sufficient link between the two data centers, SAN-to-SAN replication would work for them and provide the two identical copies of data at two locations.
    • The analyst continued to offer explanations of other features that some vendors offer with their SANs, such as the ability to turn on or off deduplication and compression, as well as disk options such as flash or NVMe.
    • The school district was moving to the request for proposal (RFP) stage but hoped to have SAN-to-SAN replication implemented before the next academic year started.

    “SAN-to-SAN replication is a low-cost, highly efficient way to manage mounting quantities of stored data.”

    – Secure Infrastructure & Services

    Expansion of existing storage

    That old storage area network may still have some useful life left in it.

    Use Case: Municipality solves data storage aging and growth challenge

    • A municipality in the United States reached out to Info-Tech for guidance on its storage challenge. The municipality had accumulated multiple SANs from different vendors over the years. These SANs were running out of storage, and more data storage was needed. The municipality’s data was growing at a rapid pace, thanks to municipal growth and expansion of services. The IT team was also concerned with modernizing their storage and not hindering their long-term growth by making the wrong purchase decision for their current storage needs.
    • An analyst from Info-Tech discussed several options with the municipality but in the end advised that software-defined storage may be the best solution.
    • Software-defined storage (SDS) would allow the municipality to gain better visibility into existing storage while making more efficient use of existing and new storage. SDS could take over the management of the existing storage from multiple vendors and add additional storage as required. SDS would also be able to integrate cloud-based storage if that was the direction taken by the municipality in the future.
    • The municipality moved forward with an SDS solution and added some additional storage capacity. They used some of their existing SANs but retired the more troublesome ones. The SDS system managed all the storage instances and data management. The administration of the storage environment was easier for the storage admins, and long-term savings were achieved through better storage management.

    “Often enterprises have added storage on an ad hoc basis as they needed it for various applications. That can result in a mishmash of heterogenous storage hardware from a wide variety of vendors. SDS offers the ability to unify management of these different storage devices, allowing IT to be more efficient.”

    – Cynthia Harvey, Enterprise Storage Forum (“What Is Software Defined Storage?”, 2018)

    Complete backup solution

    Many backup software solutions can provide backups to multiple locations, making two-location backups simple.

    Use Case: How an oil refinery modernized its backup solution

    • A large oil refinery needed a better solution for the storage of backups. The refinery was replacing its backup software solution but also wanted to improve the backup storage situation and move away from tape-based storage. All other infrastructure was reasonably modern and not in need of replacement at this time.
    • A research analyst from Info-Tech helped the client realize that the solution was a modified backup. The general guidance for backups is have a least one copy offsite, so the cloud was the obvious focal point. The analyst also explained that it would be beneficial to have a recent copy of the backup available on site for common restoration requests in addition to having the offsite copy for disaster recovery (DR) purposes.
    • The refinery staff conducted a data analysis to determine how much data was being backed up on a daily basis. The solution proposed by the analyst included network-attached storage (NAS) with adequate storage to hold 30 days' worth of on-premises data. The backup software would also simultaneously copy each backup to a cloud-based storage repository. The backup software was smart enough to only back up and transfer data that had changed since the previous backup, so transfer time and capacity was not a factor.
    • The NAS would allow for the restoration of any local, on-premises data while the cloud storage would provide a safe location offsite for backup data. It could also serve as the backup location for other cloud-based services that required a backup.

    “Data protection demands that enterprises have multiple methods of keeping data safe and replicating it in case of disaster or loss.”

    – Drew Robb, Enterprise Storage Forum, 2021

    Storage going out of support

    SAN solutions have come a long way with improvements in how data is stored and what is used to store the data.

    Use Case: How one organization replaced its old storage with a similar solution

    • A government organization was looking for a solution for its aging storage area network appliances. The SANs were old and would be no longer supported by the manufacturer within four months. The SANs had slower spinning disks and their individual capacity was at its limit through the addition of extra shelves and disks over the years.
    • The organization reached out to Info-Tech for guidance. An analyst arranged a call with them, and they discussed the storage situation in detail, including desired benefits from a storage solution and growth requirements. They also discussed cloud storage, but the government organization was not in a position to move its data to the cloud for a variety of reasons.
    • Although the individual SANs were at their storage capacity limit, the total amount of data was well within the limits of many modern on-premises storage solutions. SSD and flash or NVMe storage can store large amounts of data in small footprints and form factors.
    • The analyst reviewed several vendors with the client and discussed some advantages and disadvantages of each. They explored the features offered as well as scalability options.
    • SANs have been around for a long time but the features and capabilities that come with them has evolved. They are still a very viable solution for many organizations in a variety of scenarios.

    “A rapidly growing portion of SAN deployments leverages all-flash storage to gain its high performance, consistent low latency, and lower total cost when compared to spinning disk.”

    – NetApp

    Video storage

    Cloud storage would not be sufficient if you were using a dial up connection, just as on-premises storage solutions would not suffice if they were using floppy disks.

    Use Case: Body cams and public cameras in municipalities are driving storage growth

    • Municipal law enforcement agencies are wearing body cameras more frequently, for their own protection as well as for the protection of the public. Camera footage can be useful in legal situations as well. Municipalities are also installing more and more public cameras for the purposes of public safety. The recorded video footage from these cameras can result in large data files, which in turn drive data storage requirements.
    • Info-Tech analysts are joining calls about video data storage with increasing frequency. The concerns are repetitive, and the guidance is similar on most of these calls.
    • The “object” storage format is ideal for video and media data. Most cloud-based storage solutions use object storage, but it is also available with on-premises solutions such as NAS or SAN. The challenges clients are expressing are typically related to inadequate bandwidth for cloud-based storage or other storage formats instead of “object” storage. Cloud-based storage can also grow beyond the budgeted numbers, causing an increase in the monthly cloud cost. Older, slower on-premises hardware sometimes reveals itself as the latency culprit.
    • Object storage is well suited for the unstructured data that is video footage. It uses metadata to tag the video file for future retrieval and is easily expandable, which also makes it cost effective.
    • Video data stored in a cloud-based repository will work fine as long as the bandwidth is adequate. On-premises storage of video data is also quite adequate on the right storage format, with fast disks and a reasonably up-to-date network infrastructure.

    “The captured video is stored for days, weeks, months and sometimes years and consumes a lot of space. Data storage plays a new and important role in these systems. Object storage is ideal to store the video data.”

    – Object-Storage.Info

    Classify and offload primary storage

    Some software products have storage options available as a result of agreements with other storage vendors. Several backup and archive software products fall into this category.

    Use Case: Enterprise storage can help reduce data sprawl

    • A large engineering firm was trying to manage its data sprawl. The team sampled a small percentage of their data and quickly realized that when they applied their findings on the 1% of data to their entire data estate, the sheer volume of personal files, older files, and unclassified data was going to be a challenge.
    • They found a solution in archiving software. The archiving software would tag data based on several factors. The software would move older files away from primary storage to an alternate storage platform but still leave a stub of the moved file in place and maintain limited access to those files. This would reduce primary storage requirements and allow the firm to eliminate multiple file servers
    • The engineering firm reached out to Info-Tech and participated in an analyst call. During that call, they laid out their plans, and the analyst made them aware of cloud storage. The positive and negative aspects of cloud storage were discussed, and the firm fully understood that the colder the storage tier, the slower the recovery. The firm's stance was if the files had not been accessed in the past six months, waiting a day or two for retrieval would not be a concern, and the firm was content with cold storage in the cloud.
    • The firm had not purchased the archiving software at the time of the analyst call, and the analyst also explained to them that the archiving software may have an existing agreement with a cloud provider for storage options, which could be more cost effective than purchasing cloud storage separately.
    • Cold cloud-based storage was the preferred solution for this firm, but this use case also highlights the option that some software products carry regarding storage. Several backup and archive products have a cloud storage option that should be investigated, as they may be cost-effective options.

    “Cold storage is perfect for archiving your data. Online backup providers offer low-cost, off-site data backups at the expense of fast speeds and easy access, even though data retrieval often comes at an added cost. If you need to keep your data long-term, but don’t need to access it often, this is the kind of storage you need.”

    – Ben Stockton, Cloudwards

    Understand your data requirements

    Activity

    The first step in solving your enterprise storage challenge is identifying your data sources or drivers, data volume size, and growth rates. This information will give you insight into what data sources could be stored on premises or in the cloud, how much storage you will require for the coming five to ten years, and what to consider when exploring enterprise storage solutions.

    • Info-Tech’s Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook can be a valuable asset for determining your current storage drivers and future storage needs, structuring a plan for future storage purchases, and determining timelines and total cost of ownership.
    • An example of the Storage Capacity Calculator tab from that workbook is displayed on the right. Using the Storage Capacity Requirements Calculator requires minimal steps.
    1. Enter the current date and planning timeline (horizon) in months
    2. Identify the top sources of data within the business – the current data drivers. Areas of focus could include business applications, file shares, backup, and archives.
    3. For each of these data drivers, include your best estimate of:
    • Current data volume
    • Growth rate
  • Identify the top future data drivers, such as new applications or initiatives that will result from current business plans and priorities, and record the following details:
    • Initial data volumes
    • Projected growth rates
    • Planned implementation date
  • The spreadsheet will automatically calculate the data volume at the planning horizon based on the growth rate.
  • Download the Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook and take the first step toward understanding your data requirements.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook.

    Download the Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Modernize Enterprise Storage

    Current and emerging storage technologies are disrupting the status quo – prepare your infrastructure for the exponential rise in data and its storage requirements.

    Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook

    This workbook will complement the discussions and activities found in the Modernize Enterprise Storage blueprint. Use this workbook in conjunction with the blueprint to develop a strategy for storage modernization.

    Bibliography

    Bakkianathan, Raghunathan. “What is the difference between Hot Warm and Cold data storage?” TechBlost, n.d.. Accessed 14 July 2022.
    Cesare. “Data warehouse vs Data lake vs Lakehouse… and DeltaLake?“ Medium, 14 June 2021. Accessed 26 July 2022.
    Davison, Shawn and Ryan Sappenfield. “Data Lake Vs Lakehouse Vs Data Mesh: The Evolution of Data Transformation.” DevIQ, May 2022. Accessed 23 July 2022.
    Desjardins, Jeff. “Infographic: How Much Data is Generated Each Day?” Visual Capitalist, 15 April 2019. Accessed 26 July 2022.
    Greengard, Samuel. “Top 10 Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions.” Datamation, 22 December 2020. Accessed 23 July 2022.
    Harvey, Cynthia. “Flash vs. SSD Storage: Is there a Difference?” Enterprise Storage Forum, 10 July 2018. Accessed 23 July 2022.
    Harvey, Cynthia. “What Is Software Defined Storage? Features & Benefits.” Enterprise Storage Forum, 22 February 2018. Accessed 23 July 2022.
    Hecht, Gil. “4 Predictions for storage and backup security in 2022.” Continuity Software, 09 January 2022. Accessed 22 July 2022.
    Jacobi, Jonl. “NVMe SSDs: Everything you need to know about this insanely fast storage.” PCWorld, 10 March 2019. Accessed 22 July 2022
    Pritchard, Stephen. “Briefing: Cloud storage performance metrics.” Computer Weekly, 16 July 2021. Accessed 23 July 2022
    Robb, Drew. “Best Enterprise Backup Software & Solutions 2022.” Enterprise Storage Forum, 09 April 2021. Accessed 23 July 2022.
    Sheldon, Robert. “On-premises STaaS shifts storage buying to Opex model.” TechTarget, 10 August 2020. Accessed 22 July 2022.
    “Simplify Your Storage Ownership, Forever.” PureStorage. Accessed 20 July 2022.
    Stockton, Ben. “Hot Storage vs Cold Storage in 2022: Instant Access vs Long-Term Archives.” Cloudwards, 29 September 2021. Accessed 22 July 2022.
    “The Cost Savings of SAN-to-SAN Replication.” Secure Infrastructure and Services, 31 March 2016. Accessed 16 July 2022.
    “Video Surveillance.” Object-Storage.Info, 18 December 2019. Accessed 25 July 2022.
    “What is a Data Lake?” Amazon Web Services, n.d. Accessed 17 July 2022.
    “What is enterprise cloud storage?” Spectrum Enterprise, n.d. Accessed 28 July 2022.
    “What is SAN (Storage Area Network).” NetApp, n.d. Accessed 25 July 2022.
    “What is software-defined storage?” RedHat, 08 March 2018. Accessed 16 July 2022.

    Right-Size the Service Desk for Small Enterprise

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
    • Parent Category Link: /service-desk

    The service desk is a major function within IT. Small enterprises with constrained resources need to look at designing a service desk that enables consistency in supporting the business and finds the right balance of documentation.

    Determining the right level of documentation to provide backup and getting the right level of data for good reporting may seem like a waste of time when the team is small, but this is key to knowing when to invest in more people, upgraded technology, and whether your efforts to improve service are successful.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    It’s easy to lose sight of the client experience when working as a small team supporting a variety of end users. Changing from a help desk to a service desk requires a focus on what it means to be a customer centric service desk and a change to the way the technicians think about providing support.

    • Make the best use of the team. Clearly define roles and responsibilities and monitor those wearing multiple hats to make sure they don’t burn out.
    • Build cross training and documentation into your culture to preserve service levels while giving team members time off to recharge.
    • Don’t discount the benefit of good tools. As volume increases, so does the likelihood of issues and requests getting missed. Look for tools that will help to keep a customer focus.

    Impact and Result

    • Improved workload distribution for technicians and enable prioritization based on work type, urgency, and impact.
    • Improved communications methods and messaging will help the technicians to set expectations appropriately and reduce friction between each other and their supported end users.
    • Best practices and use of industry standard tools will reduce administrative overhead while improving workload management.

    Right-Size the Service Desk for Small Enterprise Research & Tools

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

    1. Right-Size the Service Desk for Small Enterprise Storyboard – A step-by-step guide to help you identify and prioritize initiatives to become more customer centric.

    This blueprint provides a framework to quickly identify a plan for service desk improvements. It also provides references to build out additional skills and functionality as a continual improvement initiative.

    • Right-Size the Service Desk for Small Enterprise Storyboard

    2. Maturity Assessment – An assessment to determine baseline maturity.

    The maturity assessment will provide a baseline and identify areas of focus based on level of current and target maturity.

    • IT Service Desk Maturity Assessment for Small Enterprise

    3. Standard Operating Procedure – A template to build out a clear, concise SOP right-sized for a small enterprise.

    The SOP provides an excellent guide to quickly inform new team members or contractors of your support approach.

    • Incident Management and Service Desk SOP for Small Enterprise

    4. Categorization Scheme – A template to build out an effective categorization scheme.

    The categorization scheme template provides examples of asset-based categories, resolution codes and status.

    • Service Desk Asset-Based Categories Template

    5. Improvement Plan – A template to present the improvement plan to stakeholders.

    This template provides a starting point for building your communications on planned improvements.

    • Service Desk Improvement Initiative
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Right-Size the Service Desk for Small Enterprise

    Turn your help desk into a customer-centric service desk.

    Analyst Perspective

    Small enterprises have many of the same issues as large ones, but with far fewer resources. Focus on the most important aspects to improve customer service.

    The service desk is a major function within IT. Small enterprises with constrained resources need to look at designing a service desk that enables consistency in supporting the business and finds the right balance of documentation.

    Evaluate documentation to ensure there is always redundancy built in to cover absences. Determining coverage will be an important factor, especially if vendors will be brought into the organization to assist during shortages. They will not have the same level of knowledge as teammates and may have different requirements for documentation.

    It is important to be customer centric, thinking about how services are delivered and communicated with a focus on providing self-serve at the appropriate level for your users and determining what information the business needs for expectation-setting and service level agreements, as well as communications on incidents and changes.

    And finally, don’t discount the value of good reporting. There are many reasons to document issues besides just knowing the volume of workload and may become more important as the organization evolves or grows. Stakeholder reporting, regulatory reporting, trend spotting, and staff increases are all good reasons to ensure minimum documentation standards are defined and in use.

    Photo of Sandi Conrad, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group. Sandi Conrad
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Table of Contents

    Title Page Title Page
    Blueprint benefits 6 Incident management 25
    Start / Stop / Continue exercise 10 Prioritization scheme 27
    Complete a maturity assessment 11 Define SLAs 29
    Select an ITSM tool 13 Communications 30
    Define roles & responsibilities 15 Reporting 32
    Queue management 17 What can you do to improve? 33
    Ticket handling best practices 18 Staffing 34
    Customer satisfaction surveys 19 Knowledge base & self-serve 35
    Categorization 20 Customer service 36
    Separate ticket types 22 Ticket analysis 37
    Service requests 23 Problem management 38
    Roadmap 39

    Insight summary

    Help desk to service desk

    It’s easy to lose sight of the client experience when working as a small team supporting a variety of end users. Changing from a help desk to a service desk requires a focus on what it means to be a customer-centric service desk and a change to the way the technicians think about providing support.

    Make the best use of the team

    • Clearly define primary roles and responsibilities, and identify when and where escalations should occur.
    • Divide the work in a way that makes the most sense based on intake patterns and categories of incidents or service requests.
    • Recognize who is wearing multiple hats, and monitor to make sure they don’t burn out or struggle to keep up.
    • Determine the most appropriate areas to outsource based on work type and skills required.

    Build cross-training into your culture

    • Primary role holders need time off and need to know the day-to-day work won’t be waiting for them when they come back.
    • The knowledge base is your first line of defense to make sure incidents don’t have to wait for resolution and to avoid having technicians remote in on their day off.
    • When volumes spike for incidents and service requests, everyone needs to be prepared to pitch in. Train the team to recognize and step up to the call to action.

    Don’t discount the benefit of good tools

    • When volume increases, so does the likelihood of missing issues and requests.
    • Designate a single solution to manage the workload, so there is one place to go for work orders, incident reporting, asset data, and more.
    • Set up self-serve for users so they have access to how-to articles and can check the status of tickets themselves.
    • Create a service catalog to make it easy for them to request the most frequent items easily.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Standard Operating Procedures

    Sample of the Standard Operating Procedures deliverable.

    Maturity Assessment

    Sample of the Maturity Assessment deliverable.

    Categorization scheme

    Sample of the Categorization scheme deliverable.

    Improvement Initiative

    Sample of the Improvement Initiative deliverable.
    Create a standard operating procedure to ensure the support team has a consistent understanding of how they need to engage with the business.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT benefits

    • Improve workload distribution for technicians and enable prioritization based on work type, urgency, and impact.
    • Improved communications methods and messaging will help the technicians set expectations appropriately and reduce friction between each other and their supported end users.
    • Best practices and use of industry-standard tools will reduce administrative overhead while improving workload management.

    Business benefits

    • IT taking a customer-centric approach will improve access to support and reduce interruptions to the way they do business.
    • Expectation setting and improved communications will allow the business to better plan their work around new requests and will have a better understanding of service level agreements.

    Guided Implementation

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

    A typical GI is six to ten calls over the course of three to four months.

    The current state discussion will determine the path.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Current State & Vision

    Best Practices

    Service Requests & Incidents

    Communications

    Next Steps & Roadmap

    Call #1: Discuss current state & create a vision

    Call #2: Document roles & responsibilities

    Call #3:Review and define best practices for ticket handling Call #4: Review categorization

    Call #5: Discuss service requests & self-serve

    Call #6: Assess incident management processes
    Call #7: Assess and document reporting and metrics

    Call #8: Discuss communications methods

    Call #9: Review next steps

    Call #10: Build roadmap for updates

    For a workshop on this topic, see the blueprint Standardize the Service Desk

    Executive Brief Case Study

    Southwest CARE Center
    Logo for Southwest Care.
    INDUSTRY
    Healthcare

    Service Desk Project

    After relying on a managed service provider (MSP) for a number of years, the business hired Kevin to repatriate IT. As part of that mandate, his first strategic initiative was to build a service desk. SCC engaged Info-Tech Research Group to select and build a structure; assign roles and responsibilities; implement incident management, request fulfilment, and knowledge management processes; and integrate a recently purchased ITSM tool.

    Over the course of a four-day onsite engagement, SCC’s IT team worked with two Info-Tech analysts to create and document workflows, establish ticket handling guidelines, and review their technological requirements.

    Results

    The team developed a service desk standard operating procedure and an implementation roadmap with clear service level agreements.

    Southwest CARE Center (SCC) is a leading specialty healthcare provider in New Mexico. They offer a variety of high-quality services with a focus on compassionate, patient-centered healthcare.

    “Info-Tech helped me to successfully rebrand from an MSP help desk to an IT service desk. Sandi and Michel provided me with a customized service desk framework and SOP that quickly built trust within the organization. By not having to tweak and recalibrate my service desk processes through trial and error, I was able to save a year’s worth of work, resulting in cost savings of $30,000 to $40,000.” (Kevin Vigil, Director of Information Technology, Southwest CARE Center)

    The service desk is the cornerstone for customer satisfaction

    Bar charts comparing 'Dissatisfied' vs 'Satisfied End Users' in both 'Service Desk Effectiveness' and 'Timeliness'.
    N=63, small enterprise organizations from the End-User Satisfaction Diagnostic, at December 2021
    Dissatisfied was classified as those organizations with an average score less than 7.
    Satisfied was classified as those organizations with an average score greater or equal to 8.
    • End users who were satisfied with service desk effectiveness rated all other IT processes 36% higher than dissatisfied end users.
    • End users who were satisfied with service desk timeliness rated all other IT processes 34% higher than dissatisfied end-users.

    Improve the service desk with a Start, Stop, Continue assessment

    Use this exercise as an opportunity to discuss what’s working and what isn’t with your current help desk. Use this to define your goals for the improvement project, with a plan to return to the results and rerun the exercise on a regular basis.

    STOP

    • What service desk processes are counterproductive?
    • What service blockers exist that consistently undermine good results?
    • Are end-user relationships with individual team members negatively impacting satisfaction?
    • Make notes on initial ideas for improvement.

    START

    • What service process improvements could be implemented immediately?
    • What technical qualifications do individual staff members need to improve?
    • What opportunities exist to improve service desk communications with end users?
    • How can escalation and triage be more efficient?

    CONTINUE

    • What aspects of your current service desk are positive?
    • What processes are efficient and can be emulated elsewhere?
    • Where can you identify high levels of end-user satisfaction?

    Complete a maturity assessment to create a baseline and areas of focus

    The Service Desk Maturity Assessment tool helps organizations assess their service desk process maturity and focus the project on the activities that matter most.

    The tool will help guide improvement efforts and measure your progress.

    • The second tab of the tool walks through a qualitative assessment of your service desk practices. Questions will prompt you to evaluate how you are executing key activities. Select the answer in the drop-down menus that most closely aligns with your current state.
    • The third tab displays your rate of process completeness and maturity. You will receive a score for each phase, an overall score, and advice based on your performance.
    • Document the results of the efficiency assessment in the Service Desk Improvement Initiative.
    • The tool is intended for periodic use. Review your answers each year and devise initiatives to improve the process performance where you need it most.
    Sample of the Service Desk Maturity Assessment.

    Define your vision for the support structure

    Use this vision for communicating with the business and your IT team

    Consider service improvements and how those changes can be perceived by the organization. For example, offering multiple platforms, such as adding Macs to end-user devices, could translate to “Providing the right IT solutions for the way our employees want to work.”

    To support new platforms, you might need to look at the following steps to get there:
    • Evaluate skills needed – can you upskill generalists quickly, or will specialists be required? Determine training needs for support staff on new platforms.
    • Estimate uptake of the new platform and adjusting budgets – will these mostly be role-based decisions?
    • Determine what applications will work on the new platform and which will have a parity offering, which will require a solution like Parallels or VirtualBox, and which might need substitute applications.
    • What utilities will be needed to secure your solutions such as for encryption, antivirus, and firewalls?
    • What changes in the way you deploy and patch machines?
    • What level of support do you need to provide – just platform, or applications as well? What self-serve training can be made available?
    If you need to change the way you deploy equipment, you may want to review the blueprint Simplify Remote Deployment With Zero-Touch Provisioning

    Info-Tech Insight

    Identify some high-level opportunities and plan out how these changes will impact the way you provide support today. Document steps you’ll need to follow to make it happen. This may include new offerings and product sourcing, training, and research.

    Facilitate service desk operations with an ITSM tool

    You don’t need to spend a fortune. Many solutions are free or low-cost for a small number of users, and you don’t necessarily have to give up functionality to save money.

    Encourage users to submit requests through email or self-serve to keep organized. Ensure that reporting will provide you with the basics without effort, but ensure report creation is easy enough if you need to add more.

    Consider tools that do more than just store tickets. ITSM tools for small enterprises can also assist with:
    • Equipment and software license management
    • Self-serve for password reset and improving the experience for end users to submit tickets
    • Software deployment
    • Onboarding and offboarding workflows
    • Integration with monitoring tools
    Info-Tech Insight Buying rather than building allows you the greatest flexibility and can provide enterprise-level functionality at small-enterprise pricing. Use Info-Tech’s IT Service Management Selection Guide to create a business case and list of requirements for your ITSM purchase.
    Logo for Spiceworks.
    Logo for ZenDesk. Logo for SysAid.
    Logo for ManageEngine.
    Logo for Vector Networks.
    Logo for Freshworks.
    Logo for Squadcast.
    Logo for Jira Software.
    Logos contain links

    ITSM implementations are the perfect time to fix processes

    Consider engaging a partner for the installation and setup as they will have the expertise to troubleshoot and get you to value quickly.

    Even with a partner, don’t rely on them to set up categories, prioritizations, and workflows. If you have unique requirements, you will need to bring your design work to the table to avoid getting a “standard install” that will need to be modified later.

    When we look at what makes a strong and happy product launch, it boils down to a few key elements:
    • Improving customer service, or at least avoiding a decline
    • Improving access to information for technical team and end users
    • Successfully taking advantage of workflows, templates, and other features designed to improve the technician and user experience
    • Using existing processes with the new tools, without having to completely reengineer how things are done
    For a complete installation guide, visit the blueprint Build an ITSM Implementation Plan
    To prepare for a quick time to value in setting up the new ITSM tool, prioritize in this order:
    1. Categorization and status codes
    2. Prioritization
    3. Divide tickets into incidents and service requests
    4. Create workflows for onboarding and offboarding (automate where you can)
    5. Track escalations to vendors
    6. Reporting
    7. Self-serve
    8. Equipment inventory (leading to hardware asset management)

    Define roles looking to balance between customer service and getting things done

    The team will need to provide backfill for each other with high volume, vacations, and leave, but also need to proactively manage interruptions appropriately as they work on projects.
    Icon of a bullseye. First contact – customer service, general knowledge
    Answers phones, chats, responds to email, troubleshooting, creates knowledge articles for end users.
    Icon of a pie chart. Analyst – experienced troubleshooter, general knowledge
    Answers phone when FC isn’t available, responds to email, troubleshooting, creates knowledge articles for first contact, escalates to other technicians or vendors.
    Icon of a lightbulb. Analyst – experienced troubleshooter, specialist
    Answers phones only when necessary, troubleshooting, creates knowledge articles for anyone in IT, consults with peers, escalates to vendors.
    Icon of gear on a folder. Engineer – deep expertise, specialist
    Answers phones only when necessary, troubleshooting, creates knowledge articles for anyone in IT, consults with peers, escalates to vendors.
    Icon of a handshake. Vendor, Managed Service Providers
    Escalation point per contract terms, must meet SLAs, communicate regularly with analysts and management as appropriate. Who escalates and who manages them?
    Row of colorful people.

    Note roles in the Incident Management and Service Desk – Standard Operating Procedure Template

    Keep customers happy and technicians calm by properly managing your queue

    If ticket volume is too high or too dispersed to effectively have teams self-select tickets, assign a queue manager to review tickets throughout the day to ensure they’re assigned and on the technician’s schedule. This is particularly important for technicians who don’t regularly work out of the ticketing system. Follow up on approaching or missed SLAs.

    • Separate incidents (break fix) and service requests: Prioritize incidents over service requests to focus on getting users doing business as soon as possible. Schedule service requests for slower times or assign to technicians who are not working the front lines.
    • First in/first out…mostly: We typically look to prioritize incidents over service requests and only prioritize incidents if there are multiple people or VIPs affected. Where everything is equal, deal with the oldest first. Pause occasionally to deal with quick wins such as password resets.
    • Update ticket status and notes: Knowing what tickets are in progress and which ones are waiting on information or parts is important for anyone looking to pick up the next ticket. Make sure everyone is aware of the benefits of keeping this information up to date, so technicians know what to work on next without duplicating each other’s work.
    • Implement solutions quickly by using knowledge articles: Continue to build out the knowledge base to be able to resolve end-user issues quickly, check to see if additional information is needed before escalating tickets to other technicians.
    • Encourage end users to create tickets through the portal: Issues called in are automatically moved to the front of the queue, regardless of urgency. Make it easy for users to report issues using the portal and save the phone for urgent issues to allow appropriate prioritization of tickets.
    • Create a process to add additional resources on a regular basis to keep control of the backlog: A few extra hours once a week may be enough if the team is focused without interruptions.
    • Determine what backlog is acceptable to your users: Set that as a maximum time to resolve. Ideally, set up automated escalations for tickets that are approaching target SLAs, and build flexibility into schedules to have an “all hands on deck” option if the volume gets too high.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make sure your queue manager has an accurate escalation list and has the authority to assign tickets and engage with the technical team to manage SLAs; otherwise, SLAs will never be consistently managed.

    Best practices for ticket handling

    Accurate data leads to good decisions. If working toward adding staff members, reducing recurring incidents, gaining access to better tools, or demonstrating value to the business, tickets will enable reporting and dashboards to manage your day-to-day business and provide reports to stakeholders.
    • Provide an easy way for end users to electronically submit tickets and encourage them to do so. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still accept phone calls, but that should be encouraged for time sensitive issues.
    • Create and update tickets, but not at the expense of good customer service. Agents can start the ticket but shouldn’t spend five minutes creating the ticket when they should be troubleshooting the problem.
    • Update the ticket when the issue is resolved or needs to be escalated. If agents are escalating, they should make sure all relevant information is passed along to the next technician.
    • Update user of ETA if issue cannot be resolved quickly.
    • Update categories to reflect the actual issue and resolution.
    • Reference or link to the knowledge base article as the documented steps taken to resolve the incident.
    • Validate incident is resolved with client. Automate this process with ticket closure after a certain time.
    • Close or resolve the ticket on time.
    Ticket templates (or quick tickets) for common incidents can lead to fast creation, data input, and categorizations. Templates can reduce the time it takes to create tickets from two minutes to 30 seconds.
    Sample ticket template.

    Create a right-sized self-service portal

    Review tickets and talk to the team to find out the most frequent requests and the most frequent incidents that could be solved by the end user if there were clear instructions. Check with your user community to see what they would like to see in the portal.

    A portal is only as attractive as it is useful. Enabling ticket creation and review is the bare minimum and may not entice users to the portal if email is just as easy to use for ticket creation.

    Consider opening the portal to groups other than IT. HR, finance, and others may have information they want to share or forms to fill in or download where an employee portal rather than an IT portal could be helpful. Work with other departments to see if they would find value. Make sure your solution is easy to use when adding content. Low-code options are useful for this.

    Portals could be built in the ITSM solution or SharePoint/Teams and should include:

    • Easy ways to create and see status on all tickets
    • Manuals, how-to articles, links to training
    • Answers to common questions, could be a wiki or Q&A for users to help each other as well as IT
    • Could have a chatbot to help people find documents or to create a ticket

    Info-Tech Insight

    Consider using video capture software to create short how-to videos for common questions. Vendors such as TechSmith Snagit , Vimeo Screen Recorder, Screencast-O-Matic Video Recording, and Movavi Screen Recording may be quick and easy to learn.

    49%

    49% of employees have trouble finding information at work

    35%

    Employees can cut time spent looking for information by 35% with quality intranet

    (Source: Liferay)

    Use customer satisfaction surveys to monitor service levels

    Transactional surveys are tied to specific interactions and provide a means of communication to help users communicate satisfaction or dissatisfaction with single interactions.
    • Keep it simple: One question to rate the service with opportunity to add a comment is enough to understand the sentiment and potential issues, and it will be more likely that the user will fill it out.
    • Follow up: Feedback will only be provided if customers think it’s being read and actioned. Set an alert to receive notification of any negative feedback and follow up within one or two business days to show you’re listening.

    A simple customer feedback form with smiley face scale.

    Relationship surveys can be run annually to obtain feedback on the overall customer experience.

    Inform yourself of how well you are doing or where you need improvement in the broad services provided.

    Provide a high-level perspective on the relationship between the business and IT.

    Help with strategic improvement decisions.

    Should be sent over a duration of time and to the entire customer base after they’ve had time to experience all the services provided by the service desk. This can be done on an annual basis.

    For example: Info-Tech’s End User Satisfaction Diagnostic. Included in your membership.

    Keep categorizations simple

    Asset categorization provides reports that are straightforward and useful for IT and that are typically used where the business isn’t demanding complex reports.

    Too many options can cause confusion; too few options provide little value. Try to avoid using “miscellaneous” – it’s not useful information. Test your tickets against your new scheme to make sure it works for you. Effective classification schemes are concise, easy to use correctly, and easy to maintain.

    Build out the categories with these questions:
    • What kind of asset am I working on? (type)
    • What general asset group am I working on? (category)
    • What particular asset am I working on? (sub-category)

    Create resolution codes to further modify the data for deeper reporting. This is typically a separate field, as you could use the same code for many categories. Keep it simple, but make sure it’s descriptive enough to understand the type of work happening in IT.

    Create and define simple status fields to quickly review tickets and know what needs to be actioned. Don’t stop the clock for any status changes unless you’re waiting on users. The elapsed time is important to measure from a customer satisfaction perspective.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Think about how you will use the data to determine which components need to be included in reports. If components won’t be used for reporting, routing, or warranty, reporting down to the component level adds little value.

    Example table of categorizations.


    Need to make quick progress? Use Info-Tech Research Group’s Service Desk Asset-Based Categories template.

    1.1 Build or review your categories

    1-3 hours

    Input: Existing tickets

    Output: Categorization scheme

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Markers, Sample categorization scheme

    Participants: CIO, Service desk manager, Technicians

    Discuss:

    • How can you use categories and resolution information to enhance reporting?
    • What level of detail do you need to be able to understand the data and take action? What level of detail is too much?
    • Are current status fields allowing you to accurately assess pending work at a glance?

    Draft:

    1. Start with existing categories and review, identifying duplicates and areas of inconsistency.
    2. Write out proposed resolution codes and status fields and critically assess their value.
    3. Test categories and resolution codes against a few recent tickets.
    4. Record the ticket categorization scheme in the Incident Management and Service Desk – Standard Operating Procedure.

    Download the Incident Management and Service Desk – Standard Operating Procedure Template

    Separate tickets into service requests and incidents

    Tickets should be separated into different ticket types to be able to see briefly what needs to be prioritized. This may seem like a non-issue if you have a small team, but if you ever need to report how quickly you’re solving break-fix issues or whether you’re doing root cause analysis, this will save on future efforts. Separating ticket types may make it easier to route tickets automatically or to a new provider in the future.

    INCIDENTS

    SERVICE REQUESTS

    Icon of a bullseye.

    PRIORITIZATION

    Incidents will be prioritized based on urgency and impact to the organization. Service requests will be scheduled and only increase in prioritization if there is an issue with the request process (e.g. new hire start).
    Icon of a handshake.

    SLAs

    Did incidents get resolved according to prioritization rules? REPONSE & RESOLUTION Did service requests get completed on time? SCHEDULING & FULFILMENT
    Icon of a lightbulb.

    TRIAGE & ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

    Incidents will typically need triage at the service desk unless something is set up to go directly to a specialist. Service requests don’t need triage and can be routed automatically for approvals and fulfillment.

    “For me, the first key question is, is this keeping you from doing business? Is this a service request? Is it actually something that's broken? Well, okay. Now let's have the conversation about what's broken and keeping you from doing business.” (Anonymous CIO)

    Determine how service requests will be fulfilled

    Process steps for service requests: 'Request, Approve, Schedule, Fulfill, Notify requester, Close ticket'.

    • Identify standard requests, meaning any product approved for use and deployment in the organization.
    • Determine whether this should be published and how. Consider a service catalog with the ability to create tickets right from the request page. If there is an opportunity to automate fulfillment, build that into your workflow and project plans.
    • Create workflows for complicated requests such as onboarding, and build them into a template in the service desk tool. This will allow you to reduce the administrative work to deploy tasks.
    • Who will fulfill requests? There may be a need for more than one technician to be able to fulfill if volume dictates, but it’s important to determine what will be done by each level to quickly assign those tickets for scheduling. Define what will be done by each group of technicians.
    • Determine reasonable SLAs for most service requests. Identify which ones will not meet “normal” SLAs. As you build out a service catalog or automate fulfillment, SLAs can be refined.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Service requests are not as urgent as incidents and should be scheduled.

    Set the SLA based on time to fulfill, plus a buffer to schedule around more urgent service requests.

    1.2 Identify service requests and routing needs

    2-3 hours

    Input: Ticket data, Existing workflow diagrams

    Output: Workflow diagrams

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Markers, Visio

    Participants: CIO, Service desk manager, Technicians

    Identify:

    1. Create your list of typical service requests and identify the best person to fulfill, based on complexity, documentation, specialty, access rights.
    2. Review service requests which include multiple people or departments, such as onboarding and offboarding
    3. Draw existing processes.
    4. Discuss challenges and critique existing process.
    5. Document proposed changes and steps that will need to be taken to improve the process.

    Download the Incident Management and Service Desk – Standard Operating Procedure Template

    Incident management

    Critical incidents and normal incidents

    Even with a small team, it’s important to define a priority for response and resolution time for SLA and uptime reporting and extracting insights for continual improvement efforts.

    • Mission-critical systems or problems that affect many people should always come first (i.e. Severity Level 1).
    • The bulk of reported problems, however, are often individual problems with desktop PCs (i.e. Severity Level 3 or 4).
    • Some questions to consider when deciding on problem severity include:
      • How is productivity affected?
      • How many users are affected?
      • How many systems are affected?
      • How critical are the affected systems to the organization?
    • Decide how many severity levels the organization needs the service desk to have. Four levels of severity is ideal for most organizations.
    Go to incident management for SE

    Super-specialization of knowledge is also a common factor in smaller teams and is caused by complex architectures. While helpful, if that knowledge isn’t documented, it can walk out the door with the resource and the rest of the team is left scrambling.

    Lessons learned may be gathered for critical incidents but often are not propagated, which impacts the ability to solve recurring incidents.

    Over time, repeated incidents can have a negative impact on the customer’s perception that the service desk is a credible and essential service to the business.

    Cover image for 'Incident Management for Small Enterprise'.
    Click picture for a link to the blueprint

    1.3 Activity: Identify critical systems

    1 hour

    Input: Ticket data, Business continuity plan

    Output: Service desk SOP

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Markers

    Participants: CIO, Service desk manager, Technicians

    Discuss and document:

    1. Create a list of the most critical systems, and identify and document the escalation path.
    2. Review inventory of support documents for critical systems and identify any that require runbooks to ensure quick resolution in the event of an outage or major performance issue. Refer to the blueprint Incident Management for Small Enterprise to prioritize and document runbooks as needed.
    3. Review vendor agreements to determine if SLAs are appropriate to support needs. If there is a need for adjustments, determine options for modifying or renegotiating SLAs.

    Download the Incident Runbook Prioritization Tool

    Prioritization scheme

    Keep the priority scheme simple and meaningful, using this framework to communicate and report to stakeholders and set SLAs for response and resolution.
    1. Focus primarily on incidents. Service requests should always be medium urgency, unless there is a valid reason to move one to high level.
    2. Separate major outages from all other tickets as these are a major factor in business impact.
    3. Decide how many levels of severity are appropriate for your organization.
    4. Build a prioritization matrix, breaking down priority levels by impact and urgency.
    5. Build out the definitions of “impact” and “urgency” to complete the prioritization matrix.
    6. Run through examples of each priority level to make sure everyone is on the same page.
    A matrix of prioritization with rows as levels of 'IMPACT' and columns as levels of 'URGENCY'. Ratings range from 'Critical' at 'Extensive/Critical' to 'Low' at 'Low Impact/Low'.

    Document escalation rules and contacts

    Depending on the size of the team, escalations may be mostly to internal technical colleagues or could be primarily to vendors.

    • Ensure the list of escalation rules and contacts is accurate and available, adding expected SLAs for quick reference
    • If tickets are being escalated but shouldn’t be, ensure knowledge articles and training materials are up to date
    • Follow up on all external escalations, ensuring SLAs are respected
    • Publish an escalation path for clients if service is not meeting their needs (for internal and external providers) and automate escalations for tickets breaching SLAs
    Escalation rules strung together.
    User doesn’t know who will fix the issue but expects to see it done in a reasonable time. If issue cannot be resolved right away, set expectations for resolution time.
    • Document information so next technician doesn’t need to ask the same questions.
    • Escalate to the right technician the first time.
    • Check notes to catch up on the issue.
    • Run tests if necessary.
    • Contact user to troubleshoot and fix.
    • Meet SLAs or update client on new ETA.
    • Provide complete information to vendor.
    • Monitor resolution.
    • Follow up with vendor if delays.
    • Update client as needed.
    • Vendor will provide support according to agreement.
    • Encourage vendor to provide regular updates to IT.
    • Review vendor performance regularly.
    • IT will validate issue is resolved and close ticket.
    Validate user is happy with the experience

    Define, measure, and report on service level agreements

    Improving communications is the most effective way to improve customer service
    1. Set goals for time to respond and time to resolve for different incident levels, communicate to the technical team, and test ability to meet these goals.
    2. Set goals for time to fulfil for most service requests, document exceptions (e.g. onboarding).
    3. Create reports to measure against goals and determine what information will be most effective for reporting to the business.
    4. Management: Communicate expectations to the business leaders and end users.
    5. Management: Set regular cadence to meet with stakeholders to discuss expectations and review relevant metrics.
    6. Management: Determine how metrics will be tracked and reviewed to manage technical partners.
    Keep messaging simple
    • Be prepared with detailed reporting if needed, but focus on a few key metrics to inform stakeholders of progress against goals.
    • Use trending to tell a story, especially when presenting success stories.
    • Use appropriate media for each type of message. For example: SLAs can be listed on automated ticket responses or in a banner on the portal.

    Determine what communications are most important and who will do them

    Icon of a bperson ascending a staircase.

    PROACTIVE, PLANNED CHANGES

    From: Service Desk

    Messaging provided by engineer or director, sent to all employees; proactive planning with business unit leaders.

    Icon of a bullseye.

    OUTAGES & UPDATES

    From: Service Desk

    Use templates to send out concise messaging and updates hourly, with input from technical team working on restoring services to all; director to liaise with business stakeholders.

    Icon of a lightbulb.

    UPDATES TO SERVICES, SELF-SERVE

    From: Director

    Send announcements no more than monthly about new services and processes.

    Icon of a handshake.

    REGULAR STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATIONS

    From: Director

    Monthly reporting to business and IT stakeholders on strategic and project goals, manage escalations.

    1.4 Create communications plan

    2 hours

    Input: Sample past communications

    Output: Communications templates

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Markers

    Participants: CIO, Service desk manager, Technicians

    Determine where templates are needed to ensure quick and consistent communications. Review sample templates and modify to suit your needs:

    1. Proactive, planned changes
    2. Outages and updates
    3. Updates to services, self-serve
    4. Regular stakeholder communications

    Download the communications templates

    Create reports that are useful and actionable

    Reporting serves two purposes:

    1. Accountability to stakeholders
    2. Identification of items that need action

    To determine what reports are needed, ask yourself:

    • What are your goals?
    • What story are you trying to tell?
    • What do you need to manage day to day?
    • What do you need to report to get funding?
    • What do you need to report to your stakeholders for service updates?

    Determine which metrics will be most useful to suit your strategic and operational goals

    STRATEGIC GOAL (stakeholders): Improve customer service evidenced by:

    TIME

    • Aged backlog
    • Service requests solved within SLA (could also look for quick ones, e.g. tickets solved in one day, % solved within one hour)
    • Volume of incidents and time to solve each type
    • Critical incidents solved in 4 hours
    • Incidents solved same day

    QUALITY

    • Percentage of tickets solved at first contact
    • SLAs missed
    • Percentage of services available to request through catalog
    • Percentage of tickets created through portal (speaks to quality of experience)
    • Customer satisfaction survey results – transactional and annual

    RESOURCES

    • Knowledge articles used by technicians
    • Knowledge articles used by end users
    • Tickets resolved at each technician level (volume)
    • Non-standard requests evaluated and fulfilled by volume & time served
    • Volume of recurring incidents
    OPERATIONAL GOALS: Report to director & technicians

    What else can you do to improve service?

    Review the next few pages to see if you need additional blueprints to help you:
    • Evaluate staffing and training needs to ensure the right number of resources are available and they have the skills they need for your environment.
    • Create self-service for end users to get quick answers and create tickets.
    • Create a knowledge base to ensure backup for technical expertise.
    • Develop customer service skills through training.
    • Perform ticket analysis to better understand your technical environment.

    Be agile in your approach to service

    It’s easy for small teams to get overwhelmed when covering for vacations, illness, or leave. Determine where priorities may be adjusted during busy or short-staffed times.

    • Have a plan to cross-train technicians and create comprehensive knowledge articles for coverage during vacations and unexpected absences.
    • Know where it makes sense to bring in vendors, such as for managed print services, or to cover for extended absences.
    • Look for opportunities to automate functions or reduce administrative overhead through workflows.
    • Identify any risks and determine how to mitigate, such as managing or changing administrative passwords.
    • Create self-serve to enable ticket creation and self-solve for those users who wish to use it.

    Staff the service desk to meet demand

    • With increasing complexity of support and demand on service desks, staff are often left feeling overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with ticket volume, resulting in long resolution times and frustrated end users.
    • However, it’s not as simple as hiring more staff to keep up with ticket volume. IT managers must have the data to support their case for increasing resources or even maintaining their current resources in an environment where many executives are looking to reduce headcount.
    • Without changing resources to match demand, IT managers will need to determine how to maximize the use of their resources to deliver better service.

    Cover image for 'Staff the Service Desk to Meet Demand'.
    Click picture for a link to the blueprint

    Create and manage a knowledge base

    With a small team, it may seem redundant to create a knowledge base, but without key system and process workflows and runbooks, an organization is still at risk of bottlenecks and knowledge failure.

    • Use a knowledge base to document pre-escalation troubleshooting steps, known errors and workarounds, and runbook solutions.
    • Where incidents may have many root causes, document which are the most frequent solutions and where variations are typically used.
    • Start with an inventory of personal documents, compare and consolidate into the knowledge base, and ensure they are accurate and up to date.
    • Assign someone to review articles on a regular basis and flag for editing and archiving as the technical environment changes.
    • Supplement with vendor-provided or purchased content. Two options for purchased content include RightAnswers or Netformx.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Appeal to a broad audience. Use non-technical language whenever possible to help less technical readers. Identify error messages and use screenshots where it makes sense. Take advantage of social features like voting buttons to increase use.

    Optimize the service desk with a shift-left strategy

    • “Shift left” is a strategy which moves appropriate technical work to users through knowledge articles, automation and service catalogs, freeing up time for technicians to work on more complex issues.
    • Many organizations have built a great knowledge base but fail to see the value of it over time as it becomes overburdened with overlapping and out-of-date information. Knowledge capture, updating, and review must be embedded into your processes if you want to keep the knowledge base useful.
    • Similarly, the self-service portal is often deployed out of the box with little input from end users and fails to deliver its intended benefits. The portal needs to be designed from the end user’s point of view with the goal of self-resolution if it will serve its purpose of deflecting tickets.

    Cover image for 'Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy'.
    Click picture for a link to the blueprint

    Customer service isn’t just about friendliness

    Your team will all need to deal with end users at some point, and that may occur in times of high stress. Ensure the team has the skills they need to actively listen, stay positive, and de-escalate.

    Info-Tech’s customer service program is a modular approach to improve skills one area at a time. Delivering good customer service means being effective in these areas:
    • Customer focus – Focus on the customer and use a positive, caring, and helpful attitude.
    • Listening and verbal communication skills – Demonstrate empathy and patience, actively listen, and speak in user-friendly ways to help get your point across.
    • Written communication skills – Use appropriate tone, language, and terms in writing (whether via chat, email, or other).
    • Manage difficult situations – Remain calm and in control when dealing with difficult customers and situations.
    • Go the extra mile – Go beyond simply resolving the request to make each interaction positive and memorable.

    Deliver a customer service training program to your IT department

    • There’s a common misconception that customer service skills can’t be taught, so no effort is made to improve those skills.
    • Even when there is a desire to improve customer service, it’s hard for IT teams to make time for training and improvement when they’re too busy trying to keep up with tickets.
    • A talented service desk agent with both great technical and customer service skills doesn’t have to be a rare unicorn, and an agent without innate customer service skills isn’t a lost cause. Relevant and impactful customer service habits, techniques, and skills can be taught through practical, role-based training.
    • IT leaders can make time for this training through targeted, short modules along with continual on-the-job coaching and development.

    Cover image for 'Deliver Customer Service Training Program to Your IT Department'.
    Click picture for a link to the blueprint

    Improve your ticket analysis

    Once you’ve got great data coming into the ticketing system, it’s important to rethink your metrics and determine if there are more insights to be found.

    Analyzing ticket data involves:
    • Collecting ticket data and keeping it clean. Based on the metrics you’re analyzing, define ticket expectations and keep the data up to date.
    • Showing the value of the service desk. SLAs are meaningless if they are not met consistently. The prerequisite to implementing proper SLAs is fully understanding the proper workload of the service desk.
    • Understanding – and improving – the user experience. You cannot improve the user experience without meaningful metrics that allow you to understand the user experience. Different user groups will have different needs and different expectations of the level of service. Your metrics should reflect those needs and expectations.

    Analyze your service desk ticket data

    Properly analyzing ticket data is challenging for the following reasons:
    • Poor ticket hygiene and unclear ticket handling
    • Service desk personnel are not sure where to start with analysis
    • Too many metrics are tracked to parse actionable data from the noise
    Ticket data won’t give you a silver bullet, but it can help point you in the right direction.

    Cover image for 'Analyze Your Service Desk Ticket Data'.
    Click picture for a link to the blueprint

    Start doing problem management

    Proactively focusing on root cause analysis will reduce the most disruptive incidents to the organization.

    • A focus on elimination of critical incidents and the more disruptive recurring incidents will reduce future workloads for the team and improve customer satisfaction.
    • This can be challenging when the team is already struggling with workload; however, setting a regular cadence to review tickets, looking for trends, and identifying at least one focus area a month can be a positive outcome for everyone.
    • Focus on the most impactful ticket or service first. The initial goal should be to reduce or eliminate critical and high-impact incidents. Once the high-stress situations are reduced, proactively scheduling the smaller but still time-consuming repeatable incidents can be done.
    • Where you have vendors involved, work with them to determine when root cause analysis must happen and where they’ll need to coordinate with your team or other supporting vendors.

    Problem management

    Problem management can be challenging because it requires skills and knowledge to go deep into a problem and troubleshoot the root cause of an issue, but it also requires uninterrupted time.
    • Problem management, however, can be taught, and the issue isn’t always hard to spot if you have time to look.
    • Using tried and true methods for walking through an issue step by step will enable the team to improve their investigative and troubleshooting skills.
    • Reduction of one or two major incidents and recurring incidents per month will pay off quickly in reducing reactive ticket volume and improve customer satisfaction.

    Cover image for 'Problem Management'.
    Click picture for a link to the blueprint

    Create your roadmap with high-level requirements

    Determine what tasks and projects need to be completed to meet your improvement goals. Create a high-level project plan and balance with existing resources.

    Roadmap of high-level requirements with 'Goals' as row headers and their timelines mapped out across fiscal quarters.

    Bibliography

    Taylor, Sharon and Ivor Macfarlane. ITIL Small Scale Implementation. Office of Government Commerce, 2005.

    “Share, Collaborate, and Communicate on One Consistent Platform.” Liferay, n.d. Accessed 19 July 2022.

    Rodela, Jimmy. “A Beginner’s Guide to Customer Self-Service.” The Ascent, 18 May 2022. Web.

    Implement Your Negotiation Strategy More Effectively

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}225|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact: N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • Forty-eight percent of CIOs believe their budgets are inadequate.
    • CIOs and IT departments are getting more involved with negotiations to reduce costs and risk.
    • Not all negotiators are created equal, and the gap between a skilled negotiator and an average negotiator is not always easy to identify objectively.
    • Skilled negotiators are in short supply.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Preparation is critical for the success of your negotiation, but you cannot prepare for every eventuality.
    • Communication is the heart and soul of negotiations, but what is being “said” is only part of the picture.
    • Skilled negotiators separate themselves based on skillsets, and outcomes alone may not provide an accurate assessment of a negotiator.

    Impact and Result

    Addressing and managing critical negotiation elements helps:

    • Improve negotiation skills.
    • Implement your negotiation strategy more effectively.
    • Improve negotiation results.

    Implement Your Negotiation Strategy More Effectively Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create and follow a scalable process for preparing to negotiate with vendors, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. During

    Throughout this phase, ten essential negotiation elements are identified and reviewed.

    • Implement Your Negotiation Strategy More Effectively – Phase 1: During
    • During Negotiations Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement Your Negotiation Strategy More Effectively

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

    1 12 Steps to Better Negotiation Preparation

    The Purpose

    Improve negotiation skills and outcomes.

    Understand how to use the Info-Tech During Negotiations Tool.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A better understanding of the subtleties of the negotiation process and an identification of where the negotiation strategy can go awry.

    The During Negotiation Tool will be reviewed and configured for the customer’s environment (as applicable).

    Activities

    1.1 Manage six key items during the negotiation process.

    1.2 Set the right tone and environment for the negotiation.

    1.3 Focus on improving three categories of intangibles.

    1.4 Improve communication skills to improve negotiation skills.

    1.5 Customize your negotiation approach to interact with different personality traits and styles.

    1.6 Maximize the value of your discussions by focusing on seven components.

    1.7 Understand the value of impasses and deadlocks and how to work through them.

    1.8 Use concessions as part of your negotiation strategy.

    1.9 Identify and defeat common vendor negotiation ploys.

    1.10 Review progress and determine next steps.

    Outputs

    Sample negotiation ground rules

    Sample vendor negotiation ploys

    Sample discussion questions and evaluation matrix

    The State of Black Professionals in Tech

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}550|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact: N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Engage
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    • The experience of Black professionals in IT differs from their colleagues.
    • Job satisfaction is also lower for Black IT professionals.
    • For organizations to gain from the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion, they need to ensure they understand the landscape for many Black professionals.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • As an IT leader, you can make a positive difference in the working lives of your team; this is not just the domain of HR.
    • Employee goals can vary depending on the barriers that they encounter. IT leaders must ensure they have an understanding of unique employee needs to better support them, increasing their ability to recruit and retain.
    • Improve the experience of Black IT professionals by ensuring your organization has diversity in leadership and supports mentorship and sponsorship.

    Impact and Result

    • Use the data from Info-Tech’s analysis to inform your DEI strategy.
    • Learn about actions that IT leaders can take to improve the satisfaction and career advancement of their Black employees.

    The State of Black Professionals in Tech Research & Tools

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

    1. The State of Black Professionals in Tech Report – A report providing you with advice on barriers and solutions for leaders of Black employees.

    IT leaders often realize that there are barriers impacting their employees but don’t know how to address them. This report provides insights on the barriers and actions that can help improve the lives of Black professionals in technology.

    • The State of Black Professionals in Tech Report

    Infographic

    Further reading

    The State of Black Professionals in Tech

    Keep inclusion at the forefront to gain the benefits from diversity.

    Analysts' Perspective

    The experience of Black professionals in technology is unique.

    Diversity in tech is not a new topic, and it's not a secret that technology organizations struggle to attract and retain Black employees. Ever since the early '90s, large tech organizations have been dealing with public critique of their lack of diversity. This topic is close to our hearts, but unfortunately while improvements have been made, progress is quite slow.

    In recent years, current events have once again brought diversity to the forefront for many organizations. In addition, the pandemic along with talent trends such as "the great resignation" and "quiet quitting" and preparations for a recession have not only impacted diversity at large but also Black professionals in technology. Our previous research has focused on the wider topic of Recruiting and Retaining People of Color in Tech, but we've found that the experiences of persons of color are not all the same.

    This study focuses on the unique experience of Black professionals in technology. Over 600 people were surveyed using an online tool; interviews provided additional insights. We're excited to share our findings with you.

    This is a picture of Allison Straker This is an image of Ugbad Farah

    Allison Straker
    Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Ugbad Farah
    Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Demographics

    In October 2021, we launched a survey to understand what the Black experience is like for people in technology. We wanted and received a variety of responses which would help us to understand how Black technology professionals experienced their working world. We received responses from 633 professionals, providing us with the data for this report.

    For more information on our survey demographics please see the appendix at this end of this report.

    A pie chart showing 26% black and 74% All Other

    26% of our respondents either identified as Black or felt the world sees them as Black.

    Professionals from various countries responded to the survey:

    • Most respondents were born in the US (52%), Canada (14%), India (14%), or Nigeria (4%).
    • Most respondents live in the US (56%), Canada (25%), Nigeria (2%), or the United Kingdom (2%).

    Companies with more diversity achieve more revenue from innovation

    Organizations do better and are more innovative when they have more diversity, a key ingredient in an organization's secret sauce.
    Organizations also benefit from engaged employees, yet we've seen that organizations struggle with both. Just having a certain number of diverse individuals is not enough. When it comes to reaping the benefits of diversity, organizations can flourish when employees feel safe bringing their whole selves to work.

    45% Innovation Revenue by Companies With Above-Average Diversity Scores
    26%

    Innovation Revenue by Companies With Below-Average Diversity Scores

    (Chart source: McKinsey, 2020)


    Companies with higher employee engagement experience 19.2% higher earnings.

    However, those with lower employee engagement experience 32.7% lower earnings.
    (DecisionWise, 2020)

    If your workforce doesn't reflect the community it serves, your business may be missing out on the chance to find great employees and break into new and growing markets, both locally and globally.
    Diversity makes good business sense.
    (Business Development Canada, 2023)

    A study about Black professionals

    Why is this about Black professionals and not other diverse groups?

    While there are a variety of diversity dimensions, it's important to understand what makes up a "multicultural workforce." There is more to diversity than gender, race, and ethnicity. Organizations need to understand that there is diversity within these groups and Black professionals have their own unique experience when it comes to entering and navigating tech that needs to be addressed.

    This image contains two bar graphs from the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. They show the answers to two questions, sorted by the following categories: Black; Non-White; Asian; White. The questions are as follows: I feel comfortable to voice my opinion, even when it differs from the group opinion; I am part of the decision-making process at work.

    (Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2019)

    The solutions that apply to Black professionals are not only beneficial for Black employees but for all. While all demographics are unique, the solutions in this report can support many.

    Unsatisfied and underrepresented

    Less Black professionals responded as "satisfied" in their IT careers. The question is: How do we mend the Gap?

    Percentage of IT Professionals Who Reported Being Very Satisfied in Their Current Role

    • All Other Professionals: 34%
    • Black Professionals: 23%

    Black workers are underrepresented in most professional roles, especially computer and math Occupations

    A bar graph showing representation of black workers in the total workforce compared to computer and mathematical science occupations.

    The gap in satisfaction

    What's Important?

    Our research suggests that the differences in satisfaction among ethnic groups are related to differences in value systems. We asked respondents to rank what's important, and we explored why.

    Non-Black professionals rated autonomy and their manager working relationships as most important.

    For Black professionals, while those were important, #1 was promotion and growth opportunities, ranked #7 by all other professionals. This is a significant discrepancy.

    Recognition of my work/accomplishments also was viewed significantly differently, with Black professionals ranking it low on the list at #7 and all other professionals considering it very important at #3.

    All Other Professionals

    Black Professionals

    Two columns, containing metrics of satisfaction rated by Black Professionals, and All Other Professionals.

    Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs applies to job satisfaction

    In Maslow's hierarchy, it is necessary for people to achieve items lower on the hierarchy before they can successfully pursue the higher tiers.

    An image of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs modified to apply to Job Satisfaction

    Too many Black professionals in tech are busy trying to achieve some of the lower parts of the hierarchy; it is stopping them from achieving elements higher up that can lead to job satisfaction.

    This can stop them from gaining esteem, importance, and ultimately, self-actualization. The barriers that impact safety and social belonging happen on a day-to-day basis, and so the day-to-day lives of Black professionals in tech can look very different from their counterparts.

    There are barriers that hinder and solutions that support employees

    An image showing barriers to success An image showing Actions for Success.
    There are various barriers that increase the likelihood for Black professionals to focus on the lower end of the needs hierarchy:

    These are among some of the solutions that, when layered, can support Black professionals in tech in moving up the needs hierarchy.

    Focusing on these actions can support Black professionals in achieving much needed job satisfaction.

    What does this mean?

    The minority experience is not a monolith

    The barriers that Black professionals encounter aren't limited to the same barriers as their colleagues, and too often this means that they aren't in a position to grow their careers in a way that leads to job satisfaction.

    There is a 11% gap between the satisfaction of Black professionals and their peers.

    Early Steps:
    Take time to understand the Black experience.

    As leaders, it's important to be aware that employee goals vary depending on the barriers they're battling with.

    Intermediate:
    If Black employees don't have strong relationships, networks, and mentorships it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate the path to upward mobility.

    As a leader, you can look for opportunities to bridge the gap on these types of conversations.

    Advanced:
    Black professionals in tech are not advancing like their counterparts.

    Creating clear career paths will not only benefit Black employees but also support your entire organization.

    Key metrics:

    • Engagement
    • Committed Executive Leadership
    • Development Opportunities
    • Organizational Programs

    Black respondents are significantly more likely to report barriers to their career advancement

    Common barriers

    Black professionals, like their colleagues, encounter barriers as they try to advance their careers. The barriers both groups encounter include microaggressions, racism, ageism, accessibility issues, sexual orientation, bias due to religion, lack of a career-supported network, gender bias, family status bias, and discrimination due to language/accents.

    What tops the list

    Microaggressions and racism are at the top of these barriers, but Black professionals also deal with other barriers that their colleagues may experience, such as gender-based bias, accessibility issues, religion, and more.

    One of these barriers alone can be difficult to deal with but when they are compounded it can be very difficult to navigate through the working environment in tech.

    A graph charting the impact of the common barriers

    What are microaggressions?

    Microaggression

    A statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority.

    (Oxford Languages, 2023)

    Why are they significant?

    These things may seem innocent enough but the messaging that is received and the lasting impression is often far from it.

    Our research shows that racism and discrimination contribute to poor mental health among Black professionals.

    Examples

    • You're so articulate!
    • How do you always have different hair, can I touch it?
    • Where are you really from?
    • I don't see color.
    • I believe the most qualified person should get the job; everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough.

    "The experience of having to question whether something happened to you because of your race or constantly being on edge because your environment is hostile can often leave people feeling invisible, silenced, angry, and resentful."
    Dr. Joy Bradford,
    clinical Psychologist, qtd. In Pfizer

    It takes some time to get in the door

    For too many Black respondents, It took Longer than their peers to Find Technology Jobs.

    Both groups had some success finding jobs in "no time" – however, there was a difference. Thirty-four percent of "all others" found their jobs quickly, while the numbers were less for Black professionals, at 26%. There was also a difference at the opposite end of the spectrum. For 29% of Black professionals, it took seven months or longer to find their IT job, while that number is only 19% for their peers.

    .a graph showing time taken for respondents sorted by black; and all other.

    This points to the need for improvements in recruitment and career advancement.

    29% of Black respondents said that it took them 7 months or longer to find their technology job.

    Compared to 19% of all other professionals that selected the same response.

    And once they're in, it's difficult to advance

    Black Professionals are not Advancing as Quickly as their Colleagues. Especially when you look at their Experience.

    Our research shows that compared to all other ethnicities; Black participants were 55% more likely to report that they had no career advancement/promotion in their career. There is a bigger percentage of Black professionals who have never received a promotion; there's also a large number of Black professionals who have been working a significant amount time in the same role without a promotion.

    .Career Advancement

    A graph showing career advancement for the categories: Black and All Other.

    Black participants were 55% more likely to report that they had had no career advancement/promotion in their career.

    No advancement

    A graph showing the number of respondents who reported no career advancement over time, for the categories: Black; and All Other.

    There's a high cost to lack of engagement

    When employees feel disillusioned with things like career advancement and microaggressions, they often become disengaged. When you continuously have to steel yourself against microaggressions, racism, and other barriers, it prevents you from bringing your whole self to the office. The barriers can lead to what's been coined as "emotional tax." An emotional tax is the experience of feeling different from colleagues because of your inherent diversity and the associated negative effects on health, wellbeing, and the ability to thrive at work.

    Earnings of companies with higher employee engagement

    19.2%

    Earnings of companies with lower employee engagement

    -32.7%

    (DecisionWise, 2020)

    "I've conditioned myself for the corporate world, I don't bring my authentic self to work."
    Anonymous Interview Subject

    Lack of engagement also costs the organization in terms of turnover, something many organizations today are struggling with how to address. Organizations want to increase the ability of the workforce to remain in the organization. For Black employees, this gets harder when they're not engaged and they're the only one. When the emotional tax gets to be too much, this can lead to turnover. Turnover not only costs companies billions in profits, it also negatively impacts leadership diversity. It's difficult to imagine career growth when you don't see anyone that looks like you at the top. It is a challenge to see your future when there aren't others that you can relate to at top levels in the organization, leading to one of our interview subjects to muse, "How long can I last?"

    "Being Black in tech can be hard on your mental health. Your mind is constantly wondering, 'how long can I last?' "
    Anonymous Interview Subject

    Fewer Black professionals feel like they can be their authentic selves at work

    Authentic vs. Successes

    For many Black professionals, "code-switching," or altering the way one speaks and acts depending on context, becomes the norm to make others more comfortable. Many feel that being authentic and succeeding in the workplace are mutually exclusive.

    Programs and Resources

    We asked respondents "What's in place to build an inclusive culture at your company?" Most respondents (51% and 45%) reported that there were employee resource groups at their organizations.

    Do you feel you can be your authentic self at work?

    A bar graph showing 86% for All Other Professions, and 75% for Black Professionals

    A bar graph showing responses to the question What’s in place to build an inclusive culture at your company.

    What can be done?

    An image showing actions for success.

    There are various actions that organizations can take to help address barriers.

    It's important to ensure these are not put in as band-aid solutions but that they are carefully thought out and layered.

    Our findings demonstrate that remote work, career development, and DEI programs along with mentorship and diverse leadership are strong enablers of professional satisfaction. An unfortunate consequence, if professionals are not nurtured, is that we risk losing much needed talent to self-employment or to other organizations.

    There are several solutions

    Respondents were asked to distribute points across potential solutions that could lead to job satisfaction. The ratings showed that there were common solutions that could be leveraged across all groups.

    Respondents were asked what solutions were valuable for their career development.

    All groups were mostly aligned on the order of the solutions that would lead to career satisfaction; however, Black professionals rated the importance of employee resource groups as higher than their colleagues did.

    An image showing how respondents rate a number of categories, sorted into Ratings by Black Professionals, and Ratings by Other Professionals

    Mentorship and sponsorship are seen as key for all employees, as is of course training.

    However, employee resource groups (ERGs) were rated significantly higher for Black professionals and discussions around diversity were higher for their colleagues. This may be because other groups feel a need to learn more about diversity, whereas Black professionals live this experience on a day-to day basis, so it's not as critical for them.

    Double the number of satisfied Black professionals through mentorship and sponsorship

    a bar graph showing the number of very satisfied people with and without mentors/sponsors.

    Mentorship and sponsorship help to close the job satisfaction gap for Black IT professionals. The percentage of satisfied Black employees almost doubles when they have a mentor or sponsorship, moving the satisfaction rate to closer to all other colleagues.

    As leaders, you likely benefit from a few different advisors, and your staff should be able to benefit in the same way.

    They can have their own personal board of advisors, both inside and outside of your organization, helping them to navigate the working world in IT.

    To support your staff, provide guidance and coaching to internal mentors so that they can best support employees, and ensure that your organizational culture supports relationship building and trust.

    While all are critical, coaching, mentoring, and sponsorship are not the same

    Coaching

    Performance-driven guidance geared to support the employee with on-the-job performance. This could be a short-term relationship.

    Mentorship

    A relationship where the mentor provides guidance, information, and expertise to support the long-term career development of the mentee.

    Sponsorship

    The act of advocating on the behalf of another for a position, promotion, development opportunity, etc. over a longer period.

    For more information on setting up a mentorship program, see Optimize the Mentoring Program to Build a High Performing Learning Organization.

    On why mentorship and sponsorship are important:

    "With some degree of mentorship or sponsorship, it means that your ability to thrive or to have a positive experience in organizations increases substantially.

    Mentorship and sponsorship are very often the lynchpin of someone being successful and sticking with an organization.

    Sponsorship is an endorsement to other high-level stakeholders who very often are the gatekeepers of opportunity. Sponsors help to shepherd you through the gate."

    An Image of Carlos Thomas

    Carlos Thomas
    Executive Councilor, Info-Tech Research Group

    What is an employee resource group?

    IT Professionals rated ERGs as the third top driver of success at work

    Employee resource groups enable employees to connect in their workplace based on shared characteristics or life experiences.

    ERGs generally focus on providing support, enhancing career development, and contributing to personal development in the work environment. Some ERGs provide advice to the organization on how they can support their diverse employees.

    As leaders, you should support and encourage the formation of ERGs in your organization.

    What each ERG does will vary according to the needs of employees in your organization. Your role is to enable the ERGs as they are created and maintained.

    On setting up and leveraging employee resource groups:

    "Employee resource groups, when leveraged in an authentically intentional way, can be the some of the most impactful stakeholders in the development and implementation of the organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy.

    ERGs are essential to the development of policies, programs, and initiatives that address the needs of equity-seeking groups and are key to driving organizational culture and employee wellbeing, in addition to hiring and recruitment.

    ERGs must be set up for success by having adequate resources to do the work, which includes adequate budgets, executive sponsorship, training, support, and capacity to do the work. According to a Great Place To Work survey (2021), 50% of ERGs identified the need for adequate resources as a challenge for carrying out the work.:"

    An image of Cinnamon Clark

    CINNAMON CLARK
    PRACTICE LEAD, DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION services, MCLEAN & CO

    There is a gap when it comes to diversity in leadership

    Representation at leadership levels is especially stagnant.

    Black Americans comprise 13.6% of the US population
    (2022 data from the US Census Bureau)

    And yet only 5.9% of the country's CEOs are Black, with only 6 (1%) at the top of Fortune 500 companies.
    (2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Fortune.com)

    I've never worked for a company that has Black executives. It's difficult to envision long-term growth with an organization when you don't see yourself represented in leadership.
    – Anonymous Interview Subject

    Having diversity in your leadership team doubles satisfaction

    An image of a bar graph showing satisfaction for those who do, and do not see diversity in their company's leadership.

    Our research shows that Black professionals are more satisfied in their role when they see leaders that look like them.

    Satisfaction of other professionals is not as impacted by diversity in leadership as for Black professionals. Satisfaction doubles in organizations that have a diverse leadership team.

    To reap the benefits from diversity, we need to ensure diversity is not just in entry or mid-level positions and provide employees an opportunity to see diversity in their company's leadership.

    On the need for diversity in leadership:

    "As a Black professional leader, it's not lost on me that I have a responsibility. I have to demonstrate authenticity, professionalism, and exemplary behavior that others can mimic. And I must also showcase that there are possibilities for those coming up in their career. I feel very grateful that I can bestow onto others my knowledge, my experience, my journey, and the tips that I've used to help bring me to be where I am.
    (Having Black leaders in an organization) demonstrates that there is talent across the board, that there are all types of women and people with proficiencies. What it brings to the table is a difference in thoughts and experience.
    A person like myself, sitting at the table, can bring a unique perspective on employee behavior and employee impact. CCL is an organization focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion; for sure having me at the table and others that look like me at the table demonstrates to the public an organization that's practicing what it preaches."

    An image of C. Fara Francis

    C. Fara Francis
    CIO, Center for creative leadership

    Work from home

    While all groups have embraced the work-from-home movement, many Black professionals find it reduces the impact of racial incidents in the workplace.

    Percentage of employees who experienced positive changes in motivation after working remotely.

    Black: 43%; All Other: 43%

    I have to guard and protect myself from experiencing and witnessing racism every day. I am currently working remotely, and I can say for certain my mood and demeanor have improved. Not having to decide if I should address a racist comment or action has made my day easier.
    Source: Slate, 2022

    Remote work significantly led to feelings of better chances for career advancement

    Survey respondents were asked about the positive and negative changes they saw in their interactions and experiences with remote work. Black employees and their colleagues replied similarly, with mostly positive experiences.

    While both groups enjoyed better chances for career advancement, the difference was significantly higher for Black professionals.

    An image of a series of bar graphs showing the effects of remote work on a number of factors.

    Reasons for Self-Employment:

    More Black professionals have chosen self-employment than their colleagues.

    All Other: 26%; Black: 30%.

    A bar graph showing rankings for reasons for self employment, sorted by Black and All Other.

    The biggest reasons for both groups in choosing self-employment were for better pay, career growth, and work/life balance.

    While the desire for better pay was the highest reason for both groups, for engaged employees salary is a lower priority than other concerns (Adecco Group's Global Workforce of the Future report). Consider salary in conjunction with career growth, work/life balance, and the variety in the work that your employees have.

    A bar graph showing rankings for reasons for self employment, sorted by Black and All Other.

    If we don't consider our Black employees, not only do we risk them leaving the organization, but they may decide to just work for themselves.

    Most professionals believe their organizations are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion

    38% of all respondents believe their organizations are very committed to DEI
    49% believe they are somewhat committed
    9% feel they are not committed
    4% are unsure

    Make sure supports are in place to help your employees grow in their careers:

    Leadership
    IT Leadership Career Planning Research Center

    Diversity and Inclusion Tactics
    IT Diversity & Inclusion Tactics

    Employee Development Planning
    Implement an IT Employee Development Plan

    Belief in your organization's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts isn't consistent across groups: Make sure actions are seen as genuine

    While organization's efforts are acknowledged, Black professionals aren't as optimistic about the commitment as their peers. Make sure that your programs are reaching the various groups you want to impact, to increase the likelihood of satisfaction in their roles.

    SATISFACTION INCREASES IN BOTH BLACK AND NON-BLACK PROFESSIONALS

    When they believe in their company's commitment to diversity, equity. and inclusion.

    Of those who believe in their organization's commitment, 61% of Black professionals and 67% of non-Black professionals are very satisfied in their roles.

    BELIEVE THEIR ORGANIZATION IS NOT COMMITTED TO DEI

    BELIEVE THEIR ORGANIZATION IS VERY COMMITTED TO DEI

    NON-BLACK PROFESSIONALS

    8%

    41%

    BLACK PROFESSIONALS

    13%

    30%

    Recommendations

    It's important to understand the current landscape:

    • The barriers that Black employees often face.
    • The potential solutions that can help close the gap in employee satisfaction.

    We recognize that resolving this is not easy. Although senior executives are recognizing that a diverse set of experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds is crucial to fostering innovation and competing on the global stage, organizations often don't take the extra step to actively look for racialized talent, and many people still believe that race doesn't play an important part in an individual's ability to access opportunities.

    Look at a variety of solutions that you can implement within your organization; layering solutions is the key to driving business diversity. Always keep in mind that diversity is not a monolith, that the experiences of each demographic varies.

    Info-Tech resources

    Appendix

    About the research

    Diversity in tech survey

    As part of the research process for the State of Black Tech Report, Info-Tech Research Group conducted an open online survey among its membership and wider community of professionals. The survey was fielded from October 2021 to April 2022, collecting 633 responses.

    An image of Page 1 of the Appendix.

    Current Position

    An image of Page 2 of the Appendix.

    Education and Experience

    Education was fairly consistent across both groups, with a few exceptions: more Black professionals had secondary school (9% vs. 4%) and more Black professionals had Doctorate degrees (4% vs. 2%).

    We had more non-Black respondents with 20+ years of experience (31% vs. 19%) and more Black respondents with less than 1 year of experience (8% vs. 5%) – the rest of the years of experience were consistent across the two groups.

    An image of Page 3 of the Appendix.

    It is important to recognize that people are often seen by "the world" as belonging to a different race or set of races than what they personally identify as. Both aspects impact a professional's experience in the workplace.

    An image of Page 4 of the Appendix.

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    Cyber Resilience Report 2018

    • member rating overall impact: N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A

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

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

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

    Register to read more …

    Optimize Applications Release Management

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    • Parent Category Name: Testing, Deployment & QA
    • Parent Category Link: /testing-deployment-and-qa
    • The business demands high service and IT needs to respond. Rapid customer response through efficient release and deployment is critical to maintain high business satisfaction.
    • The lack of process ownership leads to chaotic and uncoordinated releases, resulting in costly rework and poor hand-offs.
    • IT emphasizes tools but release tools and technologies alone will not fix the problem. Tools are integrated into the processes they support – if the process challenges aren’t addressed first, then the tool won’t help.
    • Releases are traditionally executed in silos with limited communication across the entire release pipeline. Culturally, there is little motivation for cross-functional collaboration and holistic process optimization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Release management is not solely driven by tools. It is about delivering high quality releases on time through accountability and governance aided by the support of tools.
    • Release management is independent of your software development lifecycle (SDLC). Release management practices sit as an agnostic umbrella over your chosen development methodology.
    • Ownership of the entire process is vital. Release managers ensure standards are upheld and the pipeline operates efficiently.

    Impact and Result

    • Acquire release management ownership. Ensure there is appropriate accountability for speed and quality of the releases passing through the entire pipeline. A release manager has oversight over the entire release process and facilitates the necessary communication between business stakeholders and various IT roles.
    • Instill holistic thinking. Release management includes all steps required to push release and change requests to production along with the hand-off to Operations and Support. Increase the transparency and visibility of the entire pipeline to ensure local optimizations do not generate bottlenecks in other areas.
    • Standardize and lay a strong release management foundation. Optimize the key areas where you are experiencing the most pain and continually improve.

    Optimize Applications Release Management Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize release management, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Review your release management objectives

    Assess the current state and define the drivers behind your release management optimizations.

    • Optimize Applications Release Management – Phase 1: Review Your Release Management Objectives
    • Release Management Process Standard Template
    • Release Management Maturity Assessment

    2. Standardize release management

    Design your release processes, program framework, and release change management standards, and define your release management team.

    • Optimize Applications Release Management – Phase 2: Standardize Release Management
    • Release Manager

    3. Roll out release management enhancements

    Create an optimization roadmap that fits your context.

    • Optimize Applications Release Management – Phase 3: Roll Out Release Management Enhancements
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize Applications Release Management

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

    1 Review Your Release Management Objectives

    The Purpose

    Reveal the motivators behind the optimization of release management.

    Identify the root causes of current release issues and challenges.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Ensure business alignment of optimization efforts.

    Firm grasp of why teams are facing release issues and the impacts they have on the organization.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify the objectives for application release.

    1.2 Conduct a current state assessment of release practices.

    Outputs

    Release management business objectives and technical drivers

    Current state assessment of release processes, communication flows, and tools and technologies

    2 Standardize Release Management

    The Purpose

    Alleviate current release issues and challenges with best practices.

    Standardize a core set of processes, tools, and roles & responsibilities to achieve consistency, cadence, and transparency.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Repeatable execution of the same set of processes to increase the predictability of release delivery.

    Defined ownership of release management.

    Adaptable and flexible release management practices to changing business and technical environments.

    Activities

    2.1 Strengthen your release process.

    2.2 Coordinate releases with a program framework.

    2.3 Manage release issues with change management practices.

    2.4 Define your release management team.

    Outputs

    Processes accommodating each release type and approach the team is required to complete

    Release calendars and program framework

    Release change management process

    Defined responsibilities and accountabilities of release manager and release management team

    3 Roll Out Release Management Enhancements

    The Purpose

    Define metrics to validate release management improvements.

    Identify the degree of oversight and involvement of the release management team.

    Prioritize optimization roadmap against business needs and effort.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Easy-to-gather metrics to measure success that can be communicated to stakeholders.

    Understanding of how involved release management teams are in enforcing release management standards.

    Practical and achievable optimization roadmap.

    Activities

    3.1 Define your release management metrics.

    3.2 Ensure adherence to standards.

    3.3 Create your optimization roadmap.

    Outputs

    List of metrics to gauge success

    Oversight and reporting structure of release management team

    Release management optimization roadmap

    Fix Your IT Culture

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    • Parent Category Name: Lead
    • Parent Category Link: /lead
    • Go beyond value statements to create a culture that enables the departmental strategy.
    • There is confusion about how to translate culture from an abstract concept to something that is measurable, actionable, and process driven.
    • Organizations lack clarity about who is accountable and responsible for culture, with groups often pointing fingers at each other.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • When it comes to culture, the lived experience can be different from stated values. Culture is the pattern of behaviors and the way work is done rather than simply perks, working environment, and policy.
    • Executives’ active participation in culture change is paramount. If executives aren’t willing to change the way they behave, attempts to shift the culture will fail.
    • Elevate culture to a business imperative. Foster a culture that is linked to strategy rather than trying to replicate the hot culture of the moment.
    • Target values that will have the greatest impact. Select a few focus values as a guide and align all behaviors and work practices to those values.

    Impact and Result

    • Executives need to clarify how the culture they want will help achieve their strategy and choose the focus values that will have the maximum impact.
    • Measure the current state of culture and facilitate the process of leveraging existing elements while shifting undesirable ones.

    Fix Your IT Culture Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should improve your culture to enable your strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Assessment: Determine current culture and identify focus values

    Complete a cultural assessment and select focus values to form core culture efforts.

    • Culture Documentation Template
    • IT Departmental Values Survey
    • IT Culture Diagnostic
    • Cultural Assessment Report Template

    2. Tools: Give IT executives the tools to drive change

    Enable executives to gather feedback on behavioral perceptions and support behavioral change.

    • Executive Reflection Template

    3. Behavioral Alignment: Align IT behaviors to the desired culture

    Review all areas of the department to understand where the links to culture exist and create a communication plan.

    • Standard Internal Communications Plan
    • IT Competency Library
    • Leadership Competency Library

    4. Sustainment: Disseminate and manage culture within the department

    Customize a process to infuse behaviors aligned with focus values in work practices and complete the first wave of meetings.

    • Culture Facilitation Guide for Leaders
    [infographic]

    Applications Priorities 2022

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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy

    There is always more work than hours in the day. IT often feels understaffed and doesn’t know how to get it all done. Trying to satisfy all the requests results in everyone getting a small piece of the pie and in users being dissatisfied.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Focusing on one initiative will allow leaders to move the needle on what is important.

    Impact and Result

    Focus on the big picture, leveraging Info-Tech’s blueprints. By increasing maturity and efficiency, IT staff can spend more time on value-added activities.

    Applications Priorities 2022 Research & Tools

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

    1. Applications Priorities 2022 – A deck that discusses the five priorities we are seeing among Applications leaders.

    There is always more work than hours in the day. IT often feels understaffed and doesn’t know how to get it all done. Trying to satisfy all the requests results in everyone getting a small piece of the pie and in users being dissatisfied. Use Info-Tech's Applications Priorities 2022 to learn about the five initiatives that IT should prioritize for the coming year.

    • Applications Priorities Report for 2022
    [infographic]

    Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /it-strategy

    Work-from-anywhere isn’t going anywhere. During the initial rush to remote work, tech debt was highlighted and the business lost faith in IT. IT now needs to:

    • Rebuild trust with the CXO.
    • Identify gaps created from the COVID-19 rush to remote work.
    • Identify how IT can better support remote workers.

    IT went through an initial crunch to enable remote work. It’s time to be proactive and learn from our mistakes.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • It’s not about embracing the new normal; it’s about resiliency and long-term success. Your strategy needs to not only provide short-term operational value but also make the organization more resilient for the unknown risks of tomorrow.
    • The nature of work has fundamentally changed. IT departments must ensure service continuity, not for how the company worked in 2019, but for how the company is working now and will be working tomorrow.
    • Ensure short-term survival. Don’t focus on becoming an innovator until you are no longer stuck in firefighting.
    • Aim for near-term innovation. Once you’re a trusted operator, become a business partner by helping the business better adapt business processes and operations to work-from-anywhere.

    Impact and Result

    Follow these steps to build a work-from-anywhere strategy that resonates with the business:

    • Identify a vision that aligns with business goals.
    • Design the work-from-anywhere value proposition for critical business roles.
    • Benchmark your current maturity.
    • Build a roadmap for bridging the gap.

    Benefit employees’ remote working experience while ensuring that IT heads in a strategic direction.

    Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create a work-from-anywhere strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Define a target state

    Identify a vision that aligns with business goals, not for how the company worked in 2019, but for how the company is working now and will be working tomorrow.

    • Work-From-Anywhere Strategy Template
    • Work-From-Anywhere Value Proposition Template

    2. Analyze current fitness

    Don’t focus on becoming an innovator until you are no longer stuck in firefighting mode.

    3. Build a roadmap for improving enterprise apps

    Use these blueprints to improve your enterprise app capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

    • Microsoft Teams Cookbook – Sections 1-2
    • Rationalize Your Collaboration Tools – Phases 1-3
    • Adapt Your Customer Experience Strategy to Successfully Weather COVID-19 Storyboard
    • The Rapid Application Selection Framework Deck

    4. Build a roadmap for improving strategy, people & leadership

    Use these blueprints to improve IT’s strategy, people & leadership capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

    • Define Your Digital Business Strategy – Phases 1-4
    • Training Deck: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams
    • Sustain Work-From-Home in the New Normal Storyboard
    • Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT – Phases 1-3
    • Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic Storyboard
    • Adapt Your Onboarding Process to a Virtual Environment Storyboard
    • Manage Poor Performance While Working From Home Storyboard
    • The Essential COVID-19 Childcare Policy for Every Organization, Yesterday Storyboard

    5. Build a roadmap for improving infrastructure & operations

    Use these blueprints to improve infrastructure & operations capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

    • Stabilize Infrastructure & Operations During Work-From-Anywhere – Phases 1-3
    • Responsibly Resume IT Operations in the Office – Phases 1-5
    • Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan Storyboard
    • Build a Digital Workspace Strategy – Phases 1-3

    6. Build a roadmap for improving IT security & compliance capabilities

    Use these blueprints to improve IT security & compliance capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

    • Cybersecurity Priorities in Times of Pandemic Storyboard
    • Reinforce End-User Security Awareness During Your COVID-19 Response Storyboard

    Infographic

    Workshop: Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy

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

    1 Define a Target State

    The Purpose

    Define the direction of your work-from-anywhere strategy and roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Base your decisions on senior leadership and user needs.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify drivers, benefits, and challenges.

    1.2 Perform a goals cascade to align benefits to business needs.

    1.3 Define a vision and success metrics.

    1.4 Define the value IT brings to work-from-anywhere.

    Outputs

    Desired benefits for work-from-anywhere

    Vision statement

    Mission statement

    Success metrics

    Value propositions for in-scope user groups

    2 Review In-Scope Capabilities

    The Purpose

    Focus on value. Ensure that major applications and IT capabilities will relieve employees’ pains and provide them with gains.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Learn from past mistakes and successes.

    Increase adoption of resulting initiatives.

    Activities

    2.1 Review work-from-anywhere framework and identify capability gaps.

    2.2 Review diagnostic results to identify satisfaction gaps.

    2.3 Record improvement opportunities for each capability.

    2.4 Identify deliverables and opportunities to provide value for each.

    2.5 Identify constraints faced by each capability.

    Outputs

    SWOT assessment of work-from-anywhere capabilities

    Projects and initiatives to improve capabilities

    Deliverables and opportunities to provide value for each capability

    Constraints with each capability

    3 Build the Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Build a short-term plan that allows you to iterate on your existing strengths and provide early value to your users.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Provide early value to address operational pain points.

    Build a plan to provide near-term innovation and business value.

    Activities

    3.1 Organize initiatives into phases.

    3.2 Identify tasks for short-term initiatives.

    3.3 Estimate effort with Scrum Poker.

    3.4 Build a timeline and tie phases to desired business benefits.

    Outputs

    Prioritized list of initiatives and phases

    Profiles for short-term initiatives

    Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /it-governance-risk-and-compliance
    • Unfortunately, when CIOs implement IT steering committees, they often lack the appropriate structure and processes to be effective.
    • Due to the high profile of the IT steering committee membership, CIOs need to get this right – or their reputation is at risk.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • 88% of IT steering committees fail. The organizations that succeed have clearly defined responsibilities that are based on business needs.
    • Without a documented process your committee can’t execute on its responsibilities. Clearly define the flow of information to make your committee actionable.
    • Limit your headaches by holding your IT steering committee accountable for defining project prioritization criteria.

    Impact and Result

    Leverage Info-Tech’s process and deliverables to see dramatic improvements in your business satisfaction through an effective IT steering committee. This blueprint will provide three core customizable deliverables that you can use to launch or optimize your IT steering committee:

    • IT Steering Committee Charter: Use this template in combination with this blueprint to form a highly tailored committee.
    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation: Build understanding around the goals and purpose of the IT steering committee, and generate support from your leadership team.
    • IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool: Engage your IT steering committee participants in defining project prioritization criteria. Track project prioritization and assess your portfolio.

    Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should establish an IT steering committee, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Build the steering committee charter

    Build your IT steering committee charter using results from the stakeholder survey.

    • Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee – Phase 1: Build the Steering Committee Charter
    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Survey
    • IT Steering Committee Charter

    2. Define IT steering commitee processes

    Define your high level steering committee processes using SIPOC, and select your steering committee metrics.

    • Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee – Phase 2: Define ITSC Processes

    3. Build the stakeholder presentation

    Customize Info-Tech’s stakeholder presentation template to gain buy-in from your key IT steering committee stakeholders.

    • Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee – Phase 3: Build the Stakeholder Presentation
    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation

    4. Define the prioritization criteria

    Build the new project intake and prioritization process for your new IT steering committee.

    • Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee – Phase 4: Define the Prioritization Criteria
    • IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool
    • IT Project Intake Form
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee

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

    1 Build the IT Steering Committee

    The Purpose

    Lay the foundation for your IT steering committee (ITSC) by surveying your stakeholders and identifying the opportunities and threats to implementing your ITSC.

    Key Benefits Achieved

     An understanding of the business environment affecting your future ITSC and identification of strategies for engaging with stakeholders

    Activities

    1.1 Launch stakeholder survey for business leaders.

    1.2 Analyze results with an Info-Tech advisor.

    1.3 Identify opportunities and threats to successful IT steering committee implementation.

    1.4 Develop the fit-for-purpose approach.

    Outputs

    Report on business leader governance priorities and awareness

    Refined workshop agenda

    2 Define the ITSC Goals

    The Purpose

    Define the goals and roles of your IT steering committee.

    Plan the responsibilities of your future committee members.

    Key Benefits Achieved

     Groundwork for completing the steering committee charter

    Activities

    2.1 Review the role of the IT steering committee.

    2.2 Identify IT steering committee goals and objectives.

    2.3 Conduct a SWOT analysis on the five governance areas

    2.4 Define the key responsibilities of the ITSC.

    2.5 Define ITSC participation.

    Outputs

    IT steering committee key responsibilities and participants identified

    IT steering committee priorities identified

    3 Define the ITSC Charter

    The Purpose

    Document the information required to create an effective ITSC Charter.

    Create the procedures required for your IT steering committee.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for your steering committee

    Completed IT Steering Committee Charter document

    Activities

    3.1 Build IT steering committee participant RACI.

    3.2 Define your responsibility cadence and agendas.

    3.3 Develop IT steering committee procedures.

    3.4 Define your IT steering committee purpose statement and goals.

    Outputs

    IT steering committee charter: procedures, agenda, and RACI

    Defined purpose statement and goals

    4 Define the ITSC Process

    The Purpose

    Define and test your IT steering committee processes.

    Get buy-in from your key stakeholders through your stakeholder presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Stakeholder understanding of the purpose and procedures of IT steering committee membership

    Activities

    4.1 Define your high-level IT steering committee processes.

    4.2 Conduct scenario testing on key processes, establish ITSC metrics.

    4.3 Build your ITSC stakeholder presentation.

    4.4 Manage potential objections.

    Outputs

    IT steering committee SIPOC maps

    Refined stakeholder presentation

    5 Define Project Prioritization Criteria

    The Purpose

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Activities

    5.1 Create prioritization criteria

    5.2 Customize the project prioritization tool

    5.3 Pilot test the tool

    5.4 Define action plan and next steps

    Outputs

    IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    Action plan

    Further reading

    Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee

    Have the right people making the right decisions to drive IT success.

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • CIOs
    • IT Leaders

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Business Partners

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Structure an IT steering committee with the appropriate membership and responsibilities
    • Define appropriate cadence around business involvement in IT decision making
    • Define your IT steering committee processes, metrics, and timelines
    • Obtain buy-in for IT steering committee participations
    • Define the project prioritization criteria

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Understand the importance of IT governance and their role
    • Identify and build the investment prioritization criteria

    Executive Summary

    Situation

    • An effective IT steering committee (ITSC) is one of the top predictors of value generated by IT, yet only 11% of CIOs believe their committees are effective.
    • An effective steering committee ensures that the right people are involved in critical decision making to drive organizational value.

    Complication

    • Unfortunately, when CIOs do implement IT steering committees, they often lack the appropriate structure and processes to be effective.
    • Due to the high profile of the IT steering committee membership, CIOs need to get this right – or their reputation is at risk.

    Resolution

    Leverage Info-Tech’s process and deliverables to see dramatic improvements in your business satisfaction through an effective IT steering committee. This blueprint will provide three core customizable deliverables that you can use to launch or optimize your IT steering committee. These include:

    1. IT Steering Committee Charter: Customizable charter complete with example purpose, goals, responsibilities, procedures, RACI, and processes. Use this template in combination with this blueprint to get a highly tailored committee.
    2. IT Stakeholder Presentation: Use our customizable presentation guide to build understanding around the goals and purpose of the IT steering committee and generate support from your leadership team.
    3. IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool: Engage your IT steering committee participants in defining the project prioritization criteria. Use our template to track project prioritization and assess your portfolio.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. 88% of IT steering committees fail. The organizations that succeed have clearly defined responsibilities that are based on business needs.
    2. Without a documented process your committee can’t execute on its responsibilities. Clearly define the flow of information to make your committee actionable.
    3. Limit your headaches by holding your IT steering committee accountable for defining project prioritization criteria.

    IT Steering Committee

    Effective IT governance critical in driving business satisfaction with IT. Yet 88% of CIOs believe that their governance structure and processes are not effective. The IT steering committee (ITSC) is the heart of the governance body and brings together critical organizational stakeholders to enable effective decision making (Info-Tech Research Group Webinar Survey).

    IT STEERING COMMITTEES HAVE 3 PRIMARY OBJECTIVES – TO IMPROVE:

    1. Alignment: IT steering committees drive IT and business strategy alignment by having business partners jointly accountable for the prioritization and selection of projects and investments within the context of IT capacity.
    2. Accountability: The ITSC facilitates the involvement and commitment of executive management through clearly defined roles and accountabilities for IT decisions in five critical areas: investments, projects, risk, services, and data.
    3. Value Generation: The ITSC is responsible for the ongoing evaluation of IT value and performance of IT services. The committee should define these standards and approve remediation plans when there is non-achievement.

    "Everyone needs good IT, but no one wants to talk about it. Most CFOs would rather spend time with their in-laws than in an IT steering-committee meeting. But companies with good governance consistently outperform companies with bad. Which group do you want to be in?"

    – Martha Heller, President, Heller Search Associates

    An effective IT steering committee improves IT and business alignment and increases support for IT across the organization

    CEOs’ PERCEPTION OF IT AND BUSINESS ALIGNMENT

    67% of CIOs/CEOs are misaligned on the target role for IT.

    47% of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.

    64% of CEOs believe that improvement is required around IT’s understanding of business goals.

    28% of business leaders are supporters of their IT departments.

    A well devised IT steering committee ensures that core business partners are involved in critical decision making and that decisions are based on business goals – not who shouts the loudest. Leading to faster decision-making time, and better-quality decisions and outcomes.

    Source: Info-Tech CIO/CEO Alignment data

    Despite the benefits, 9 out of 10 steering committees are unsuccessful

    WHY DO IT STEERING COMMITTEES FAIL?

    1. A lack of appetite for an IT steering committee from business partners
    2. An effective ITSC requires participation from core members of the organization’s leadership team. The challenge is that most business partners don’t understand the benefits of an ITSC and the responsibilities aren’t tailored to participants’ needs or interests. It’s the CIOs responsibility to make this case to stakeholders and right-size the committee responsibilities and membership.
    3. IT steering committees are given inappropriate responsibilities
    4. The IT steering committee is fundamentally about decision making; it’s not a working committee. CIOs struggle with clarifying these responsibilities on two fronts: either the responsibilities are too vague and there is no clear way to execute on them within a meeting, or responsibilities are too tactical and require knowledge that participants do not have. Responsibilities should determine who is on the ITSC, not the other way around.
    5. Lack of process around execution
    6. An ITSC is only valuable if members are able to successfully execute on the responsibilities. Without well defined processes it becomes nearly impossible for the ITSC to be actionable. As a result, participants lack the information they need to make critical decisions, agendas are unmet, and meetings are seen as a waste of time.

    GOVERNANCE and ITSC and IT Management

    Organizations often blur the line between governance and management, resulting in the business having say over the wrong things. Understand the differences and make sure both groups understand their role.

    The ITSC is the most senior body within the IT governance structure, involving key business executives and focusing on critical strategic decisions impacting the whole organization.

    Within a holistic governance structure, organizations may have additional committees that evaluate, direct, and monitor key decisions at a more tactical level and report into the ITSC.

    These committees require specialized knowledge and are implemented to meet specific organizational needs. Those operational committees may spark a tactical task force to act on specific needs.

    IT management is responsible for executing on, running, and monitoring strategic activities as determined by IT governance.

    RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRATEGIC, TACTICAL, AND OPERATIONAL GROUPS

    Strategic IT Steering Committee
    Tactical

    Project Governance Service Governance

    Risk Governance Information Governance

    IT Management
    Operational Risk Task Force

    This blueprint focuses exclusively on building the IT steering committee. For more information on IT governance see Info-Tech’s blueprint Tailor an IT Governance Plan to Fit Organizational Needs.

    1. Governance of the IT Portfolio & Investments: ensures that funding and resources are systematically allocated to the priority projects that deliver value
    2. Governance of Projects: ensures that IT projects deliver the expected value, and that the PM methodology is measured and effective.
    3. Governance of Risks: ensures the organization’s ability to assess and deliver IT projects and services with acceptable risk.
    4. Governance of Services: ensures that IT delivers the required services at the acceptable performance levels.
    5. Governance of Information and Data: ensures the appropriate classification and retention of data based on business need.

    If these symptoms resonate with you, it might be time to invest in building an IT steering committee

    SIGNS YOU MAY NEED TO BUILD AN IT STEERING COMMITTEE

    As CIO I find that there is a lack of alignment between business and IT strategies.
    I’ve noticed that projects are thrown over the fence by stakeholders and IT is expected to comply.
    I’ve noticed that IT projects are not meeting target project metrics.
    I’ve struggled with a lack of accountability for decision making, especially by the business.
    I’ve noticed that the business does not understand the full cost of initiatives and projects.
    I don’t have the authority to say “no” when business requests come our way.
    We lack a standardized approach for prioritizing projects.
    IT has a bad reputation within the organization, and I need a way to improve relationships.
    Business partners are unaware of how decisions are made around IT risks.
    Business partners don’t understand the full scope of IT responsibilities.
    There are no SLAs in place and no way to measure stakeholder satisfaction with IT.

    Info-Tech’s approach to implementing an IT steering committee

    Info-Tech’s IT steering committee development blueprint will provide you with the required tools, templates, and deliverables to implement a right-sized committee that’s effective the first time.

    • Measure your business partner level of awareness and interest in the five IT governance areas, and target specific responsibilities for your steering committee based on need.
    • Customize Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Charter Template to define and document the steering committee purpose, responsibilities, participation, and cadence.
    • Build critical steering committee processes to enable information to flow into and out of the committee to ensure that the committee is able to execute on responsibilities.
    • Customize Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template to make your first meeting a breeze, providing stakeholders with the information they need, with less than two hours of preparation time.
    • Leverage our workshop guide and prioritization tools to facilitate a meeting with IT steering committee members to define the prioritization criteria for projects and investments and roll out a streamlined process.

    Info-Tech’s Four-Phase Process

    Key Deliverables:
    1 2 3 4
    Build the Steering Committee Charter Define ITSC Processes Build the Stakeholder Presentation Define the Prioritization Criteria
    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Survey
    • IT Steering Committee Charter
      • Purpose
      • Responsibilities
      • RACI
      • Procedures
    • IT Steering Committee SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers)
    • Defined process frequency
    • Defined governance metrics
    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template
      • Introduction
      • Survey outcomes
      • Responsibilities
      • Next steps
      • ITSC goals
    • IT project prioritization facilitation guide
    • IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool
    • Project Intake Form

    Leverage both COBIT and Info-Tech-defined metrics to evaluate the success of your program or project

    COBIT METRICS Alignment
    • Percent of enterprise strategic goals and requirements supported by strategic goals.
    • Level of stakeholder satisfaction with scope of the planned portfolio of programs and services.
    Accountability
    • Percent of executive management roles with clearly defined accountabilities for IT decisions.
    • Rate of execution of executive IT-related decisions.
    Value Generation
    • Level of stakeholder satisfaction and perceived value.
    • Number of business disruptions due to IT service incidents.
    INFO-TECH METRICS Survey Metrics:
    • Percent of business leaders who believe they understand how decisions are made in the five governance areas.
    • Percentage of business leaders who believe decision making involved the right people.
    Value of Customizable Deliverables:
    • Estimated time to build IT steering committee charter independently X cost of employee
    • Estimated time to build and generate customer stakeholder survey and generate reports X cost of employee
    • # of project interruptions due to new or unplanned projects

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Consumer Goods

    Source: Interview

    Situation

    A newly hired CIO at a large consumer goods company inherited an IT department with low maturity from her predecessor. Satisfaction with IT was very low across all business units, and IT faced a lot of capacity constraints. The business saw IT as a bottleneck or red tape in terms of getting their projects approved and completed.

    The previous CIO had established a steering committee for a short time, but it had a poorly established charter that did not involve all of the business units. Also the role and responsibilities of the steering committee were not clearly defined. This led the committee to be bogged down in politics.

    Due to the previous issues, the business was wary of being involved in a new steering committee. In order to establish a new steering committee, the new CIO needed to navigate the bad reputation of the previous CIO.

    Solution

    The CIO established a new steering committee engaging senior members of each business unit. The roles of the committee members were clearly established in the new steering committee charter and business stakeholders were informed of the changes through presentations.

    The importance of the committee was demonstrated through the new intake and prioritization process for projects. Business stakeholders were impressed with the new process and its transparency and IT was no longer seen as a bottleneck.

    Results

    • Satisfaction with IT increased by 12% after establishing the committee and IT was no longer seen as red tape for completing projects
    • IT received approval to hire two more staff members to increase capacity
    • IT was able to augment service levels, allowing them to reinvest in innovative projects
    • Project prioritization process was streamlined

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee

    Build the Steering Committee Charter Define ITSC Processes Build the Stakeholder Presentation Define the Prioritization Criteria
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Survey Your Steering Committee Stakeholders

    1.2 Build Your ITSC Charter

    2.1 Build a SIPOC

    2.2 Define Your ITSC Process

    3.1 Customize the Stakeholder Presentation

    4.1 Establish your Prioritization Criteria

    4.2 Customize the Project Prioritization Tool

    4.3 Pilot Test Your New Prioritization Criteria

    Guided Implementations
    • Launch your stakeholder survey
    • Analyze the results of the survey
    • Build your new ITSC charter
    • Review your completed charter
    • Build and review your SIPOC
    • Review your high-level steering committee processes
    • Customize the presentation
    • Build a script for the presentation
    • Practice the presentation
    • Review and select prioritization criteria
    • Review the Project Prioritization Tool
    • Review the results of the tool pilot test
    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:

    Build a New ITSC Charter

    Module 2:

    Design Steering Committee Processes

    Module 3:

    Present the New Steering Committee to Stakeholders

    Module 4:

    Establish Project Prioritization Criteria

    Phase 1 Results:
    • Customized ITSC charter

    Phase 2 Results:

    • Completed SIPOC and steering committee processes
    Phase 3 Results:
    • Customized presentation deck and script
    Phase 4 Results:
    • Customized project prioritization tool

    Workshop overview

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

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

    Build the IT Steering Committee

    1.1 Launch stakeholder survey for business leaders

    1.2 Analyze results with an Info-Tech Advisor

    1.3 Identify opportunities and threats to successful IT steering committee implementation.

    1.4 Develop the fit-for-purpose approach

    Define the ITSC Goals

    2.1 Review the role of the IT steering committee

    2.2 Identify IT steering committee goals and objectives

    2.3 Conduct a SWOT analysis on the five governance areas

    2.4 Define the key responsibilities of the ITSC 2.5 Define ITSC participation

    Define the ITSC Charter

    3.1 Build IT steering committee participant RACI

    3.2 Define your responsibility cadence and agendas

    3.3 Develop IT steering committee procedures

    3.4 Define your IT steering committee purpose statement and goals

    Define the ITSC Process

    4.1 Define your high-level IT steering committee processes

    4.2 Conduct scenario testing on key processes, establish ITSC metrics

    4.3 Build your ITSC stakeholder presentation

    4.4 Manage potential objections

    Define Project Prioritization Criteria

    5.1 Create prioritization criteria

    5.2 Customize the Project Prioritization Tool

    5.3 Pilot test the tool

    5.4 Define action plan and next steps

    Deliverables
    1. Report on business leader governance priorities and awareness
    2. Refined workshop agenda
    1. IT steering committee priorities identified
    2. IT steering committee key responsibilities and participants identified
    1. IT steering committee charter: procedures, agenda, and RACI
    2. Defined purpose statement and goals
    1. IT steering committee SIPOC maps
    2. Refined stakeholder presentation
    1. Project Prioritization Tool
    2. Action plan

    Phase 1

    Build the IT Steering Committee Charter

    Phase 1 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 1: Formalize the Security Policy Program

    Proposed Time to Completion: 1-2 weeks

    Select Your ITSC Members

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Launch your stakeholder survey

    Then complete these activities…

    • Tailor the survey questions
    • Identify participants and tailor email templates

    With these tools & templates:

    • ITSC Stakeholder Survey
    • ITSC Charter Template

    Review Stakeholder Survey Results

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review the results of the Stakeholder Survey

    Then complete these activities…

    • Customize the ITSC Charter Template

    With these tools & templates:

    • ITSC Charter Template

    Finalize the ITSC Charter

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Review the finalized ITSC charter with an Info-Tech analyst

    Then complete these activities…

    • Finalize any changes to the ITSC Charter
    • Present it to ITSC Members

    With these tools & templates:

    • ITSC Charter Template

    Build the IT Steering Committee Charter

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Launch and analyze the stakeholder survey
    • Define your ITSC goals and purpose statement
    • Determine ITSC responsibilities and participants
    • Determine ITSC procedures

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Steering Committee
    • IT Leadership Team
    • PMO

    Key Insight:

    Be exclusive with your IT steering committee membership. Determine committee participation based on committee responsibilities. Select only those who are key decision makers for the activities the committee is responsible for and, wherever possible, keep membership to 5-8 people.

    Tailor Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Charter Template to define terms of reference for the ITSC

    1.1

    A charter is the organizational mandate that outlines the purpose, scope, and authority of the ITSC. Without a charter, the steering committee’s value, scope, and success criteria are unclear to participants, resulting in unrealistic stakeholder expectations and poor organizational acceptance.

    Start by reviewing Info-Tech’s template. Throughout this section we will help you to tailor its contents.

    Committee Purpose: The rationale, benefits of, and overall function of the committee.

    Responsibilities: What tasks/decisions the accountable committee is making.

    Participation: Who is on the committee

    RACI: Who is accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed regarding each responsibility.

    Committee Procedures and Agendas: Includes how the committee will be organized and how the committee will interact and communicate with business units.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's <em data-verified=IT Steering Committee Charter Template.">

    IT Steering Committee Charter

    Take a data-driven approach to build your IT steering committee based on business priorities

    1.2

    Leverage Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Surveyand reports to quickly identify business priorities and level of understanding of how decisions are made around the five governance areas.

    Use these insights to drive the IT steering committee responsibilities, participation, and communication strategy.

    The Stakeholder Survey consists of 17 questions on:

    • Priority governance areas
    • Desired level of involvement in decision making in the five governance areas
    • Knowledge of how decisions are made
    • Five open-ended questions on improvement opportunities

    To simplify your data collection and reporting, Info-Tech can launch a web-based survey, compile the report data and assist in the data interpretation through one of our guided implementations.

    Also included is a Word document with recommended questions, if you prefer to manage the survey logistics internally.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's first page of the <em data-verified=IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Survey "> A screenshot of Info-Tech's survey.

    Leverage governance reports to define responsibilities and participants, and in your presentation to stakeholders

    1.3

    A screenshot is displayed. It advises that 72% of stakeholders do <strong data-verified= understand how decisions around IT services are made (quality, availability, etc.). Two graphs are included in the screenshot. One of the bar graphs shows the satisfaction with the quality of decisions and transparency around IT services. The other bar graph displays IT decisions around service delivery and quality that involve the right people.">

    OVERALL PRIORITIES

    You get:

    • A clear breakdown of stakeholders’ level of understanding on how IT decisions are made in the five governance areas
    • Stakeholder perceptions on the level of IT and business involvement in decision making
    • Identification of priority areas

    So you can:

    • Get an overall pulse check for understanding
    • Make the case for changes in decision-making accountability
    • Identify which areas the IT steering committee should focus on
    A screenshot is displayed. It advises that 80% of stakeholders do <strong data-verified=not understand how decisions around IT investments or project and service resourcing are made. Two bar graphs are displayed. One of the bar graphs shows the satisfaction with the quality of decisions made around IT investments. The other graph display IT decisions around spending priorities involving the right people.">

    GOVERNANCE AREA REPORTS

    You get:

    • Satisfaction score for decision quality in each governance area
    • Breakdown of decision-making accountability effectiveness
    • Identified level of understanding around decision making
    • Open-ended comments

    So you can:

    • Identify the highest priority areas to change.
    • To validate changes in decision-making accountability
    • To understand business perspectives on decision making.

    Conduct a SWOT analysis of the five governance areas

    1.4

    1. Hold a meeting with your IT leadership team to conduct a SWOT analysis on each of the five governance areas. Start by printing off the following five slides to provide participants with examples of the role of governance and the symptoms of poor governance in each area.
    2. In groups of 1-2 people, have each group complete a SWOT analysis for one of the governance areas. For each consider:
    • Strengths: What is currently working well in this area?
    • Weaknesses: What could you improve? What are some of the challenges you’re experiencing?
    • Opportunities: What are some organizational trends that you can leverage? Consider whether your strengths or weaknesses that could create opportunities?
    • Threats: What are some key obstacles across people, process, and technology?
  • Have each team or individual rotate until each person has contributed to each SWOT. Add comments from the stakeholder survey to the SWOT.
  • As a group rank each of the five areas in terms of importance for a phase one IT steering committee implementation, and highlight the top 10 challenges, and the top 10 opportunities you see for improvement.
  • Document the top 10 lists for use in the stakeholder presentation.
  • INPUT

    • Survey outcomes
    • Governance overview handouts

    OUTPUT

    • SWOT analysis
    • Ranked 5 areas
    • Top 10 challenges and opportunities identified.

    Materials

    • Governance handouts
    • Flip chart paper, pens

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    Governance of RISK

    Governance of risk establishes the risk framework, establishes policies and standards, and monitors risks.

    Governance of risk ensures that IT is mitigating all relevant risks associated with IT investments, projects, and services.

    GOVERNANCE ROLES:

    1. Defines responsibility and accountability for IT risk identification and mitigation.
    2. Ensures the consideration of all elements of IT risk, including value, change, availability, security, project, and recovery
    3. Enables senior management to make better IT decisions based on the evaluation of the risks involved
    4. Facilitates the identification and analysis of IT risk and ensures the organization’s informed response to that risk.

    Symptoms of poor governance of risk

    • Opportunities for value creation are missed by not considering or assessing IT risk, or by completely avoiding all risk.
    • No formal risk management process or accountabilities exist.
    • There is no business continuity strategy.
    • Frequent security breaches occur.
    • System downtime occurs due to failed IT changes.

    Governance of PPM

    Governance of the IT portfolio achieves optimum ROI through prioritization, funding, and resourcing.

    PPM practices create value if they maximize the throughput of high-value IT projects at the lowest possible cost. They destroy value when they foster needlessly sophisticated and costly processes.

    GOVERNANCE ROLES:

    1. Ensures that the projects that deliver greater business value get a higher priority.
    2. Provides adequate funding for the priority projects and ensures adequate resourcing and funding balanced across the entire portfolio of projects.
    3. Makes the business and IT jointly accountable for setting project priorities.
    4. Evaluate, direct, and monitor IT value metrics and endorse the IT strategy and monitor progress.

    Symptoms of poor governance of PPM/investments

    • The IT investment mix is determined solely by Finance and IT.
    • It is difficult to get important projects approved.
    • Projects are started then halted, and resources are moved to other projects.
    • Senior management has no idea what projects are in the backlog.
    • Projects are approved without a valid business case.

    Governance of PROJECTS

    Governance of projects improves the quality and speed of decision making for project issues.

    Don’t confuse project governance and management. Governance makes the decisions regarding allocation of funding and resources and reviews the overall project portfolio metrics and process methodology.

    Management ensures the project deliverables are completed within the constraints of time, budget, scope, and quality.

    GOVERNANCE ROLES:

    1. Monitors and evaluates the project management process and critical project methodology metrics.
    2. Ensures review and mitigation of project issue and that management is aware of projects in crisis.
    3. Ensures that projects beginning to show characteristics of failure cannot proceed until issues are resolved.
    4. Endorses the project risk criteria, and monitors major risks to project completion.
    5. Approves the launch and execution of projects.

    Symptoms of poor governance of projects

    • Projects frequently fail or get cancelled.
    • Project risks and issues are not identified or addressed.
    • There is no formal project management process.
    • There is no senior stakeholder responsible for making project decisions.
    • There is no formal project reporting.

    Governance of SERVICES

    Governance of services ensures delivery of a highly reliable set of IT services.

    Effective governance of services enables the business to achieve the organization’s goals and strategies through the provision of reliable and cost-effective services.

    GOVERNANCE ROLES:

    1. Ensures the satisfactory performance of those services critical to achieving business objectives.
    2. Monitors and directs changes in service levels.
    3. Ensures operational and performance objectives for IT services are met.
    4. Approves policy and standards on the service portfolio.

    Symptoms of poor governance of service

    • There is a misalignment of business needs and expectations with IT capability.
    • No metrics are reported for IT services.
    • The business is unaware of the IT services available to them.
    • There is no accountability for service level performance.
    • There is no continuous improvement plan for IT services.
    • IT services or systems are frequently unavailable.
    • Business satisfaction with IT scores are low.

    Governance of INFORMATION

    Governance of information ensures the proper handling of data and information.

    Effective governance of information ensures the appropriate classification, retention, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data in line with the needs of the business.

    GOVERNANCE ROLES:

    1. Ensures the information lifecycle owner and process are defined and endorse by business leadership.
    2. Ensures the controlled access to a comprehensive information management system.
    3. Ensures knowledge, information, and data are gathered, analyzed, stored, shared, used, and maintained.
    4. Ensures that external regulations are identified and met.

    Symptoms of poor governance of information

    • There is a lack of clarity around data ownership, and data quality standards.
    • There is insufficient understanding of what knowledge, information, and data are needed by the organization.
    • There is too much effort spent on knowledge capture as opposed to knowledge transfer and re-use.
    • There is too much focus on storing and sharing knowledge and information that is not up to date or relevant.
    • Personnel see information management as interfering with their work.

    Identify the responsibilities of the IT steering committee

    1.5

    1. With your IT leadership team, review the typical responsibilities of the IT steering committee on the following slide.
    2. Print off the following slide, and in your teams of 1-2 have each group identify which responsibilities they believe the IT steering committee should have, brainstorm any additional responsibilities, and document their reasoning.
    3. Note: The bolded responsibilities are the ones that are most common to IT steering committees, and greyed out responsibilities are typical of a larger governance structure. Depending on their level of importance to your organization, you may choose to include the responsibility.

    4. Have each team present to the larger group, track the similarities and differences between each of the groups, and come to consensus on the list of responsibilities.
    5. Complete a sanity check – review your swot analysis and survey results. Do the responsibilities you’ve identified resolve the critical challenges or weaknesses?
    6. As a group, consider the responsibilities and consider whether you can reasonably implement those in one year, or if there are any that will need to wait until year two of the IT steering committee.
    7. Modify the list of responsibilities in Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Charter by deleting the responsibilities you do not need and adding any that you identified in the process.

    INPUT

    • SWOT analysis
    • Survey reports

    OUTPUT

    • Defined ITSC responsibilities documented in the ITSC Charter

    Materials

    • Responsibilities handout
    • Voting dots

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    Typical IT steering committee and governance responsibilities

    The bolded responsibilities are those that are most common to IT steering committees, and responsibilities listed in grey are typical of a larger governance structure.

    INVESTMENTS / PPM

    • Establish the target investment mix
    • Evaluate and select programs/projects to fund
    • Monitor IT value metrics
    • Endorse the IT budget
    • Monitor and report on program/project outcomes
    • Direct the governance optimization
    • Endorse the IT strategy

    PROJECTS

    • Monitor project management metrics
    • Approve launch of projects
    • Review major obstacles to project completion
    • Monitor a standard approach to project management
    • Monitor and direct project risk
    • Monitor requirements gathering process effectiveness
    • Review feasibility studies and formulate alternative solutions for high risk/high investment projects

    SERVICE

    • Monitor stakeholder satisfaction with services
    • Monitor service metrics
    • Approve plans for new or changed service requirements
    • Monitor and direct changes in service levels
    • Endorse the enterprise architecture
    • Approve policy and standards on the service portfolio
    • Monitor performance and capacity

    RISK

    • Monitor risk management metrics
    • Review the prioritized list of risks
    • Monitor changes in external regulations
    • Maintain risk profiles
    • Approve the risk management emergency action process
    • Maintain a mitigation plan to minimize risk impact and likelihood
    • Evaluate risk management
    • Direct risk management

    INFORMATION / DATA

    • Define information lifecycle process ownership
    • Monitor information lifecycle metrics
    • Define and monitor information risk
    • Approve classification categories of information
    • Approve information lifecycle process
    • Set policies on retirement of information

    Determine committee membership based on the committee’s responsibilities

    • One of the biggest benefits to an IT steering committee is it involves key leadership from the various lines of business across the organization.
    • However, in most cases, more people get involved than is required, and all the committee ends up accomplishing is a lot of theorizing. Participants should be selected based on the identified responsibilities of the IT steering committee.
    • If the responsibilities don’t match the participants, this will negatively impact committee effectiveness as leaders become disengaged in the process and don’t feel like it applies to them or accomplishes the desired goals. Once participants begin dissenting, it’s significantly more difficult to get results.
    • Be careful! When you have more than one individual in a specific role, select only the people whose attendance is absolutely critical. Don’t let your governance collapse under committee overload!

    LIKELY PARTICIPANT EXAMPLES:

    MUNICIPALITY

    • City Manager
    • CIO/IT Leader
    • CCO
    • CFO
    • Division Heads

    EDUCATION

    • Provost
    • Vice Provost
    • VP Academic
    • VP Research
    • VP Public Affairs
    • VP Operations
    • VP Development
    • Etc.

    HEALTHCARE

    • President/CEO
    • CAO
    • EVP/ EDOs
    • VPs
    • CIO
    • CMO

    PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS

    • CEO
    • CFO
    • COO
    • VP Marketing
    • VP Sales
    • VP HR
    • VP Product Development
    • VP Engineering
    • Etc.

    Identify committee participants and responsibility cadence

    1.6

    1. In a meeting with your IT leadership team, review the list of committee responsibilities and document them on a whiteboard.
    2. For each responsibility, identify the individuals whom you would want to be either responsible or accountable for that decision.
    3. Repeat this until you’ve completed the exercise for each responsibility.
    4. Group the responsibilities with the same participants and highlight groupings with less than four participants. Consider the responsibility and determine whether you need to change the wording to make it more applicable or if you should remove the responsibility.
    5. Review the grouping, the responsibilities within them, and their participants, and assess how frequently you would like to meet about them – annually, quarterly, or monthly. (Note: suggested frequency can be found in the IT Steering Committee Charter.)
    6. Subdivide the responsibilities for the groupings to determine your annual, quarterly, and monthly meeting schedule.
    7. Validate that one steering committee is all that is needed, or divide the responsibilities into multiple committees.
    8. Document the committee participants in the IT Steering Committee Charter and remove any unneeded responsibilities identified in the previous exercise.

    INPUT

    • List of responsibilities

    OUTPUT

    • ITSC participants list
    • Meeting schedule

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    Committees can only be effective if they have clear and documented authority

    It is not enough to participate in committee meetings; there needs to be a clear understanding of who is accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed about matters brought to the attention of the committee.

    Each committee responsibility should have one person who is accountable, and at least one person who is responsible. This is the best way to ensure that committee work gets done.

    An authority matrix is often used within organizations to indicate roles and responsibilities in relation to processes and activities. Using the RACI model as an example, there is only one person accountable for an activity, although several people may be responsible for executing parts of the activity. In this model, accountable means end-to-end accountability for the process.

    RESPONSIBLE: The one responsible for getting the job done.

    ACCOUNTABLE: Only one person can be accountable for each task.

    CONSULTED: Involvement through input of knowledge and information.

    INFORMED: Receiving information about process execution and quality.

    A chart is depicted to show an example of the authority matrix using the RACI model.

    Define IT steering committee participant RACI for each of the responsibilities

    1.7

    1. Use the table provided in the IT Steering Committee Charter and edit he list of responsibilities to reflect the chosen responsibilities of your ITSC.
    2. Along the top of the chart list the participant names, and in the right hand column of the table document the agreed upon timing from the previous exercise.
    3. For each of the responsibilities identify whether participants are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, or Informed by denoting an R, A, C, I, or N/A in the table. Use N/A if this is a responsibility that the participant has no involvement in.
    4. Review your finalized RACI chart. If there are participants who are only consulted or informed about the majority of responsibilities, consider removing them from the IT steering committee. You only want the decision makers on the committee.

    INPUT

    • Responsibilities
    • Participants

    OUTPUT

    • RACI documented in the ITSC Charter

    Materials

    • ITSC RACI template
    • Projector

    Participants

    • IT leadership

    Building the agenda may seem trivial, but it is key for running effective meetings

    49% of people consider unfocused meetings as the biggest workplace time waster.*

    63% of the time meetings do not have prepared agendas.*

    80% Reduction of time spent in meetings by following a detailed agenda and starting on time.*

    *(Source: http://visual.ly/fail-plan-plan-fail).

    EFFECTIVE MEETING AGENDAS:

    1. Have clearly defined meeting objectives.
    2. Effectively time-boxed based on priority items.
    3. Defined at least two weeks prior to the meetings.
    4. Evaluated regularly – are not static.
    5. Leave time at the end for new business, thus minimizing interruptions.

    BUILDING A CONSENT AGENDA

    A consent agenda is a tool to free up time at meetings by combining previously discussed or simple items into a single item. Items that can be added to the consent agenda are those that are routine, noncontroversial, or provided for information’s sake only. It is expected that participants read this information and, if it is not pulled out, that they are in agreement with the details.

    Members have the option to pull items out of the consent agenda for discussion if they have questions. Otherwise these are given no time on the agenda.

    Define the IT steering committee meeting agendas and procedures

    1.8

    Agendas

    1. Review the listed responsibilities, participants, and timing as identified in a previous exercise.
    2. Annual meeting: Identify if all of the responsibilities will be included in the annual meeting agenda (likely all governance responsibilities).
    3. Quarterly Meeting Agenda: Remove the meeting responsibilities from the annual meeting agenda that are not required and create a list of responsibilities for the quarterly meetings.
    4. Monthly Meeting Agenda: Remove all responsibilities from the list that are only annual or quarterly and compile a list of monthly meeting responsibilities.
    5. Review each responsibility, and estimate the amount of time each task will take within the meeting. We recommend giving yourself at least an extra 10-20% more time for each agenda item for your first meeting. It’s better to have more time than to run out.
    6. Complete the Agenda Template in the IT Steering Committee Charter.

    Procedures:

    1. Review the list of IT steering committee procedures, and replace the grey text with the information appropriate for your organization.

    INPUT

    • Responsibility cadence

    OUTPUT

    • ITSC annual, quarterly, monthly meeting agendas & procedures

    Materials

    • ITSC Charter

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    Draft your IT steering committee purpose statement and goals

    1.9

    1. In a meeting with your IT leadership team – and considering the defined responsibilities, participants, and opportunities and threats identified – review the example goal statement in the IT Steering Committee Charter, and first identify whether any of these statements apply to your organization. Select the statements that apply and collaboratively make any changes needed.
    2. Define unique goal statements by considering the following questions:
      1. What three things would you realistically list for the ITSC to achieve.
      2. If you were to accomplish three things in the next year, what would those be?
    3. Document those goals in the IT Steering Committee Charter.
    4. With those goal statements in mind, consider the overall purpose of the committee. The purpose statement should be a reflection of what the committee does, why it does it, and the goals.
    5. Have each individual review the example purpose statement, and draft what they think a good purpose statement would be.
    6. Present each statement, and work together to determine a best of breed statement.
    7. Document this in the IT Steering Committee Charter.

    INPUT

    • Responsibilities, participants, top 10 lists of challenges and opportunities.

    OUTPUT

    • ITSC goals and purpose statement

    Materials

    • ITSC Charter

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    CASE STUDY

    "Clearly defined Committee Charter allows CIO to escape the bad reputation of previous committee."

    Industry: Consumer Goods

    Source: Interview

    CHALLENGE

    The new CIO at a large consumer goods company had difficulty generating interest in creating a new IT steering committee. The previous CIO had created a steering committee that was poorly organized and did not involve all of the pertinent members. This led to a committee focused on politics that would often devolve into gossip. Also, many members were dissatisfied with the irregular meetings that would often go over their allotted time.

    In order to create a new committee, the new CIO needed to dispel the misgivings of the business leadership.

    SOLUTION

    The new CIO decided to build the new steering committee from the ground up in a systematic way.

    She collected information from relevant stakeholders about what they know/how they feel about IT and used this information to build a detailed charter.

    Using this info she outlined the new steering committee charter and included in it the:

    1. Purpose
    2. Responsibilities
    3. RACI Chart
    4. Procedures

    OUTCOME

    The new steering committee included all the key members of business units, and each member was clear on their roles in the meetings. Meetings were streamlined and effective. The adjustments in the charter and the improvement in meeting quality played a role in improving the satisfaction scores of business leaders with IT by 21%.

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1

    A screenshot of activity 1.1 is displayed. 1.1 is about surveying your ITSC stakeholders.

    Survey your ITSC stakeholders

    Prior to the workshop, Info-Tech’s advisors will work with you to launch the IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Survey to understand business priorities and level of understanding of how decisions are made. Using this data, we will create the IT steering committee responsibilities, participation, and communication strategy.

    1.7

    A screenshot of activity 1.7 is displayed. 1.7 is about defining a participant RACI for each of the responsibilities.

    Define a participant RACI for each of the responsibilities

    The analyst will facilitate several exercises to help you and your stakeholders create an authority matrix. The output will be defined responsibilities and authorities for members.

    Phase 2

    Build the IT Steering Committee Process

    Phase 2 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 2: Define your ITSC Processes
    Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks

    Review SIPOCs and Process Creation

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review the purpose of the SIPOC and how to build one

    Then complete these activities…

    • Build a draft SIPOC for your organization

    With these tools & templates:

    Phase 2 of the Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee blueprint

    Finalize the SIPOC

    Review Draft SIPOC:

    • Review and make changes to the SIPOC
    • Discuss potential metrics

    Then complete these activities…

    • Test survey link
    • Info-Tech launches survey

    With these tools & templates:

    Phase 2 of the Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee blueprint

    Finalize Metrics

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Finalize metrics

    Then complete these activities…

    • Establish ITSC metric triggers

    With these tools & templates:

    Phase 2 of the Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee blueprint

    Build the IT Steering Committee Process

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Define high-level steering committee processes using SIPOC
    • Select steering committee metrics

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Steering Committee
    • IT Leadership Team
    • PMO

    Key Insight:

    Building high-level IT steering committee processes brings your committee to life. Having a clear process will ensure that you have the right information from the right sources so that committees can operate and deliver the appropriate output to the customers who need it.

    Build your high-level IT steering committee processes to enable committee functionality

    The IT steering committee is only valuable if members are able to successfully execute on responsibilities.

    One of the most common mistakes organizations make is that they build their committee charters and launch into their first meeting. Without defined inputs and outputs, a committee does not have the needed information to be able to effectively execute on responsibilities and is unable to meet its stated goals.

    The arrows in this picture represent the flow of information between the IT steering committee, other committees, and IT management.

    Building high-level processes will define how that information flows within and between committees and will enable more rapid decision making. Participants will have the information they need to be confident in their decisions.

    Strategic IT Steering Committee
    Tactical

    Project Governance Service Governance

    Risk Governance Information Governance

    IT Management
    Operational Risk Task Force

    Define the high-level process for each of the IT steering committee responsibilities

    Info-Tech recommends using SIPOC as a way of defining how the IT steering committee will operate.

    Derived from the core methodologies of Six Sigma process management, SIPOC – a model of Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, Customers – is one of several tools that organizations can use to build high level processes. SIPOC is especially effective when determining process scope and boundaries and to gain consensus on a process.

    By doing so you’ll ensure that:

    1. Information and documentation required to complete each responsibility is identified.
    2. That the results of committee meetings are distributed to those customers who need the information.
    3. Inputs and outputs are identified and that there is defined accountability for providing these.

    Remember: Your IT steering committee is not a working committee. Enable effective decision making by ensuring participants have the necessary information and appropriate recommendations from key stakeholders to make decisions.

    Supplier Input
    Who provides the inputs to the governance responsibility. The documented information, data, or policy required to effectively respond to the responsibility.
    Process
    In this case this represents the IT steering committee responsibility defined in terms of the activity the ITSC is performing.
    Output Customer
    The outcome of the meeting: can be approval, rejection, recommendation, request for additional information, endorsement, etc. Receiver of the outputs from the committee responsibility.

    Define your SIPOC model for each of the IT steering committee responsibilities

    2.1

    1. In a meeting with your IT leadership, draw the SIPOC model on a whiteboard or flip-chart paper. Either review the examples on the following slides or start from scratch.
    2. If you are adjusting the following slides, consider the templates you already have which would be appropriate inputs and make adjustments as needed.

    For atypical responsibilities:

    1. Start with the governance responsibility and identify what specifically it is that the IT steering committee is doing with regards to that responsibility. Write that in the center of the model.
    2. As a group, consider what information or documentation would be required by the participants to effectively execute on the responsibility.
    3. Identify which individual will supply each piece of documentation. This person will be accountable for this moving forward.
    4. Outputs: Once the committee has met about the responsibility, what information or documentation will be produced. List all of those documents.
    5. Identify the individuals who need to receive the outputs of the information.
    6. Repeat this for all of the responsibilities.
    7. Once complete, document the SIPOC models in the IT Steering Committee Charter.

    INPUT

    • List of responsibilities
    • Example SIPOCs

    OUTPUT

    • SIPOC model for all responsibilities.

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers
    • ITSC Charter

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    SIPOC examples for typical ITSC responsibilities

    SIPOC: Establish the target investment mix
    Supplier Input
    CIO
    • Target investment mix and rationale
    Process
    Responsibility: The IT steering committee shall review and approve the target investment mix.
    Output Customer
    • Approval of target investment mix
    • Rejection of target investment mix
    • Request for additional information
    • CFO
    • CIO
    • IT leadership
    SIPOC: Endorse the IT budget
    Supplier Input
    CIO
    • Recommendations

    See Info-Tech’s blueprint IT Budget Presentation

    Process

    Responsibility: Review the proposed IT budget as defined by the CIO and CFO.

    Output Customer
    • Signed endorsement of the IT budget
    • Request for additional information
    • Recommendation for changes to the IT budget.
    • CFO
    • CIO
    • IT leadership

    SIPOC examples for typical ITSC responsibilities

    SIPOC: Monitor IT value metrics
    Supplier Input
    CIO
    • IT value dashboard
    • Key metric takeaways
    • Recommendations
    CIO Business Vision
    Process

    Responsibility: Review recommendations and either accept or reject recommendations. Refine go-forward metrics.

    Output Customer
    • Launch corrective task force
    • Accept recommendations
    • Define target metrics
    • CEO
    • CFO
    • Business executives
    • CIO
    • IT leadership
    SIPOC: Evaluate and select programs/projects to fund
    Supplier Input
    PMO
    • Recommended project list
    • Project intake documents
    • Prioritization criteria
    • Capacity metrics
    • IT budget

    See Info-Tech’s blueprint

    Grow Your Own PPM Solution
    Process

    Responsibility: The ITSC will approve the list of projects to fund based on defined prioritization criteria – in line with capacity and IT budget.

    It is also responsible for identifying the prioritization criteria in line with organizational priorities.

    Output Customer
    • Approved project list
    • Request for additional information
    • Recommendation for increased resources
    • PMO
    • CIO
    • Project sponsors

    SIPOC examples for typical ITSC responsibilities

    SIPOC: Endorse the IT strategy
    Supplier Input
    CIO
    • IT strategy presentation

    See Info-Tech’s blueprint

    IT Strategy and Roadmap
    Process

    Responsibility: Review, understand, and endorse the IT strategy.

    Output Customer
    • Signed endorsement of the IT strategy
    • Recommendations for adjustments
    • CEO
    • CFO
    • Business executives
    • IT leadership
    SIPOC: Monitor project management metrics
    Supplier Input
    PMO
    • Project metrics report with recommendations
    Process

    Responsibility: Review recommendations around PM metrics and define target metrics. Endorse current effectiveness levels or determine corrective action.

    Output Customer
    • Accept project metrics performance
    • Accept recommendations
    • Launch corrective task force
    • Define target metrics
    • PMO
    • Business executives
    • IT leadership

    SIPOC examples for typical ITSC responsibilities

    SIPOC: Approve launch of planned and unplanned project
    Supplier Input
    CIO
    • Project list and recommendations
    • Resourcing report
    • Project intake document

    See Info-Tech’s Blueprint:

    Grow Your Own PPM Solution
    Process

    Responsibility: Review the list of projects and approve the launch or reprioritization of projects.

    Output Customer
    • Approved launch of projects
    • Recommendations for changes to project list
    • CFO
    • CIO
    • IT leadership
    SIPOC: Monitor stakeholder satisfaction with services and other service metrics
    Supplier Input
    Service Manager
    • Service metrics report with recommendations
    Info-Tech End User Satisfaction Report
    Process

    Responsibility: Review recommendations around service metrics and define target metrics. Endorse current effectiveness levels or determine corrective action.

    Output Customer
    • Accept service level performance
    • Accept recommendations
    • Launch corrective task force
    • Define target metrics
    • Service manager
    • Business executives
    • IT leadership

    SIPOC examples for typical ITSC responsibilities

    SIPOC: Approve plans for new or changed service requirements
    Supplier Input
    Service Manager
    • Service change request
    • Project request and change plan
    Process

    Responsibility: Review IT recommendations, approve changes, and communicate those to staff.

    Output Customer
    • Approved service changes
    • Rejected service changes
    • Service manager
    • Organizational staff
    SIPOC: Monitor risk management metrics
    Supplier Input
    CIO
    • Risk metrics report with recommendations
    Process

    Responsibility: Review recommendations around risk metrics and define target metrics. Endorse current effectiveness levels or determine corrective action.

    Output Customer
    • Accept risk register and mitigation strategy
    • Launch corrective task force to address risks
    • Risk manager
    • Business executives
    • IT leadership

    SIPOC examples for typical ITSC responsibilities

    SIPOC: Review the prioritized list of risks
    Supplier Input
    Risk Manager
    • Risk register
    • Mitigation strategies
    See Info-Tech’s risk management research to build a holistic risk strategy.
    Process

    Responsibility: Accept the risk registrar and define any additional action required.

    Output Customer
    • Accept risk register and mitigation strategy
    • Launch corrective task force to address risks
    • Risk manager
    • IT leadership
    • CRO
    SIPOC: Define information lifecycle process ownership
    Supplier Input
    CIO
    • List of risk owner options with recommendations
    See Info-Tech’s related blueprint: Information Lifecycle Management
    Process

    Responsibility: Define responsibility and accountability for information lifecycle ownership.

    Output Customer
    • Defined information lifecycle owner
    • Organization wide.

    SIPOC examples for typical ITSC responsibilities

    SIPOC: Monitor information lifecycle metrics
    Supplier Input
    Information lifecycle owner
    • Information metrics report with recommendations
    Process

    Responsibility: Review recommendations around information management metrics and define target metrics. Endorse current effectiveness levels or determine corrective action.

    Output Customer
    • Accept information management performance
    • Accept recommendations
    • Launch corrective task force to address challenges
    • Define target metrics
    • IT leadership

    Define which metrics you will report to the IT steering committee

    2.2

    1. Consider your IT steering committee goals and the five IT governance areas.
    2. For each governance area, identify which metrics you are currently tracking and determine whether these metrics are valuable to IT, to the business, or both. For metrics that are valuable to business stakeholders determine whether you have an identified target metric.

    New Metrics:

    1. For each of the five IT governance areas review your SWOT analysis and document your key opportunities and weaknesses.
    2. For each, brainstorm hypotheses around why the opportunity was weak or was a success. For each hypothesis identify if there are any clear ways to measure and test the hypothesis.
    3. Review the list of metrics and select 5-7 metrics to track for each prioritized governance area.

    INPUT

    • List of responsibilities
    • Example SIPOCs

    OUTPUT

    • SIPOC model for all responsibilities

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    IT steering committee metric triggers to consider

    RISK

    • Risk profile % increase
    • # of actionable risks outstanding
    • # of issues arising not identified prior
    • # of security breaches

    SERVICE

    • Number of business disruptions due to IT service incidents
    • Number of service requests by department
    • Number of service requests that are actually projects
    • Causes of tickets overall and by department
    • Percentage of duration attributed to waiting for client response

    PROJECTS

    • Projects completed within budget
    • Percentage of projects delivered on time
    • Project completion rate
    • IT completed assigned portion to scope
    • Project status and trend dashboard

    INFORMATION / DATA

    • % of data properly classified
    • # of incidents locating data
    • # of report requests by complexity
    • # of open data sets

    PPM /INVESTMENTS

    • CIO Business Vision (an Info-Tech diagnostic survey that helps align IT strategy with business goals)
    • Level of stakeholder satisfaction and perceived value
    • Percentage of ON vs. OFF cycle projects by area/silo
    • Realized benefit to business units based on investment mix
    • Percent of enterprise strategic goals and requirements supported by strategic goals
    • Target vs. actual budget
    • Reasons for off-cycle projects causing delays to planned projects

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Consumer Goods

    Source: Interview

    "IT steering committee’s reputation greatly improved by clearly defining its process."

    CHALLENGE

    One of the major failings of the previous steering committee was its poorly drafted procedures. Members of the committee were unclear on the overall process and the meeting schedule was not well established.

    This led to low attendance at the meetings and ineffective meetings overall. Since the meeting procedures weren’t well understood, some members of the leadership team took advantage of this to get their projects pushed through.

    SOLUTION

    The first step the new CIO took was to clearly outline the meeting procedures in her new steering committee charter. The meeting agenda, meeting goals, length of time, and outcomes were outlined, and the stakeholders signed off on their participation.

    She also gave the participants a SIPOC, which helped members who were unfamiliar with the process a high-level overview. It also reacquainted previous members with the process and outlined changes to the previous, out-of-date processes.

    OUTCOME

    The participation rate in the committee meetings improved from the previous rate of approximately 40% to 90%. The committee members were much more satisfied with the new process and felt like their contributions were appreciated more than before.

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    An image of an Info-Tech analyst is depicted.

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1

    A screenshot of activity 2.1 is depicted. Activity 2.1 is about defining a SIPOC for each of the ITSC responsibilities.

    Define a SIPOC for each of the ITSC responsibilities

    Create SIPOCs for each of the governance responsibilities with the help of an Info-Tech advisor.

    2.2

    A screenshot of activity 2.2 is depicted. Activity 2.2 is about establishing the reporting metrics for the ITSC.

    Establish the reporting metrics for the ITSC

    The analyst will facilitate several exercises to help you and your stakeholders define the reporting metrics for the ITSC.

    Phase 3

    Build the Stakeholder Presentation

    Phase 3 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 3: Build the Stakeholder Presentation
    Proposed Time to Completion: 1 week

    Customize the Presentation

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review the IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation with an analyst

    Then complete these activities…

    • Schedule the first meeting and invite the ITSC members
    • Customize the presentation template

    With these tools & templates:

    IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation


    Review and Practice the Presentation

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review the changes made to the template
    • Practice the presentation and create a script

    Then complete these activities…

    • Hold the ITSC meeting

    With these tools & templates:

    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation
    Review the First ITSC Meeting

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Review the outcomes of the first ITSC meeting and plan out the next steps

    Then complete these activities…

    • Review the discussion and plan next steps

    With these tools & templates:

    Establish an Effective IT Steering Committee blueprint

    Build the Stakeholder Presentation

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Organizing the first ITSC meeting
    • Customizing an ITSC stakeholder presentation
    • Determine ITSC responsibilities and participants
    • Determine ITSC procedures

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Steering Committee
    • IT Leadership Team
    • PMO

    Key Insight:

    Stakeholder engagement will be critical to your ITSC success, don't just focus on what is changing. Ensure stakeholders know why you are engaging them and how it will help them in their role.

    Hold a kick-off meeting with your IT steering committee members to explain the process, responsibilities, and goals

    3.1

    Don’t take on too much in your first IT steering committee meeting. Many participants may not have participated in an IT steering committee before, or some may have had poor experiences in the past.

    Use this meeting to explain the role of the IT steering committee and why you are implementing one, and help participants to understand their role in the process.

    Quickly customize Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template to explain the goals and benefits of the IT steering committee, and use your own data to make the case for governance.

    At the end of the meeting, ask committee members to sign the committee charter to signify their agreement to participate in the IT steering committee.

    A screenshot of IT Steering Committee: Meeting 1 is depicted. A screenshot of the IT Steering Committee Challenges and Opportunities for the organization.

    Tailor the IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template: slides 1-5

    3.2 Estimated Time: 10 minutes

    Review the IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template. This document should be presented at the first IT steering committee meeting by the assigned Committee Chair.

    Customization Options

    Overall: Decide if you would like to change the presentation template. You can change the color scheme easily by copying the slides in the presentation deck and pasting them into your company’s standard template. Once you’ve pasted them in, scan through the slides and make any additional changes needed to formatting.

    Slide 2-3: Review the text on each of the slides and see if any wording should be changed to better suite your organization.

    Slide 4: Review your list of the top 10 challenges and opportunities as defined in section 2 of this blueprint. Document those in the appropriate sections. (Note: be careful that the language is business-facing; challenges and opportunities should be professionally worded.)

    Slide 5: Review the language on slide 5 to make any necessary changes to suite your organization. Changes here should be minimal.

    INPUT

    • Top 10 list
    • Survey report
    • ITSC Charter

    OUTPUT

    • Ready-to-present presentation for defined stakeholders

    Materials

    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation

    Participants

    • IT Steering Committee Chair/CIO

    Tailor the IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template: slides 6-10

    3.2 Estimated Time: 10 minutes

    Customization Options

    Slide 6: The goal of this slide is to document and share the names of the participants on the IT steering committee. Document the names in the right-hand side based on your IT Steering Committee Charter.

    Slides 7-9:

    • Review the agenda items as listed in your IT Steering Committee Charter. Document the annual, quarterly, and monthly meeting responsibilities on the left-hand side of slides 7-9.
    • Meeting Participants: For each slide, list the members who are required for that meeting.
    • Document the key required reading materials as identified in the SIPOC charts under “inputs.”
    • Document the key meeting outcomes as identified in the SIPOC chart under “outputs.”

    Slide 10: Review and understand the rollout timeline. Make any changes needed to the timeline.

    INPUT

    • Top 10 list
    • Survey report
    • ITSC Charter

    OUTPUT

    • Ready-to-present presentation for defined stakeholders

    Materials

    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation

    Participants

    • IT Steering Committee Chair/CIO

    Present the information to the IT leadership team to increase your comfort with the material

    3.3 Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    1. Once you have finished customizing the IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation, practice presenting the material by meeting with your IT leadership team. This will help you become more comfortable with the dialog and anticipate any questions that might arise.
    2. The ITSC chair will present the meeting deck, and all parties should discuss what they think went well and opportunities for improvement.
    3. Each business relationship manager should document the needed changes in preparation for their first meeting.

    INPUT

    • IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation - Meeting 1

    Participants

    • IT leadership team

    Schedule your first meeting of the IT steering committee

    3.4

    By this point, you should have customized the meeting presentation deck and be ready to meet with your IT steering committee participants.

    The meeting should be one hour in duration and completed in person.

    Before holding the meeting, identify who you think is going to be most supportive and who will be least. Consider meeting with those individuals independently prior to the group meeting to elicit support or minimize negative impacts on the meeting.

    Customize this calendar invite script to invite business partners to participate in the meeting.

    Hello [Name],

    As you may have heard, we recently went through an exercise to develop an IT steering committee. I’d like to take some time to discuss the results of this work with you, and discuss ways in which we can work together in the future to better enable corporate goals.

    The goals of the meeting are:

    1. Discuss the benefits of an IT steering committee
    2. Review the results of the organizational survey
    3. Introduce you to our new IT steering committee

    I look forward to starting this discussion with you and working with you more closely in the future.

    Warm regards,

    CASE STUDY

    Industry:Consumer Goods

    Source: Interview

    "CIO gains buy-in from the company by presenting the new committee to its stakeholders."

    CHALLENGE

    Communication was one of the biggest steering committee challenges that the new CIO inherited.

    Members were resistant to joining/rejoining the committee because of its previous failures. When the new CIO was building the steering committee, she surveyed the members on their knowledge of IT as well as what they felt their role in the committee entailed.

    She found that member understanding was lacking and that their knowledge surrounding their roles was very inconsistent.

    SOLUTION

    The CIO dedicated their first steering committee meeting to presenting the results of that survey to align member knowledge.

    She outlined the new charter and discussed the roles of each member, the goals of the committee, and the overarching process.

    OUTCOME

    Members of the new committee were now aligned in terms of the steering committee’s goals. Taking time to thoroughly outline the procedures during the first meeting led to much higher member engagement. It also built accountability within the committee since all members were present and all members had the same level of knowledge surrounding the roles of the ITSC.

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1

    A screenshot of Activity 3.1 is depicted. Activity 3.1 is about creating a presentation for ITSC stakeholders to be presented at the first ITSC meeting.

    Create a presentation for ITSC stakeholders to be presented at the first ITSC meeting

    Work with an Info-Tech advisor to customize our IT Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template. Use this presentation to gain stakeholder buy-in by making the case for an ITSC.

    Phase 4

    Define the Prioritization Criteria

    Phase 4 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation : Define the Prioritization Criteria
    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Discuss Prioritization Criteria

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review sample project prioritization criteria and discuss criteria unique to your organization

    Then complete these activities...

    • Select the criteria that would be most effective for your organization
    • Input these into the tool

    With these tools & templates:

    IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    Customize the IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review changes made to the tool
    • Finalize criteria weighting

    Then complete these activities…

    • Pilot test the tool using projects from the previous year

    With these tools & templates:

    IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    Review Results of the Pilot Test

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Review the results of the pilot test
    • Make changes to the tool

    Then complete these activities…

    • Input your current project portfolio into the prioritization tool

    With these tools & templates:

    IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    Define the Project Prioritization Criteria

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Selecting the appropriate project prioritization criteria for your organization
    • Developing weightings for the prioritization criteria
    • Filling in Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Steering Committee
    • IT Leadership Team
    • PMO

    Key Insight:

    The steering committee sets and agrees to principles that guide prioritization decisions. The agreed upon principles will affect business unit expectations and justify the deferral of requests that are low priority. In some cases, we have seen the number of requests drop substantially because business units are reluctant to propose initiatives that do not fit high prioritization criteria.

    Understand the role of the IT steering committee in project prioritization

    One of the key roles of the IT steering committee is to review and prioritize the portfolio of IT projects.

    What is the prioritization based on? Info-Tech recommends selecting four broad criteria with two dimensions under each to evaluate the value of the projects. The criteria are aligned with how the project generates value for the organization and the execution of the project.

    What is the role of the steering committee in prioritizing projects? The steering committee is responsible for reviewing project criteria scores and making decisions about where projects rank on the priority list. Planning, resourcing, and project management are the responsibility of the PMO or the project owner.

    Info-Tech’s Sample Criteria

    Value

    Strategic Alignment: How much a project supports the strategic goals of the organization.

    Customer Satisfaction: The impact of the project on customers and how visible a project will be with customers.

    Operational Alignment: Whether the project will address operational issues or compliance.

    Execution

    Financial: Predicted ROI and cost containment strategies.

    Risk: Involved with not completing projects and strategies to mitigate it.

    Feasibility: How easy the project is to complete and whether staffing resources exist.

    Use Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool to catalog and prioritize your project portfolio

    4.1

    • Use Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool in conjunction with the following activities to catalog and prioritize all of the current IT projects in your portfolio.
    • Assign weightings to your selected criteria to prioritize projects based on objective scores assigned during the intake process and adjust these weightings on an annual basis to align with changing organizational priorities and goals.
    • Use this tool at steering committee meetings to streamline the prioritization process and create alignment with the PMO and project managers.
    • Monitor ongoing project status and build a communication channel between the PMO and project managers and the IT steering committee.
    • Adjusting the titles in the Settings tab will automatically adjust the titles in the Project Data tab.
    • Note: To customize titles in the document you must unprotect the content under the View tab. Be sure to change the content back to protected after making the changes.
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool is depicted. The first page of the tool is shown. A screenshot of Info-Tech's IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool is depicted. The page depicted is on the Intake and Prioritization Tool Settings.

    Establish project prioritization criteria and build the matrix

    4.2 Estimated Time: 1 hour

    1. During the second steering committee meeting, discuss the criteria you will be basing your project prioritization scoring on.
    2. Review Info-Tech’s prioritization criteria matrix, located in the Prioritization Criteria List tab of the IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool, to gain ideas for what criteria would best suit your organization.
    3. Write these main criteria on the whiteboard and brainstorm criteria that are more specific for your organization; include these on the list as well.
    4. Discuss the criteria. Eliminate criteria that won’t contribute strongly to the prioritization process and vote on the remaining. Select four main criteria from the list.
    5. After selecting the four main criteria, write these on the whiteboard and brainstorm the dimensions that fall under the criteria. These should be more specific/measurable aspects of the criteria. These will be the statements that values are assigned to for prioritizing projects so they should be clear. Use the Prioritization Criteria List in the tool to help generate ideas.
    6. After creating the dimensions, determine what the scoring statements will be. These are the statements that will be used to determine the score out of 10 that the different dimensions will receive.
    7. Adjust the Settings and Project Data tabs in the IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool to reflect your selections.
    8. Edit Info-Tech’s IT Project Intake Form or the intake form that you currently use to contain these criteria and scoring parameters.

    INPUT

    • Group input
    • IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    OUTPUT

    • Project prioritization criteria to be used for current and future projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard and markers

    Participants

    • IT steering committee
    • CIO
    • IT leadership

    Adjust prioritization criteria weightings to reflect organizational needs

    4.3 Estimated Time: 1 hour

    1. In the second steering committee meeting, after deciding what the project prioritization criteria will be, you need to determine how much weight (the importance) each criteria will receive.
    2. Use the four agreed upon criteria with two dimensions each, determined in the previous activity.
    3. Perform a $100 test to assign proportions to each of the criteria dimensions.
      1. Divide the committee into pairs.
      2. Tell each pair that they have $100 divide among the 4 major criteria based on how important they feel the criteria is.
      3. After dividing the initial $100, ask them to divide the amount they allocated to each criteria into the two sub-dimensions.
      4. Next, ask them to present their reasoning for the allocations to the rest of the committee.
      5. Discuss the weighting allotments and vote on the best one (or combination).
      6. Input the weightings in the Settings tab of the IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool and document the discussion.
    4. After customizing the chart establish the owner of the document. This person should be a member of the PMO or the most suitable IT leader if a PMO doesn’t exist.
    5. Only perform this adjustment annually or if a major strategic change happens within the organization.

    INPUT

    • Group discussion

    OUTPUT

    • Agreed upon criteria weighting
    • Complete prioritization tool

    Materials

    • IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool
    • Whiteboard and sticky notes

    Participants

    • IT steering committee
    • IT leadership

    Document the prioritization criteria weightings in Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool.

    Configure the prioritization tool to align your portfolio with business strategy

    4.4 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Project Intake and Prioritization Tool.

    Rank: Project ranking will dynamically update relative to your portfolio capacity (established in Settings tab) and the Size, Scoring Progress, Remove from Ranking, and Overall Score columns. The projects in green represent top priorities based on these inputs, while yellow projects warrant additional consideration should capacity permit.

    Scoring Progress: You will be able to determine some items on the scorecard earlier in the scoring progress (such as strategic and operational alignment). As you fill in scoring columns on the Project Data tab, the Scoring Progress column will dynamically update to track progress.

    The Overall Score will update automatically as you complete the scoring columns (refer to Activity 4.2).

    Days in Backlog: This column will help with backlog management, automatically tracking the number of days since an item was added to the list based on day added and current date.

    Validate your new prioritization criteria using previous projects

    4.5 Estimated Time: 2 hours

    1. After deciding on the prioritization criteria, you need to test their validity.
    2. Look at the portfolio of projects that were completed in the previous year.
    3. Go through each project and score it according to the criteria that were determined in the previous exercise.
    4. Enter the scores and appropriate weighting (according to goals/strategy of the previous year) into the IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool.
    5. Look at the prioritization given to the projects in reference to how they were previously prioritized.
    6. Adjust the criteria and weighting to either align the new prioritization criteria with previous criteria or to align with desired outcomes.
    7. After scoring the old projects, pilot test the tool with upcoming projects.

    INPUT

    • Information on previous year’s projects
    • Group discussion

    OUTPUT

    • Pilot tested project prioritization criteria

    Materials

    • IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    Participants

    • IT steering committee
    • IT leadership
    • PMO

    Pilot the scorecard to validate criteria and weightings

    4.6 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    1. Pilot your criteria and weightings in the IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool using project data from one or two projects currently going through approval process.
    2. For most projects, you will be able to determine strategic and operational alignment early in the scoring process, while the feasibility and financial requirements will come later during business case development. Score each column as you can. The tool will automatically track your progress in the Scoring Progress column on the Project Data tab.

    Projects that are scored but not prioritized will populate the portfolio backlog. Items in the backlog will need to be rescored periodically, as circumstances can change, impacting scores. Factors necessitating rescoring can include:

    • Assumptions in business case have changed.
    • Organizational change – e.g. a new CEO or a change in strategic objectives.
    • Major emergencies or disruptions – e.g. a security breach.

    Score projects using the Project Data tab in Info-Tech’s IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's <em data-verified=IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool is depicted. The Data Tab is shown.">

    Use Info-Tech’s IT Project Intake Form to streamline the project prioritization and approval process

    4.7

    • Use Info-Tech’s IT Project Intake Form template to streamline the project intake and prioritization process.
    • Customize the chart on page 2 to include the prioritization criteria that were selected during this phase of the blueprint.
    • Including the prioritization criteria at the project intake phase will free up a lot of time for the steering committee. It will be their job to verify that the criteria scores are accurate.
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's IT Project Intake Form is depicted.

    After prioritizing and selecting your projects, determine how they will be resourced

    Consult these Info-Tech blueprints on project portfolio management to create effective portfolio project management resourcing processes.

    A Screenshot of Info-Tech's Create Project Management Success Blueprint is depicted. Create Project Management Success A Screenshot of Info-Tech's Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy Blueprint is depicted. Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Consumer Goods

    Source: Interview

    "Clear project intake and prioritization criteria allow for the new committee to make objective priority decisions."

    CHALLENGE

    One of the biggest problems that the previous steering committee at the company had was that their project intake and prioritization process was not consistent. Projects were being prioritized based on politics and managers taking advantage of the system.

    The procedure was not formalized so there were no objective criteria on which to weigh the value of proposed projects. In addition to poor meeting attendance, this led to the overall process being very inconsistent.

    SOLUTION

    The new CIO, with consultation from the newly formed committee, drafted a set of criteria that focused on the value and execution of their project portfolio. These criteria were included on their intake forms to streamline the rating process.

    All of the project scores are now reviewed by the steering committee, and they are able to facilitate the prioritization process more easily.

    The objective criteria process also helped to prevent managers from taking advantage of the prioritization process to push self-serving projects through.

    OUTCOME

    This was seen as a contributor to the increase in satisfaction scores for IT, which improved by 12% overall.

    The new streamlined process helped to reduce capacity constraints on IT, and it alerted the company to the need for more IT employees to help reduce these constraints further. The IT department was given permission to hire two new additional staff members.

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    4.1

    A screenshot of activity 4.1 is depicted. Activity 4.1 was about defining your prioritization criteria and customize our <em data-verified=IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool.">

    Define your prioritization criteria and customize our IT Steering Committee Project Prioritization Tool

    With the help of Info-Tech advisors, create criteria for determining a project’s priority. Customize the tool to reflect the criteria and their weighting. Run pilot tests of the tool to verify the criteria and enter your current project portfolio.

    Research contributors and experts

    • Andy Lomasky, Manager, Technology & Management Consulting, McGladrey LLP
    • Angie Embree, CIO, Best Friends Animal Society
    • Corinne Bell, CTO and Director of IT Services, Landmark College
    • John Hanskenecht, Director of Technology, University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy
    • Lori Baker, CIO, Village of Northbrook
    • Lynne Allard, IT Supervisor, Nipissing Parry Sound Catholic School Board
    • Norman Allen, Senior IT Manager, Baker Tilly
    • Paul Martinello, VP, IT Services, Cambridge and North Dumfries Hydro Inc.
    • Renee Martinez, IT Director/CIO, City of Santa Fe
    • Sam Wong, Director, IT, Seneca College
    • Suzanne Barnes, Director, Information Systems, Pathfinder International
    • Walt Joyce, CTO, Peoples Bank

    Appendices

    GOVERNANCE & ITSC & IT Management

    Organizations often blur the line between governance and management, resulting in the business having say over the wrong things. Understand the differences and make sure both groups understand their role.

    The ITSC is the most senior body within the IT governance structure, involving key business executives and focusing on critical strategic decisions impacting the whole organization.

    Within a holistic governance structure, organizations may have additional committees that evaluate, direct, and monitor key decisions at a more tactical level and report into the ITSC.

    These committees require specialized knowledge and are implemented to meet specific organizational needs. Those operational committees may spark a tactical task force to act on specific needs.

    IT management is responsible for executing on, running, and monitoring strategic activities as determined by IT governance.

    Strategic IT Steering Committee
    Tactical

    Project Governance Service Governance

    Risk Governance Information Governance

    IT Management
    Operational Risk Task Force

    This blueprint focuses exclusively on building the IT Steering committee. For more information on IT governance see Info-Tech’s related blueprint: Tailor an IT Governance Plan to Fit Organizational Needs.

    IT steering committees play an important role in IT governance

    By bucketing responsibilities into these areas, you’ll be able to account for most key IT decisions and help the business to understand their role in governance, fostering ownership and joint accountability.

    The five governance areas are:

    Governance of the IT Portfolio and Investments: Ensures that funding and resources are systematically allocated to the priority projects that deliver value.

    Governance of Projects: Ensures that IT projects deliver the expected value, and that the PM methodology is measured and effective.

    Governance of Risks: Ensures the organization’s ability to assess and deliver IT projects and services with acceptable risk.

    Governance of Services: Ensures that IT delivers the required services at the acceptable performance levels.

    Governance of Information and Data: Ensures the appropriate classification and retention of data based on business need.

    A survey of stakeholders identified a need for increased stakeholder involvement and transparency in decision making

    A bar graph is depicted. The title is: I understand how decisions are made in the following areas. The areas include risk, services, projects, portfolio, and information. A circle graph is depicted. The title is: Do IT decisions involve the right people?

    Overall, survey respondents indicated a lack of understanding about how decisions are made around risk, services, projects, and investments, and that business involvement in decision making was too minimal.

    Satisfaction with decision quality around investments and PPM are uneven and largely not well understood

    72% of stakeholders do not understand how decisions around IT services are made (quality, availability, etc.).

    A bar graph is depicted. The title is: How satisfied are you with the quality of decisions and transparency around IT services? A bar graph is depicted. Title of the graph: IT decisions around service delivery and quality involve the right people?

    Overall, services were ranked #1 in importance of the 5 areas

    62% of stakeholders do not understand how decisions around IT services are made (quality, availability, etc.).

    A bar graph is depicted. The title is: How satisfied are you with the quality of decisions and transparency around IT services? A bar graph is depicted. Title of the graph: IT decisions around service delivery and quality involve the right people?

    Projects ranked as one of the areas with which participants are most satisfied with the quality of decisions

    70% of stakeholders do not understand how decisions around projects selection, success, and changes are made.

    A bar graph is depicted. The title is: How satisfied are you with the quality of decisions and transparency around IT services? A bar graph is depicted. The title is: IT decisions around project changes, delays, and metrics involve the right people?

    Stakeholders are largely unaware of how decisions around risk are made and believe business participation needs to increase

    78% of stakeholders do not understand how decisions around risk are made

    A bar graph is depicted. The title is: How satisfied are you with the quality of decisions made around risk? A bar graph is depicted. The title is: IT decisions around acceptable risk involve the right people?

    The majority of stakeholders believe that they are aware of how decisions around information are made

    67% of stakeholders believe they do understand how decisions around information (data) retention and classification are made.

    A bar graph is depicted. The title is: How satisfied are you with the quality of decisions around information governance? A bar graph is depicted. The title is: IT decisions around information retention and classification involve the right people?

    Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
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    IT is being challenged to change how it operates to better support evolving organizations by:

    • Considering the needs of customers, end users, and organizational stakeholders simultaneously.
    • Leveraging resources strategically to support the various IT and digital services being offered.
    • Creating a digital services enablement office that can design, monitor, and continuously enhance services.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The role of IT is changing, and with that, how IT needs to operate to deliver value is also changing. Don’t get left behind with an irrelevant IT operating model.
    • Elevate your reputation as a leader beyond the CIO role. Mature your organization’s digital services by considering the customer experience first.
    • As recessions, disasters, and pandemics hit, don’t adopt old ways of operating with 2008 centralized models. Embrace a hybrid IT where value sets your organization apart.

    Impact and Result

    • Embrace the Exponential IT Operating Model so you can:
      • Say “yes” to stakeholders trying to provide a better experience for customers and consumers.
      • Leverage data more effectively across your organization.
      • Consider how to integrate and deliver services using resources effectively and strategically.

    Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model Research & Tools

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

    1. Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model Deck – The next generation operating model for organizations embracing exponential IT.

    This research piece is for any IT leaders looking to support the organization in its post-transformation state by focusing on the customer experience when operating. CIOs struggling with outdated IT operating models can demonstrate true partnership with this digital services next-generation IT operating model.

    • Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model Storyboard

    2. Exponential IT Operating Model Readiness Assessment – A tool to assess your organization’s readiness to adopt this next generation of IT operating models.

    Use this tool to determine whether your organization has the fundamental components necessary to support the adoption of an Exponential IT operating model.

    • Exponential IT Operating Model Readiness Assessment

    3. Career Vision Roadmap Tool – A template to create a simple visual roadmap of your desired career progression from CIO to chief digital services officer (CDSO).

    Use this template to create a roadmap on how to transform your career from CIO to CDSO leveraging key strengths and relationships. Focus on opportunities to demonstrate IT’s maturity and the customer experience at the forefront of your decisions.

    • Career Vision Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model

    The operating model for organizations embracing Exponential IT and transforming into technology-first enterprises.

    Analyst Perspective

    Be the organization that can thrive in an exponential IT world.

    A picture of Carlene McCubbin A picture of Brittany Lutes

    Carlene McCubbin
    Research Practice Lead
    CIO Organizational
    Transformation Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Brittany Lutes
    Research Director,
    CIO Organization Transformation Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    IT leaders are increasingly expected to be responsible for understanding and delivering high-value customer experiences. This evolution depends on the distribution and oversight of IT capabilities that are embedded throughout the organizational structure.

    Defining digital strategic objectives, establishing governance frameworks for an autonomous culture, and enabling the organization to act on insightful data are all impossible without a new way of operating that involves the oversight and accountability of advancing IT roles. Through exponential change, functional groups can lose clarity regarding their responsibilities, creating a sense of ambiguity and disorder.

    But adopting a new way of working that supports an exponential IT organization does not have to be difficult. Leveraging Info-Tech Research Group's next-generation operating model, you can clearly demonstrate how the organization will collaborate to deliver on the various digital and IT services. This is no longer just an IT operating model, but a technology-first enterprise model.

    Included in this blueprint:

    Exponential IT Model

    Defines how the Exponential IT model operates and delivers value to the organization.
    This is done by exploring:

    • Exponential IT cultural norms and behaviors
    • Opportunities and risks of the Exponential IT model
    • A breakdown of the embedded, integrated, and centralized aspects of the model
    • Operating model value stream stages
    • An assessment on whether the Exponential IT operating model is right for your organization

    Changing Role of IT Leader

    Defines how chief information officers (CIOs) can operate or elevate their role in this changing operating model.

    • Identifies why the C-suite is changing – again
    • How IT leaders should consider where they will add value in the new operating model
    • Outlines examples of future organization-wide structures and where IT roles are positioned
    • Supports IT leaders in developing themselves to operate in this structure

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    IT is challenged to change how it operates to better support evolving organizations. IT must:

    • Consider the needs of customers, end users, and organization stakeholders simultaneously.
    • Leverage resources strategically to support the various IT and digital services being offered.
    • Create a digital services enablement office to design, monitor, and enhance services continuously.

    While many organizations have projects that support a digital strategy, few have an operating model that supports this digital services strategy.

    Common Obstacles

    Organizations struggle to support the definition and ongoing maintenance of services because:

    • The organization's Digital and IT services offerings are not clear.
    • The functional team accountable to deliver on each IT or Digital service is ambiguous.
    • There are insufficient resources to support all the IT and Digital services being offered.
    • C-suite leaders required to support the services are missing or in the wrong role to effectively lead.
    • Technology has not been standardized to ensure consistency and effectiveness.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Embrace the IT operating model that focuses on the enablement and delivery of Digital and IT services by:

    • Having technology stakeholders actively collaborate to decide on priorities and deliver on objectives.
    • Leveraging data more effectively across the organization to understand and meet user needs.
    • Ensuring technology architecture and security standards are well-established and followed by all throughout the organization.
    • Allocating dedicated and skilled resources to ensure services can be continuously delivered.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The first IT operating model where customer engagement with IT and Digital Services is at the forefront.

    What is an operating model?

    An IT operating model is a visual representation of the way your IT organization will function using a clear and coherent blueprint. This visualization demonstrates how capabilities are organized and aligned to deliver on the business mission and strategic and technological objectives.

    The should visualize the optimization and alignment of the IT organization to deliver the capabilities required to achieve business goals. Additionally, it should demonstrate the workflow so key stakeholders can understand where inputs flow in and outputs flow out of the IT organization. Investing time in the front-end to get the operating model right is critical. This will give you a framework to rationalize future organizational changes, allowing you to be more iterative and your model to change as the business changes.

    An image of a sample Operating Model


    From computerization to digitization to the new frontier in autonomization, IT has progressively matured, enabling it to actively lead this next stage of business transformation.

    EXPONENTIAL RISK
    Autonomous processes will integrate with human-led processes, creating risks to business continuity, information security, and quality of delivery. Supplier power will exacerbate business risks.

    EXPONENTIAL REWARD
    The efficiency gains and new value chains created through artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and additive manufacturing will be very significant. Most of this value will be realized through the augmentation of human labor.

    EXPONENTIAL DEMAND
    Autonomous solutions for productivity and back-office applications will eventually become commoditized and provided by a handful of large vendors. There will, however, be a proliferation of in-house algorithms and workflows to autonomize the middle and front office, offered by a busy landscape of industry-centric capability vendors.

    EXPONENTIAL IT

    Exponential IT involves IT leading the cognitive re-engineering of the organization with evolved practices for:

    • IT governance
    • Asset management
    • Vendor management
    • Data management
    • Business continuity management
    • Information security management

    To learn more about IT's journey into autonomization, check out Info-Tech Research Group's Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset blueprint.

    The IT operating model must evolve to respond to exponential change

    • Ensuring customers are not an afterthought to IT leaders. Customers inform how and where IT leaders invest resources to realize organizational objectives.
    • Adopting a formalized approach to service definition and delivery to eliminate silos.
    • Leveraging data throughout the organization to better inform and enable the various digital services in meeting customer demands.
    • Responding to employee demands for development and training opportunities by applying skills in new settings.
    • Having cross-collaboration mechanisms built into the ways of operating to reduce silos across the organization.
    • Enabling services through a strong set of governance and risk mandates and practices.
    • Eliminating the need for IT capabilities to only be within an IT department.

    IT can no longer be just a service provider:

    78% of IT leaders with established digital strategies and 45% of IT leaders with emerging digital strategies are driven by customer experiences.
    Source: Foundry "Digital Business Study,"2023

    40% - The number of CIOs that are responsible for creating new products or services to support revenue generation.
    Source: Foundry, "The State of the CIO," 2023

    This change requires a breakdown of traditional IT-business divisions

    CIOs must recognize that separating IT from the business is restrictive

    • Many organizations have recently completed or are in the process of completing a digital transformation focused on enhanced employee and customer experiences.
    • Post-transformation organizations must change how they operate to continue to deliver on those enhanced experiences, especially for the customer.
    • There must no longer be a wall between IT and the business, but a unified organization offering digital services that include IT components. Already, 81% of work is being performed across the functional boundaries created in an organization (Deloitte, 2023).
    • Effectively designing, delivering, and maintaining these services depends on a Digital Services functional layer, expanding IT's involvement into how the business delivers worthwhile experiences to customers.
    • This Digital Services functional layer will consider whether the new services are better owned by the IT group or another area of the organization.
    • CIOs need to be prepared to adopt a new way of operating or be left to manage a smaller subset of IT functions.

    "I think we've done the IT industry a disservice by constantly referring to IT and the business, artificially creating this wedge."
    – David Vidoni, VP of IT at Pegasystems
    Source: Dan Roberts, CIO, 2023

    Four trends driving an Exponential IT organization include:

    Emerging Technologies

    • 67% of respondents to KPMG's 2022 Global Tech Survey indicated they intend to embrace emerging platforms by the end of 2024.(1)
    • The technology landscape is constantly shifting with artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, 5G cellular networks, and next-generation robotics. Each of these technologies requires new capabilities and a new way in which those capabilities are organized.

    Enhanced Customer Experiences

    • 24% of CIOs have been tasked by their CEO to increase the customer experience.(3)
    • Organizations realize that to gain and retain customers, it has become necessary to consistently evaluate service offerings and identify opportunities for enhancement or new services.

    Digital Trust

    • 1/3 of CISOs plan to increase their GRC focus during the next year and 36% have already begun to implement Zero Trust components.(2)
    • Risk and security capabilities mature focusing on defined enterprise accountability, consideration of ethics and inclusivity and proactive security controls.

    Embedded Technology & Skills

    • Spending on embedded software is expected to increase to $21.5 billion by 2027.(4)
    • The technology strategy no longer resides solely within IT. The organization must take ownership of this strategy while they define their digital strategies. Technology services are also embedded.

    (1) "Global Tech Survey," KPMG, 2022
    (2) "Global Digital Trust Insights Report," PwC, 2023
    (3) "State of IT Report," Foundry, 2023
    (4) "Global surge in embedded software demand; here is why," DAC Digital, 2023

    Application of the Four Key Trends on your Exponential IT operating model:

    Respond to Emerging Technology In response to changing customer demands, organizations need to actively seek, assess, and integrate emerging technology offerings easily and effectively. By governing data at an enterprise level and implementing the necessary guardrails in the form of architecture and security standards at the technology layer, it becomes easier to adopt new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). This should be tied to any mandated objectives.
    Build Digital Trust Capabilities Finding and hiring the right security professionals has long been a challenge for organizations. In the Exponential IT model, focus on security oversight increases and fewer operational resources are required. The model sees governing IT security processes and vendor delivery as priorities to enable the right technology without exposing the organization to undue risk. There should be more security-related capabilities in your Exponential IT model.
    Elevate the Customer Experience Evolving the organization's digital offering requires understanding of and active response to the changing demands of customers. This is accomplished by leveraging information from organization-wide data sources and the modular components of the organization's current digital offerings. The components can be reconfigured (or new ones added) to create digital services for the customer.
    Formalize Embedded Business Technology & Roles Technology is actively included in the organization's business (digital) strategy. This ensures that technology remains an embedded component of how the organization competes in the market, supplies invaluable services, and delivers on strategic objectives. The separation of IT from the organization becomes redundant.
    Visualize your IT Operating Model.

    Adopting an Exponential IT operating model is typically influenced by resonating with the following drivers:

    Culture

    IT Strategy & Objectives

    Organization Operating Model

    Organization Size & Structure

    Perception of IT

    Risk Appetite

    A cooperative and innovative culture where the organization does not feel constrained by current processes. Establishing a growth mindset across all the organization's groups is reflected by the trust service owners receive.

    Focused on delivering the best customer experience. The roadmap would include ample opportunities to better support the customer in obtaining or exceeding the degree of value they receive from the organization.

    Empowering service owners across the organization to be accountable for the delivery and value of their services. Lots of collaboration among stakeholders who know what services are offered and how those services leverage technology.

    More appropriate for larger organizations due to the resources required to design and enable successful services. IT resources would also be pooled by skills.

    IT is not a service provider but an equal that enables the organization's success. Without IT involvement, digital services may be omitted and opportunities to enhance the customer experience would be missed.

    While innovation and new service offerings are critical to success, there are functional groups that remain focused on defining the level of risk tolerance that supports the appropriate risk appetite to consider new service offerings.

    Section 1: The Next-Generation Operating Model

    The Technology Value Trinity

    Delivery of Business Value & Strategic Needs

    I&T OPERATING MODEL

    DIGITAL & TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY

    I&T GOVERNANCE

    The model for how IT is organized to deliver on business needs and strategies.

    The identification of objectives and initiatives necessary to achieve business goals.

    Ensures the organization and its customers extract maximum value from the use of information and technology.

    All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work together to deliver business value and achieve strategic needs. As one changes, the others must change as well.
    How do these three elements relate?

    • I&T Operating Model aligns resources, processes, measures, stakeholders, value streams, and decision rights to enable the delivery of your strategy and priorities. This is done by strategically structuring IT capabilities in a way that enables the organization's vision and considers the context in which the model will operate.
    • Digital and IT Strategy tells you what you must achieve to be successful. For an Exponential IT organization, customer demands and digital service offerings would drive strategic decisions.
    • I&T Governance is the confirmation of IT's goals and strategy, which ensures the alignment of IT and business strategy. This is the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work so that what is delivered aligns with the strategy.

    Strategy, operating models, and governance are too often considered separate practices – strategies are defined without clarity on how to support. A significant change to your strategy necessitates a change to your operating model, which in turn necessitates a change to your governance and organizational structure.

    The Exponential IT operating model delivers value across seven components

    Exponential IT

    Capabilities

    Products, Services and Technology

    Performance Measures

    Stakeholder Engagement & Collaboration

    Decision Rights & Authority

    Value Streams

    Sourcing

    IT capabilities in the Exponential IT model are spread across the organization. The result removes the separation between IT and the organization. Instead, the organization takes accountability for ensuring technology capabilities are delivered.

    Digital service offerings dominate this model, focusing on providing better experiences for customers. Some technology platforms are specific to a service such as access management, while others span service offerings such as architecture or security.

    This model's success is measured by the overall ability to satisfy the customer experience through designing and delivering the right digital service offerings. Service owners are responsible for continuously monitoring and advancing the delivery of the service.

    The end-customer is the main stakeholder for this operating model, where understanding their needs and demands informs the design, maintenance, and improvement of all services. There is no longer IT vs. the business but an organizational perspective of services.

    This model's decision-making spans the organization. The service owners of digital offerings have authority and autonomy deciding which services to design, how they should be integrated with other services, and how those services will continually deliver value to customers.

    Exponential IT's five core value streams are:

    1. Identifying and prioritizing customer needs
    2. Designing IT and Digital Services
    3. Enabling IT & Digital Service success
    4. Assigning skilled employees to deliver services
    5. Owning & managing services

    Internal resource pools might need to be supplemented with contract resources when demand exceeds capacity, requiring a strong partnership with the Vendor Management Team. Service owners will also need to engage and manage the performance of their vendor solution partners.

    Organizations adopting the Exponential IT Model will experience new norms and behaviors

    Customer-Centric
    Dedicated to the customer experience and making sure that the end customer is considered first and foremost.

    "Yes" Approach
    The organization can say yes to emerging technology and customer desires because it has organized itself to be agile in its digital service offerings.

    Digital Service Ownership
    Digital service offerings are owned and managed across the organization ensuring the continuous delivery of value to customers.

    Employee Development
    Resources are organized into pods based on specific skills or functions increasing the likelihood of adopting new skills.

    Autonomization
    Centralized and accessible data provides service owners autonomy when making informed decisions that support enhanced customer experiences.

    Exponential IT is an embedded model approach

    Info-Tech has identified seven common IT operating model archetypes. Each model represents a different approach to who delivers technology services and how. Each model is designed to drive different outcomes, as the way your organization is structured will dictate the way it behaves. The Exponential IT model is an emerging archetype which capitalizes on embedded delivery.

    An image of the exponential IT embedded model approach.

    Centralized

    Shifted

    Embedded

    Owned and operated by leadership within IT. IT takes full responsibility of the functional areas and maintains control over the outcomes.

    Can be owned/operated by a variety of leadership roles throughout the organization. This can shift from IT ownership to other organizational leadership. Decisions about ownership are often made to enable quick response or mitigate risks.

    Owned/operated by leadership outside of traditional IT. Another area of the organization has taken authoritative power over the outcome of this functional area for a quicker response.

    Even as an embedded IT operating model, shifted and centralized IT functions as support

    1. Embedded functions required for scaled autonomation
      Definition and oversight of the organization's strategic direction demonstrated through a customer-first culture, data insights, and a well-defined risk appetite.
    2. Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering
      Actively considers the customer experience and designs the appropriate services to be delivered. Considers all aspects in the design and delivery of services by exploring opportunities to integrate components to enhance customer experiences or architecting new service offerings to eliminate gaps.
    3. Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources
      Technology functions continue to deliver exceptional services to the enterprise including clear standards for technology and solution architecture, application of security requirements, and resources to enable various service offerings.

    Opportunities and risks of the Exponential IT model

    Opportunities

    Risks
    • Focused on the end-customer experience and how to ensure that customer remains satisfied and loyal to the organization.
    • The capability center allows resources to be used strategically according to where they would most improve the customer experience.
    • Services are owned by the most appropriate areas within the organization—sometimes IT and other times not. In either case, services should always possess technological knowledge.
    • The organization's transformation strategy is not just driving IT's strategy but how IT should be organized and operating. This eliminates disconnect from larger strategic objectives.
    • Data intelligence and customer insights enable the shifted and centralized areas of the operating model to deliver effective and valuable experiences for all stakeholders.
    • Requires a high degree of maturity to support a variety of individuals in owning IT and digital capabilities.
    • Organizational buy-in to this operating model archetype is a must. IT cannot select this operating model without that support.
    • Processes around how all IT and Digital Services consider security and technology standards need to be well-documented and enforceable.
    • Depending on which leaders oversee the three areas of the model (embedded, shifted, or centralized), power struggles could occur which negatively impact services.
    • This model will demand governance, risk, and culture to be at the forefront of how it operates. If an accountability framework does not exist, expect this model to fail.

    The Exponential IT operating model blends embedded, shifted and centralized delivery to balance agility & risk

    An image of the Exponential IT Operating Model.

    The Exponential IT model commands a new placement and significance of IT capabilities

    Using capabilities for the operating model

    • Capabilities are focused on the entire system that would be in place to satisfy a particular need. This not only includes the people who are able to complete a specific task, but the technology, processes, and resources required to deliver.
    • Focusing on capabilities rather than the individuals in organizational redesign enables a more objective and holistic view of what your organization is striving toward.
    • Capabilities deliver on specific need(s) and how they are organized changes the way those needs are delivered.
    The Exponential IT principles as an image: Strategy and Governance, Financial Management, Service Planning and Architecture, People and Resources, Security and Risk, Applications, Data and Analytics, Infrastructure and Operations, and PPM and Projects.

    1. Embedded functions required for autonomization

    Overview of the function:

    • Focuses on a single strategy and roadmap for the organization that actively includes technology.
    • Governance, risk, compliance, and general oversight are defined and embedded throughout the organization.
    • Ensures that quality data is being generated to help inform the defined digital service offering.
    • Readies the organization to adopt emerging technology quickly and with minimal disruption to other digital service offerings.
    • A team of technical experts that decides what information should exist for operational efficiency or service innovation.

    Embedded functions required for autonomization

    2. Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering

    Overview of the function:

    • Analyzes and responds to insights about the customer experience.
    • Maintains the portfolio of the organization's digital service offerings.
    • Considers what is necessary to operate efficiently as an organization while simultaneously exploring emerging technology to optimize new or existing digital services.
    • Requires the expertise and involvement of both business-minded and technology-skilled resources.
    • The differentiating factor from other IT operating models is how it holistically considers all the components throughout the organization and how they are connected.

    Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering

    3. Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources

    Overview of the function:

    • Compared with other IT operating model archetypes, the Exponential IT model has fewer capabilities that are centralized within the technology function of an organization.
    • Architecture and standards are the foundation of successful embedded delivery, ensuring reuse, improved integration, and a unified experience. This includes technology, risk, data, AI and security architecture, models, and standards.
    • Employee resources are also organized in pods to be leveraged based on greatest need and skills availability.
    • This lets the organization be more agile when innovating and implementing new digital service offerings.

    Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources

    Exponential IT explores new value stream stages

    Customer Perspective

    The organization is continually anticipating their wants and needs and establishing mechanisms to vocalize those needs.

    Customer receives the right IT and digital services to respond to their needs.

    The service is easy to use and continuously responds to wants and needs.

    The service is meeting expectations or exceeding them.

    There is a dedicated service owner who can hear demands and feedback, then action desirable outcomes.

    Value Stream Stages

    An image of the Value Stream

    Organizational Perspective

    Expected Outcome

    Customers' wants and needs are understood and at times anticipated before the customer requests them.

    Assess needs to determine if service is already offered or needs to be created. Design services that will enhance the customer experience.

    Look for opportunities to integrate processes and resources to increase the performance of IT and Digital Services.

    Ensure that the right employees with the right skills are working to develop or enhance service offering.

    The service owner manages the ongoing lifecycle of the service and establishes a roadmap on how value will continue to be delivered.

    Critical Processes

    • Customer experience
    • Research and innovation
    • Stakeholder management
    • Research and innovation
    • Service design & portfolio management
    • Performance management
    • Continuous improvement
    • Integration planning
    • Service management
    • Resource planning and allocation
    • Service strategy & roadmap
    • Service governance
    • Service performance management

    Metrics

    • Customer satisfaction score
    • Service-to-need alignment
    • Gaps in service portfolio
    • Speed to design services
    • Service performance
    • Service adoption
    • Time to resolve customer demand
    • Frequency by which service requires enhancements
    • Service satisfaction
    • Alignment of service strategy to organization strategy

    1.1 Assess if the Exponential IT operating model is right for your organization

    1 hour

    1. Begin by downloading the Exponential IT Operating Model Assessment.
    2. Review the questions within each of the operating model components. For each question, use the drop-down menu to determine your level of agreement.
    3. The more your organization agrees with the statements, the more likely your organization is prepared to implement an Exponential IT operating model.
    4. The less your organization agrees with the statements, the more likely you should adopt a different IT operating model.
    5. For support implementing the Exponential IT or another IT operating model, explore the Visualize Your IT Operating Model blueprint (coming soon).

    Input

    • Desire to change the organization's IT & Digital operating model

    Output

    • Desire to implement the IT & Digital Service Enablement operating model

    Materials

    • Exponential IT Operating Model Assessment

    Participants

    • Executive IT leadership
    • Business leadership

    Explore other Info-Tech research to support your organization transformation initiatives

    Visualize the IT Operating Model blueprint (coming soon)

    Visualize the IT Operating Model blueprint (coming soon)

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    Section 2: Elevating the CIO Role

    The next generation of IT C-suite roles are here

    As the operating model changes and becomes increasingly embedded into the organization's delivery of IT and Digital Services, new C-suite roles are being defined

    • One of the most critical roles being defined in this change is the Chief Digital Services Officer (CDSO) who focuses on all components of the digital experience from the lens of the customer.
    • There are two directions from which the CDSO role is typically approached as it gains popularity:
      • CIOs evolve beyond just information and technology—focusing on how IT & Digital Services enhance the customer experience
      • Business leaders who have technical know-how increase their involvement and responsibility over IT related functions
    • IT leaders need to consider where they would rather sit: focused only on technology and remaining a service provider to the organization, or embedding technology into the services, products, and organization in general?

    60%

    The number of APAC CIOs who can anticipate their job to be challenged by their peers within the organization.

    Source: Singh, Yashvendra, CIO, 2023.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This is not about making the CIO report to someone else but allowing the CIO to elevate their role into that of a CDSO.

    Increasing IT leadership's span of control throughout the organization

    As maturity increases so does span of control, ownership & executive influence

    Organizations hoping to fully adopt the Exponential IT operating model require a shift in leadership expectations. Notably, these leaders will have oversight and accountability for functions beyond the traditional IT group.

    As the organization matures its governance, security, and data management practices, increasing how it delivers high-impact experiences to customers, it would have one leader who owns all the components to ensure clear alignment with goals and business strategy.

    An image of a graph where the X axis is labeled Span of Control & Influence, and the Y axis is Organization Maturity.

    Emerging Exponential IT organizations will have distributed authority

    • Organizations beginning their transition toward an exponential model often continue to have distributed leaders providing oversight of distinct functional areas.
    • Their spans of control are smaller, but very clearly defined, eliminating confusion through a transparent accountability framework.
    • Each leader strives toward optimization and efficiency regarding IT capabilities, for which they are responsible.
    1. Distributed Leadership
      Embedded functions required for scaled autonomation
      Distributed leaders identify the ways technology will enable them to advance enterprise objectives while maintaining autonomy over their own functions. They may oversee technology.
    2. Experience Officer
      Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering
      An Experience Officer will help consider the insights gained from enterprise data and make informed decisions around enterprise service offerings. They actively explore new ways to deliver high-value experiences.
    3. Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
      Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources
      A CTO will continue to oversee the core technology, including infrastructure and service management functions.

    Established organizations will be driven by a digital transformation journey

    • Organizations that have begun to deliver on their transformation journey will typically see two distinct C-suite leaders emerge—the CIO and the CDO.
    • The Chief Digital Officer (CDO) often explores ways to optimize the integration and management of data to enable insightful decision making from the organization.
    • The Chief Information Officer (CIO), however, considers mechanisms to standardize how new technologies can be integrated with the architecture.
    • While both leaders have distinct responsibilities, their roles intersect at the customer experience.

    An image of the digital transformation journey

    Advanced organizations will be managed by a single emerging role

    • A single leader will oversee all the functional areas where value is delivered and enabled by IT capabilities.
    • Through a large span of control, this leader can holistically consider opportunities to optimize the customer experience and ensure recommendations are actioned to deliver on that enhanced experience.
    • This leader's span of control will require a strong understanding of both strategic and operational functions to authoritatively oversee all aspects for which they are responsible.

    CDSO – Chief Digital Service Officer

    1. Embedded functions required for scaled autonomation
      The CDSO will set, oversee, and manage the delivery of an enterprise's digital strategy, ensuring accountability through good governance and data practices.
    2. Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering
      They ensure that the enterprise holistically considers the various services that could be offered to exceed customer expectations through high-impact experiences.
    3. Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources
      They also ensure stable and secure architecture standards to enable consistency across the organization and a seamless ability to integrate new technology to support service offerings.

    Evolution of the IT C-suite now includes the CDSO

    Chief Digital Service Officer

    Chief Information Officer

    Chief Digital Officer

    Chief Technology Officer

    Chief Experience Officer

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Board
    • CEO/Executive Leadership
    • Organization Leadership
    • Service Owners
    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Oversight of the entire portfolio of IT and Digital Services
    • Use of information & technology to meet organizational objectives

    *Some leaders in this role are being called Chief Digital Information Officer.

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Board
    • CEO/Executive Leadership
    • Organization Leadership
    • End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Oversight of the information and technology required to support and enable the organization

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Board
    • CEO/Executive Leadership
    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Oversight on transforming how the organization uses technology, often considering customer perspectives

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Organization Leadership
    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Collaborating with the CIO, the CTO leads the organization's ability to integrate and adopt necessary technology products and services

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Establish the customer experience strategy
    • Create policies to support that strategy
    • Collaborate with other organizational leaders to integrate any activities around the customer experience

    Examples of what the emerging organizational structure can look like

    An image of three hierarchies, showing what the emerging organizational structure can look like.

    This is more than a new title for IT leaders

    It's about establishing a business first perspective

    • IT leaders exploring this new way of operating are not just adopting the new title of CDSO or CDIO.
    • These leaders must change how information, technology, and digital experiences are consumed across the various stakeholders – especially the end customer.
    • IT leaders who pursue this new IT operating model choose to be more than order takers for an organization.
    • They are:
      • Partners in defining the organization's digital service offerings
      • Recognizing the benefits of distributing decision-making authority for IT-related aspects to others throughout the organization
      • Prioritizing capabilities like portfolio management, architecture, vendor management, relationship management, cloud and user experience

    "'For me, the IT portfolio for the next few years and the IT architecture have taken the place that IT strategy used to have,' he adds. This view doesn't position IT outside of the organization, but rather gives it central importance in the company."
    – Bernd Rattey, Group CIO and CDO of Deutsche Bahn (DB), qtd. by Jens Dose, CIO, 2023

    1.2 Plan your career move to CDSO

    1-3 hours

    • Create a roadmap on how to move from your current role to CDSO by identifying current strengths and opportunities to improve.
    • Download the Career Vision Roadmap Tool from the website. An example of this is on the next slide.
    • Document the tagline. This is your overarching career focus and goal – what is your passion? Think beyond titles to what you want to be doing, the atmosphere you want to be in, and what you want to add value to.
    • Document the current role: what are the strengths, achievements and opportunities?
    • Consider the CDSO role: how will you build stronger relationships and competencies to elevate your profile within the organization? What is an example of what someone would display in this role?
    • Define specific roles or stakeholders that you should develop a stronger relationship with.

    Download the Career Vision Roadmap Tool

    Input

    • Desire to implement the IT & Digital Service Enablement Operating Model

    Output

    • Roadmap to elevate from a CIO to a CDSO

    Materials

    • Career Vision Roadmap
    • IT & Digital Services Enablement operating model archetype
    • CDSO job profile

    Participants

    • CIO (or any other role aspiring to eventually become a CDSO)
    • Individual activity

    Career Vision Roadmap:
    Executive Leader
    Akbar K.

    Sample

    To provide customers with an exceptional experience by ensuring all IT and Digital Services consider and anticipate their needs or wants. Enable IT and Digital Services to be successful through clear leadership, strong collaboration, and continuous improvement or innovation.

    CIO

    1. Establish technology standards that enable the organization to consistently and securely integrate platforms or solutions.
    2. Lead the project team that defined and standardized the organization's reference architecture.
    3. Need to work on listening to a variety of stakeholder demands rather than only specific roles/titles.

    Transition

    • Strengths: Technology acumen, budget planning, allocating resources
    • Enhance: Stakeholder relationship management.
    • Work with current CDO to define and implement more digital transformation initiatives.

    CDSO

    • Being responsive to customer expectations and communicating clear and realistic timelines.
    • Establish trust among the organization that services will deliver expected value.
    • Empowering service owners to manage and oversee the delivery of their services.

    Network Opportunities

    • Connect with board members and understand each of their key areas of priority.
    • Begin to interact with end customers and define ways that will enhance their customer experience.
    • Chief Digital Officer

    Actions now in line with aspiration

    Appendix: Capabilities & Capability Model

    IT and digital capabilities

    Using capabilities for the operating model:

    • Capabilities are focused on the entire system that would be in place to satisfy a particular need. This not only includes people who have skills to complete a specific task, but also the technology, processes, and resources required to deliver.
    • Focusing on capabilities rather than the individuals in organizational redesign enables a more objective and holistic view of what your organization is striving toward.
    • Capabilities deliver on specific need(s) and how they are organized changes the way those need(s) are delivered.

    An image of the IT Management and Governance Framework.

    Strategic Direction

    • IT Governance
    • Strategic Planning
    • Digital Strategy
    • Performance Measurement
    • IT Management & Policies
    • Organizational Quality Management
    • R&D and Innovation
    • Stakeholder Management

    People & Resources

    • Strategic Communications
    • People Resource Management
    • Workforce Strategy & Planning
    • Organizational Change Enablement
    • Adoption & Training
    • Financial/Budget Management
    • Vendor Portfolio Management
    • Vendor Selection & Contract Management
    • Vendor Performance Management

    Architecture & Integration

    • Enterprise Architecture Delivery
    • Business Architecture Delivery
    • Solution Architecture Delivery
    • Technology Architecture
    • Data Architecture
    • Security Architecture
    • Process Integration
    • Integration Planning

    Service Planning

    • Service Governance
    • Service Strategy & Roadmap
    • Service Management
    • Service Governance
    • Service Performance Measurement
    • Service Design & Planning
    • Service Orchestration

    Security & Risk

    • Security Strategic Planning
    • Risk Management
    • External Compliance Management
    • Security Response & Recovery Management
    • Security Management
    • Controls & Internal Audit Planning
    • Security Defense Operations
    • Security Administration
    • Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence
    • Integrated Physical/IT Security
    • OT/IoT Security
    • Data Protection & Privacy

    Application Delivery

    • Application Lifecycle Management
    • Systems Integration Management
    • Application Development
    • User Experience
    • Quality Assurance & UAT
    • Application Maintenance
    • Low Code Development

    Project Portfolio Management

    • Demand Management
    • Requirement Analysis Management
    • Portfolio Management
    • Project Management

    Data & Business Intelligence (BI)

    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Data Management
    • Data Quality
    • Data Integration
    • Enterprise Content Management
    • Data Governance
    • Data Strategy
    • AI/ML Management

    Service Delivery

    • Operations Management
    • Service Desk Management
    • Incident Management
    • Problem Management
    • Service Enhancements
    • Operational Change Enablement
    • Release Management
    • Automation Management

    Infrastructure & Operations

    • Asset Management
    • Infrastructure Portfolio Strategic Planning
    • Availability & Capacity Management
    • Network & Infrastructure Management
    • Configuration Management
    • Cloud Orchestration
    An image of the summary slide for this blueprint, with the headings: Centralized; Shifted; and Embedded.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Donna Bales
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Scott Bickley
    Practice Lead – Vendor Management Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Christine Coz
    Executive Counselor – Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Valence Howden
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Duraid Ibrahim
    Executive Counselor – Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Chris Goodhue
    Managing Partner– Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Carlene McCubbin
    Practice Lead – CIO Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Mike Tweedie
    Practice Lead – CIO Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Vicki van Alphen
    Executive Counselor – Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    *Plus an additional 5 industry experts who anonymously contributed to this research piece.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset

    • To succeed in the coming business transformation, IT will have to adopt different priorities in its mission, governance, capabilities, and partnerships.
    • CIOs will have to provide exceptionally mature services while owning business targets.

    Become a Transformational CIO

    • Business transformations are happening, but CIOs are often involved only when it comes time to implement change. This makes it difficult for the CIO to be perceived as an organizational leader.
    • Elevate your stature as a business leader.
    • Create a high-powered IT organization that is focused on driving lasting change, improving client experiences, and encouraging collaboration across the entire enterprise.

    Define Your Digital Business Strategy

    • Design a strategy that applies innovation to your business model, streamline and transform processes, and make use of technologies to enhance interactions with customers and employees.
    • Pre-pandemic digital strategies have been primarily focused on automation. However, your post-pandemic digital strategy must focus on driving resilience for growth opportunities.

    Bibliography

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    Bishop, Carrie. "Five years of Digital Services in San Francisco." Medium, 20 January 2022. https://medium.com/san-francisco-digital-services/five-years-of-digital-services-in-san-francisco-805a758c2b83
    DAC Digital and Chawla, Yash. "Global surge in embedded software demand; here is why." DAC Digital, 2023 <ttps://dac.digital/global-surge-in-embedded-software-demand-here-is-why/
    Deloitte. "If you want your digital transformation to succeed, align your operating model to your strategy." Harvard Business Review, 31 January 2020. https://hbr.org/sponsored/2020/01/if-you-want-your-digital-transformation-to-succeed-align-your-operating-model-to-your-strategy.
    Deloitte. "2023 Global Human Capital Trends Report." Deloitte, 2023. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/sg/Documents/human-capital/sea-cons-hc-trends-report-2023.pdf
    Dose, Jens. "Deutsche Bahn CIO on track to decentralize IT." CIO, 19 April 2023. https://www.cio.com/article/473071/deutsche-bahn-cio-on-track-to-decentralize-it.html
    Ehrlich, Oliver., Fanderl, Harald., Maldara, David., & Mittangunta, Divya. "How the operating model can unlock the power of customer experience." McKinsey, 28 June 2022. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/how-the-operating-model-can-unlock-the-full-power-of-customer-experience
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    Improve Email Security

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    • Parent Category Name: Secure Cloud & Network Architecture
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    As the sophistication of malicious attacks increases, it has become more difficult to ensure applications such as email software are properly protected and secured. The increase in usage and traffic of email exacerbates the security risks to the organization.

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    Further reading

    Improve Email Security

    Follow the latest best practices for email security to mitigate evolving threats.

    Analyst Perspective

    Protecting your organization’s digital assets begins with securing your email communication.

    As organizations increasingly rely on email communication for day-to-day business operations, threat actors are exploiting the increased traction to develop and implement more sophisticated email-based attacks. Furthermore, the lack of investment in measures, tools, and technologies for an organization’s email security exacerbates the vulnerabilities at hand.

    Effective use of security procedures and techniques can mitigate and minimize email-based threats have been shown to reduce the ability of these attacks to infiltrate the email inbox. These guidelines and best practices will help your organization conduct due diligence to protect the contents of the email, its transit, and its arrival to the authorized recipient.

    Ahmad Jowhar, Research Specialist, Security & Privacy

    Ahmad Jowhar
    Research Specialist, Security & Privacy
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech’s Approach
    • As malicious attacks get increasingly sophisticated, it has become more difficult to ensure applications such as email software are properly protected and secured.
    • The increased usage and traffic of emails, as well as their contents, exacerbates security risks to the organization.
    • Given the variety of email security controls, it can be complicated to identify the most important techniques for improving your organization’s email security.
    • Understand the importance of implementing email security for your organization.
    • Develop a holistic guideline for implementing best practices to secure your organization’s emails.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Email has changed. Your email security must evolve to ensure the safety of your organization’s communication.

    Your Challenge

    As a security leader, you need to modernize your email security services so you can protect business communications and prevent security incidents.

    • Various factors must be considered when deciding how best to safeguard your organization’s communication chain. This includes the frequency of email traffic and the contents of emails.
    • The increased number of email-based cyberattacks reveals the sophistication of threat actors in leveraging an organization’s lack of email security to infiltrate their business.
    • As organizations continue to rely heavily on email communication, email-based threats will become increasingly prevalent.

    75% of organizations have experienced an increase in email-based threats.

    97% of security breaches are due to phishing attacks.

    82% of companies reported a higher volume of email in 2022.

    Source: Mimecast, 2023.

    Modern email security controls framework for security leaders

    Email has changed. Your email security must evolve to ensure the safety of your organization’s communication.

    Modern email security controls framework for security leaders

    Understand the best practices in securing your organization’s emails

    Enhance your security posture by modernizing your email security
    Email has changed. Your email security must evolve to ensure the safety of your organization’s communication.

    Deploy an added layer of defense by preventing the contents of your email from being intercepted.

    Encrypting your email communication will provide an additional layer of protection which only allows authorized users to read the email.

    Leverage triple-threat authentication controls to strengthen your email security.

    Leveraging SPF, DKIM, and DMARC enables you to have the proper authentication controls in place, ensuring that only legitimate users are part of the email communication.

    Protect the contents of your email through data classification and data loss prevention.

    Having tools and technologies in place to ensure that data is classified and backed up will enable better storage, analysis, and processing of the email.

    Implement email policies for a holistic email security protection.

    Policies ensure acceptable standards are in place to protect the organization’s assets, including the creation, attachment, sending, and receiving of emails.

    User awareness and training
    Training employees on protecting their corporate emails adds an extra layer of defense by ensuring end users are aware of various email-based threats and can confidently safeguard their organizations from attacks.

    Email encryption

    Deploy an added layer of defense by preventing the contents of your email from being intercepted.

    • Protecting your organization’s emails begins by ensuring only the appropriate recipients can receive and read the email’s contents.
    • This process includes encrypting the email’s contents to protect sensitive information from being read by unauthorized recipients.
    • This protects the contents even if the email is intercepted by anyone besides the intended recipient.
    • Other benefits of email encryption include:
      • Reducing any risks associated with regulatory violations.
      • Enabling business to confidently communicate sensitive information via email.
      • Ensuring protective measures taken to prevent data loss and corporate policy violations.

    Along with the increased use of emails, organizations are seeing an increase in the number of attacks orchestrating from emails. This has resulted in 74% of organizations seeing an increase in email-based threats.

    Source: Mimecast, 2023.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Encrypting your email communication will provide an additional layer of protection which only allows authorized users to read the email.

    Implementing email encryption

    Leverage these protocols and tools to help encrypt your email.

    • The most common email encryption protocols and tools include:
      • Transport Layer Security (TLS): A cryptographic protocol designed to securely deliver data via the internet, which prevents third parties from intercepting and accessing the data.
      • Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (S/MIME): A protocol for sending digitally signed and encrypted messages by leveraging public key encryption to provide at-rest and in-transit data protection.
      • Secure Email Gateway: An email security solution that inspects emails for malicious content prior to it reaching the corporate system. The solution is positioned between the public internet and corporate email servers. An email gateway solution would be provided by a third-party vendor and can be implemented on-premises, through the cloud, or hybrid.
    • Email encryption policies can also be implemented to ensure processes are in place when sending sensitive information through emails.
    • Email encryption ensures end-to-end privacy for your email and is especially important when the email requires strict content privacy.

    Email authentication

    Three authentication controls your organization should leverage to stay secure.

    • Along with content encryption, it’s important to authenticate both the sender and recipient of an email to ensure that only legitimate users are able to send and receive it.
    • Implementing email authentication techniques prevents unsolicited email (e.g. spam) from entering your mailbox.
    • This also prevents unauthorized users from sending email on your organization’s behalf.
    • Having these standards in place would safeguard your organization from spam, spoofing, and phishing attacks.
    • The three authentication controls include:
      • Sender Policy Framework (SPF): Email validation control that verifies that the incoming email is from an authorized list of IP addresses provided by the sender’s domain administrator.
      • DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Enables recipients to verify that an email from a specific domain was authorized by the domain’s owner. This is conducted through cryptographic authentication by adding a digital signature to the message headers of outbound emails.
      • Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC): Provides domain-level protection of email channel by publishing DMARC records in the organization’s domain name system (DNS) and creates policies which prompts actions to take if an email fails authentication.

    Although these authentication controls are available for organizations to leverage, the adoption rate remains low. 73% of survey respondents indicated they didn’t deploy email authentication controls within their organization.

    Source: Mimecast, 2023.

    Email authentication controls

    All three authentication controls should be implemented to effectively secure your organization’s email. They ensure the emails you send and receive are securely authorized and legitimate.

    SPF DKIM DMARC

    Creating an SPF record identifies which IP addresses are allowed to send emails from your domain. Steps to implement SPF include the following:

    1. Create an SPF record by identifying the IP addresses that are authorized to send emails.
    2. Publish your SPF record into your DNS by creating a TXT record on your domain.

    Implementing DKIM helps prevent attackers from sending emails that pretend to come from your domain. Steps to implement DKIM include the following:

    1. Identify and enable domains you wish to configure DKIM to create DKIM keys.
    2. Copy the canonical names (CNAMEs) that are provided.
    3. Publish the CNAME records to your DNS service provider.

    Setting up DMARC ensures emails are validated and defines actions to take if an email fails authentication. These include:

    • None: Message is delivered to recipient and a DMARC report is sent to domain owner.
    • Quarantine: Message moved to quarantine folder and recipient is notified.
    • Reject: Message is not delivered to the recipient.
    • Steps to implement DMARC include:
    1. Create a DMARC record by including your organization’s email domain and IP addresses.
    2. Form a DMARC TXT record for your domain to include policies and publish it to your DNS.

    For more information:

    Data classification

    Ensure sensitive data is securely processed, analyzed, and stored.

    • Besides authenticating the legitimacy of an email and its traffic to the recipient, it’s important to have procedures in place to protect the contents of an email.
    • Data classification is found not only in databases and spreadsheets, but also in the email messages being communicated. Examples of data most commonly included in emails:
      • Personal identifiable information (PII): social security number, financial account number, passcodes/passwords
    • Applying data classification to your email can help identify the sensitivity of the information it contains. This ensures any critical data within an email message is securely processed and protected against unauthorized use, theft, and loss.
    • Emails can be classified based on various sensitivity levels. such as:
      • Top secret, public, confidential, internal

    Discover and Classify Your Data

    Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for guidelines on implementing a data classification program for your organization.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Having tools and technologies in place to ensure that data is classified and backed up will enable better storage, analysis, and processing of the email.

    Data loss prevention (DLP)

    Protect your data from being lost/stolen.

    • Protecting an email’s contents through data classification is only one approach for improving email security. Having a data loss prevention solution would further increase security by minimizing the threat of sensitive information leaving your organization’s email network.
    • Examples of tools embedded in DLP solutions that help monitor an organization's email communication:
      • Monitoring data sent and received from emails: This ensures the data within an email communication is protected with the necessary encryption based on its sensitivity.
      • Detecting suspicious email activity: This includes analyzing users’ email behavior regarding email attachments and identifying irregular behaviors.
      • Flagging or blocking email activities which may lead to data loss: This prevents highly sensitive data from being communicated via email and reduces the risk of information being intercepted.
    • The types of DLP technologies that can be leveraged include:
      • Rule-based: Data that has been tagged by admins as sensitive can be blocklisted, which would flag and/or block data from being sent via email.
      • Machine learning: Data on users’ email behavior is collected, processed, and trained to understand the employee’s normal email behavior and detect/flag suspicious activities.
    • Implementing DLP solutions would complement your data classification techniques by ensuring proper measures are in place to secure your organization’s assets through policies, technology, and tools.

    48% of employees have accidently attached the wrong file to an email.

    39% of respondents have accidently sent emails that contained security information such as passwords and passcodes.

    Source: Tessian, 2021.

    User awareness & training

    A strong security awareness & training program is an important element of strengthening your email security.

    • Having all these tools and techniques in place to improve your email security will not be effective unless you also improve your employees’ awareness.
    • Employees should participate in email security training, especially since the majority utilize this channel of communication for day-to-day operations.
    • User awareness and training should go beyond phishing campaigns and should highlight the various types of email-based threats, the characteristics of these threats, and what procedures they can follow to minimize these threats.
    • 95% of data breaches are caused by human error. It can take nine months to discover and contain them, and they are expected to cost $8 trillion this year (Mimecast, 2023).
    • Investments in employee awareness and training would mitigate these risks by ensuring employees recognize and report suspicious emails, remain mindful of what type of data to share via email, and improve their overall understanding of the importance of email security.

    Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users

    Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on creating various user training materials and empower your employees to become a main line of defense for your organization.

    64% of organizations conduct formal training sessions (in-person or computer-based).

    74% of organizations only focus on providing phishing-based training.

    Source: Proofpoint, 2021.

    Examples of email-based threats

    Phishing
    Email sent by threat actors designed to manipulate end user into providing sensitive information by posing as a trustworthy source

    Business Email Compromise
    Attackers trick a user into sending money or providing confidential information

    Spam
    Users receive unsolicited email, usually in bulk, some of which contains malware

    Spear Phishing
    A type of phishing attack where the email is sent to specific and targeted emails within the organization

    Whaling
    A type of phishing attack similar to spear phishing, but targeting senior executives within the organization

    Password/Email Exposure
    Employees use organizational email accounts and passwords to sign up for social media, leaving them susceptible to email and/or password exposure in a social media breach

    Email policies

    Having policies in place will enable these controls to be implemented.

    Developing security policies that are reasonable, auditable, enforceable, and measurable ensures proper procedures are followed and necessary measures are implemented to protect the organization. Policies relating to email security can be categorized into two groups:

    • User policy: Policies employees must adhere to when using their corporate email. Examples:
      • User acceptance of technology: Acknowledgment of legitimate and restrictive actions when using corporate email
      • Security awareness and training: Acknowledging completion of email security training
    • Administrator-set policy: Policies that are implemented by IT and/or security admins. Examples:
      • Email backup: Policy on how long emails should be archived and processes for disposing of them
      • Log retention: Policy on how to retain, process, and analyze logs created from email servers
      • Throttling: Policies that limit the number of emails sent by a sender and the number of recipients per email and per day depending on the employee’s grouping

    Develop and Deploy Security Policies

    Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on developing and deploying actionable policies and creating an overall policy management lifecycle to keep your policies current, effective, and compliant.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Policies ensure acceptable standards are in place to protect the organization’s assets, including the creation, attachment, sending, and receiving of emails.

    Email security technologies & tools (SoftwareReviews)

    SoftwareReviews, a division of Info-Tech Research Group, provides enterprise software reviews to help organizations make more efficient decisions during the software selection process. Reviews are provided by authenticated IT professionals who have leveraged the software and provide unbiased insights on different vendors and their products.

    Learn from the collective knowledge of real IT professionals.

    • Know the products and features available.
    • Explore modules and detailed feature-level data.
    • Quickly understand the market.

    Evaluate market leaders through vendor rankings and awards.

    • Convince stakeholders with professional reports.
    • Avoid pitfalls with unfiltered data from real users.
    • Choose software with confidence.

    Cut through misleading marketing material.

    • Negotiate contracts based on data.
    • Know what to expect before you sign.
    • Effectively manage the vendor.

    Email security technologies & tools

    Leverage these tools for an enhanced email security solution.

    Email Security Checklist

    Follow these guidelines to ensure you are implementing best practices for securing your organization’s emails.

    • The Email Security Checklist is a tool to assess the current and future state of your organization’s email security and provides a holistic understanding on monitoring your progress within each category and associated controls.
    • The status column allows you to select the feature’s current implementation status, which includes the following options:
      • Enabled: The feature is deployed within the organization’s network.
      • Implemented: The feature is implemented within the organization’s network, but not yet deployed.
      • Not implemented: The feature has not been enabled or implemented.
    • Comments can be added for each feature to provide details such as indicating the progress on enabling/implementing a feature and why certain features are not yet implemented.

    Email Security Checklist

    Download the Email Security Checklist tool

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Discover and Classify Your Data
    Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for guidelines on implementing a data classification program for your organization.

    Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users
    Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on creating various user training materials and empower your employees to become a main line of defense for your organization.

    Develop and Deploy Security Policies
    Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on developing and deploying actionable policies and creating an overall policy management lifecycle to keep your policies current, effective, and compliant.

    Bibliography

    “10 Best Practices for Email Security in 2022.” TitanFile, 22 Sept. 2022. Web.

    “2021 State of the Phish.” Proofpoint, 2021. Web.

    Ahmad, Summra. “11 Email Security Best Practices You Shouldn't Miss (2023).” Mailmunch, 9 Mar. 2023. Web.

    “Blumira's State of Detection and Response.” Blumira, 18 Jan. 2023. Web.

    Clay, Jon. “Email Security Best Practices for Phishing Prevention.” Trend Micro, 17 Nov. 2022. Web.

    Crane, Casey. “6 Email Security Best Practices to Keep Your Business Safe in 2019.” Hashed Out by The SSL Store™, 7 Aug. 2019. Web.

    Hateb, Seif. “Basic Email Security Guide.” Twilio Blog, Twilio, 5 Dec. 2022. Web.

    “How DMARC Advances Email Security.” CIS, 9 July 2021. Web.

    Pal, Suryanarayan. “10 Email Security Best Practices You Should Know in 2023.” Mailmodo, 9 Feb. 2023. Web.

    Pitchkites, Max. “Email Security: A Guide to Keeping Your Inbox Safe in 2023.” Cloudwards, 9 Dec. 2022. Web.

    Rudra, Ahona. “Corporate Email Security Checklist.” PowerDMARC, 4 July 2022. Web.

    “Sender Policy Framework.” Mimecast, n.d. Web.

    Shea, Sharon, and Peter Loshin. “Top 15 Email Security Best Practices for 2023: TechTarget.” TechTarget, 14 Dec. 2022. Web.

    “The Email Security Checklist: Upguard.” UpGuard, 16 Feb. 2022. Web.

    “The State of Email Security 2023.” Mimecast, 2023. Web.

    Wetherald, Harry. “New Product - Stop Employees Emailing the Wrong Attachments.” Tessian, 16 Sept. 2021. Web.

    “What Is DMARC? - Record, Verification & More: Proofpoint Us.” Proofpoint, 9 Mar. 2023. Web.

    “What Is Email Security? - Defining Security of Email: Proofpoint Us.” Proofpoint, 3 Mar.2023. Web.

    Wilton, Laird. “How to Secure Email in Your Business with an Email Security Policy.” Carbide, 31 Jan. 2022. Web.

    Considerations for a Move to Virtual Desktops

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}69|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-strategy
    • Hybrid work environments, remote from anywhere and any device, and the security concerns that go hand-in-hand with these strategies have accelerated the move to VDI and DaaS.
    • IT departments can encounter many obstacles to VDI and DaaS, many of which will be determined by your business model and other factors, including complicated shared infrastructure, inadequate training or insufficient staff, and security and compliance concerns.
    • If you do not consider how your end user will be impacted, you will run into multiple issues that affect end-user satisfaction, productivity, and adoption.
    • How will you manage and navigate the right solution for your organization?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • In the world of VDI and DaaS, if you do not get buy-in from the end user, the rate of adoption and the overall success of the implementation will prove difficult to measure. It will be impossible to calculate ROI even as you feel the impact of your TCO.

    Impact and Result

    • The dimensions of end-user experience can be broken down into four distinct categories that will impact not only the end user but also the business: performance, availability, functionality, and security.
    • Picturing your landscape in this framework will help clearly define your considerations when deciding on whether a VDI or DaaS solution is right for your business.

    Considerations for a Move to Virtual Desktops Research & Tools

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

    1. Considerations for a Move to Virtual Desktops Storyboard – A guide to the strategic, technical, and support implications that should be considered in support of a move to VDI or DaaS.

    By defining your goals, framing solutions based on end-user workloads, and understanding the pros and cons of various solutions, you can visualize what success looks like for your VDI/DaaS deployment. This includes defining your KPIs by end-user experience, knowing the decision gates for a successful deployment, and defining your hypothesis for value to make your decision more accurate and gain C-suite buy-in.

    • Considerations for a Move to Virtual Desktops Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    What strategic, technical, and support implications should be considered in support of a move to VDI or DaaS?

    Executive Summary

    Insight

    End-user experience is your #1 consideration

    Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)/desktop as a service (DaaS) users expect their user experience to be at least equal to that provided by a physical PC, and they do not care about the underlying infrastructure. If the experience is less, then IT has failed in the considerations for VDI/ DaaS. In this research we analyze the data that the IT industry tracks but doesn't use or sometimes even look at regarding user experience (UX).

    Identify the gaps in your IT resources that are critical to success

    Understanding the strengths and weaknesses in your in-house technical skills and business requirements will assist you in making the right decision when it comes to VDI or DaaS solutions. In the case of DaaS this will include a managed service provider for small to medium-sized IT teams. Many IT teams lack a seasoned IT project manager who can identify gaps, risks, and weaknesses in the organization's preparedness. Redeploy your IT staff to new roles that impact management and monitoring of UX.

    IT should think about VDI and DaaS solutions

    Ultimately, IT needs to reduce its complexity, increase user satisfaction, reduce management and storage costs, and maintain a secure and effective environment for both the end user and the business. They must also ensure productivity standards throughout the considerations, strategically, tactically, and in support of a move to a VDI or DaaS solution.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    With the evolution of VDI over the last 15-plus years, there has been a proliferation of solutions, such as Citrix desktop services, VMware Horizon, and in-house hypervisor solutions (e.g. ESX hosts). There has also been a great deal of growth and competition of DaaS and SaaS solutions in the cloud space. Hybrid work environments, remote from anywhere and any device, and the security concerns that go hand-in-hand with these strategies have certainly accelerated the move to VDI and DaaS.

    How will you manage and navigate the right solution for your organization?

    Common Obstacles

    IT departments can encounter many obstacles to VDI and DaaS, many of which will be determined by your business model and other factors, such as:

    • Complicated shared infrastructure such as federated multitenant partners and legacy app servers.
    • Inadequate in-house training or insufficient staff to execute migration or manage post-migration activates such as governance and retention policies.
    • Security, compliance, legal, and data classification concerns. Some security tools cannot be deployed in the cloud, limiting you to an on-premises solution.
    Info-Tech’s Approach

    By defining your end goals, framing solutions based on end-user workloads, and understanding the pros and cons of what solution(s) will meet your needs, you can visualize what success looks like.

    1. Define your KPIs by end-user experience.
    2. Knowing what the decision gates are for a successful VDI/DaaS deployment will prove out your selection process.
    3. Define your hypothesis for value. How you determine value will make your decision more accurate and gain C-suite buy-in.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every IT organization needs to be asking what success looks like. If you do not consider how your end user will be impacted, whether they are doing something as simple as holding a team meeting with voice and video or working with highly technical workloads on a virtual environment, you will run into multiple issues that affect end-user satisfaction, productivity, and adoption. Understand the tension metrics that may conflict with meeting business objectives and KPIs.

    Voice of the customer

    Client-Driven Insight

    Different industries have different requirements and issues, so they look at solutions differently.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If end-user experience is at the forefront of business requirements, then any solution that fits the business KPIs can be successful.

    Client Pain Point

    Description Indicators

    Flexible work environmentWhat VDI solution can support a work-from-anywhere scenario? Possible solutions: Azure Virtual Desktop, IGEL client, Citrix virtual apps, and desktop services.
    Security concerns Corporate resources need to be secure. Working with untrusted endpoints or unsecured locations. Using VPN-type solution.
    End-user experience What performance metrics should be used to evaluate UX? Are there issues around where the endpoint is located? What kind of link do they have to the virtual desktop? What solutions are there?
    Optimization of routing What routings need to take place to achieve reduced latency and improved experience?
    Multifactor authenticationSecurity features such as a multilayered MFA and corporate data protection.
    Business continuity What are the options when dealing with cloud outages, meeting SLAs, and building resilience?
    Optimizing app performance and response times Define users based on a multiuser environment. Engineers and designers require more CPU resources, which negatively impacts on other users. Optimize CPU to avoid this situation. MS Teams and video streaming apps are not performing in an optimized manner.
    Optimization of cloud costs Scalability and usage schedule. Minimize cloud costs with tools to handle workloads and usage.
    Third-party access outsourcingContractors and third parties accessing business resources need to control data and source code along with developer tools in a centrally managed SaaS.

    The enterprise end-user compute landscape is changing

    Starting on the left are three computer types 'Windows on a PC', 'Mac', and 'VDI on a Thick Client'. In the next part, the first two are combined into 'BYOD', and the tree begins at 'Win11'. Branches from Win11 are: 'DIY' which branches to 'Autopilot & Endpoint Manager (Intune)'; 'Outsource' which branches to 'Device as a Service' which brances to 'Dell', 'Lenovo', and 'HP'; and another branch from 'Outsource', 'Azure Desktop', Which snakes us around to the top of the diagram at 'VDI'. VDI branches to 'VDI on a thin client' and 'VDI on a Browser', then they both branch into 'DIY' which branches to 'Citrix', 'VMware', and 'Azure', and 'Outsource' which branches to 'Desktop as a Service Vendor'.

    Surveys are telling us a story

    Questions you should be asking before you create your RFP
    • What are the use cases and types of workloads?
    • What is the quality of the network connection and bandwidth for the user base?
    • What are the application requirements?
    • What type of end points does the user have and what is the configuration?
    • Where are the data storage containers, how are they accessed, and are there proximity constraints?
    • What is the business security and identity policy requirements?
    • What are the functional and nonfunctional requirements?
    • Will the virtual desktops be persistent or non-persistent?

    How would you rate the user experience on your VDI/DaaS solution?


    (Source: Hysolate, 2020)

    • 18% of CISOs say htue employees are happy with their company's VDI/DaaS solution
    • 82% say their employees are neutral or unhappy with their company's VDI/DaaS solution

    Info-Tech Insight

    Asking critical use-case questions should give you a clear picture of the end-user experience outcome.

    End-user KPI metrics are difficult to gather

    Security is always quoted as a primary justification for VDI/DaaS, while UX is far down the list of KPIs. WHY?

    IT engineers use network and performance metrics to manage end-user complaints of “slowness,” which in reality is not what the user is experiencing.

    IT needs to invest in more meaningful metrics to manage end-user pain:

    • Logon duration
    • App load time
    • App response time
    • Session response time
    • Graphic quality and responsiveness and latency
    • Application availability and performance
    Bar chart of justifications used for business investment in VDI/DaaS. The most used justification is 'IT Efficiency' at 38%, and highlighted in the 2nd last place is 'Employee Experience' at 11%.
    (Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2020)

    Dimensions of user experience

    The dimensions of end-user experience can be broken down into four distinct categories that will impact not only the end user but also the business.

    Picturing your landscape in this framework will help clearly define your considerations when deciding on whether a VDI or DaaS solution is right for your business. We will investigate how these scenarios impact the end user, what that means, and how that can guide the questions that you are asking as you move to an RFP.

    Info-Tech Insight

    In the world of VDI and DaaS, if you do not get buy-in from the end user, the rate of adoption and the overall success of the implementation will prove difficult to measure. It will be impossible to calculate ROI even as you feel the impact of your TCO.

    Three arrows pointing right with labels in sequence 'Dimensions', 'Operational Metrics', and 'Technical Capabilities/ Controls'

    Cycle diagram with many tiers, titled 'USER EXPERIENCE'. The first tier from the center has four items cycling clockwise 'Availability', 'Functionality', 'Security', and 'Performance'. The second tier is associated to the first tier: under Availability is 'Maintenance', 'Uptime', and 'Degradation'; under Functionality is 'Graphics Quality', 'User Friction', and 'Usability'; under Security is 'Endpoint Monitoring', 'Plane Control', and 'Identity'; under Performance is 'Response Time', 'Reliability', and 'Latency'. Around the edge on the third tier are many different related terms.

    KPIs and metrics

    • Understand the types of end-user activities that are most likely to be reported as being slow.
    • You need to know what storage, CPU, memory, and network resources are being used when the user performs those activities. In other words, what is the OS doing behind the scenes and what hardware is it using?
    • Once you have determined which resources are being used by the various activities you will have to monitor the UX metrics to see which OS, network, storage, or server configuration issue is causing the performance issue that the user is reporting.

    What IT measures

    Most business KPI objectives concentrate on business goals, whether it be cost containment, security, simplification, ease of management, or centralization of apps and data, but rarely is there a KPI for end-user experience.

    You can’t fix what you can’t see. Putting a cost benefit to end-user satisfaction may come in the form of productivity.

    This may be a central reason why VDI has not been widely adopted as an architecture since it came to the marketplace more than 15 years ago.

    Samples of different KPIs and metrics.

    VDI processes to monitor

    Monitoring end-user metrics will mitigate the tension between business KPIs and end-user satisfaction

    Metric

    Description

    End-User
    Experience

    PERFORMANCELogon durationOnce the user puts in their password, how long does it take to get to their desktop? What is the measurement and how do you measure?
    App load timeWhen an app is launched by the user there should be immediate indication that it is loading.
    App response timeWhen the user performs a task, there should be no wait time, or hourglass icon, waiting for the app to catch up to the user input. (There is no succinct way to measure this.)
    Session response timeHow does the user’s OS respond to I/O? The user should not experience any latency issues when doing a drag and drop, clicking on a menu item, or doing a search.
    AVAILABILITYSLAsWhen something goes wrong in the VDI/DaaS environment, how quickly can the user expect to get back to their tasks?
    Geographic locationWhen all other considerations are configured correctly, the user experience may be impacted by their location. So, for example, a user working out of Mexico and logging into a VDI may experience latency based on location compared to a user in California, for example, where the resources are stored, managed, and monitored.
    Application availabilityMuch like app load time and response time, the only factor affecting the user experience is the back-end load on the app itself, for example a CAD or heavy resource app not properly resourced.
    FUNCTIONALITYConfiguration of user desktopDegradation in functionality is caused by improper allocation of CPU, RAM, and GPU for the tasks at hand, creating a bad UX and end-user satisfaction score.
    Graphics quality and responsivenessThe user should have the same experience as if on their own physical machine. A video experience should not have any lag in it, for example. MS Teams should not have latency or sound quality issues.
    Predictive analysisContinuous performance and availability monitoring.
    END USERBrowser real user monitoring (RUM)A real-time view into how the web application is performing from the point of view of a real end user.
    Customer satisfaction scoreSurvey-based metrics on customer satisfaction.

    “If employees are the competitive edge and key differentiator for a business, I&O has a duty of care to ensure that the employees’ digital experience enables and does not impede the value of that asset.” (John Annand, Principal Director, Info-Tech Research Group)

    The case for VDI today

    Is security and data sovereignty the only reason?

    Technical capability
    AVAILABILITYVDI is a better fit than DaaS in organizations that have limited or unreliable internet connectivity.
    FUNCTIONALITYApplication flexibility: Resource-intensive applications may require specific virtual desktop configurations, for example in-house GIS apps, CAD, and gaming software requiring specific GPU configurations.
    SECURITYData protection is often stated as a need to maintain an on-premises VDI solution, ensuring sensitive and highly privileged data does not travel across the internet.
    AVAILABILITYWhile some cloud providers will allow you to bring your OS licensing along with a cloud migration, many subscriptions already include OS licensing, and you may be paying additional licensing costs.
    SECURITYVDI makes sense if security and control are primary business KPIs, the IT resources are experienced virtual infrastructure engineers and administrators, and funding is not a hindrance.
    PERFORMANCEWhen processing power is a functional requirement, such as CPU, GPU, and storage capacity, VDI offers performance benefits over a standard PC, reducing the need to deploy high-powered PCs to end users.

    “Though the desktops are moving to the cloud, accountability is not.” (Gary Bea, Director of Consulting Services and Technical Operations, Goliath Technologies)

    The case for DaaS

    Any device anywhere: key benefits of DaaS

    Technical capabilityChallenges
    AVAILABILITYDelivers a consistent user experience regardless of location or device.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The total cost of the solution will be higher than you anticipate, and management is complex. Additionally, your ability to set your conditions and controls is limited.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Depending on your technical abilities and experience with cloud services, you will likely benefit from professional third-party services, technical services, and consulting, which can be critical when deciding if DaaS can fit into your current IT architecture, processes, and security posture.

    SECURITYEnhances security posture by eliminating your client VPN and keeping sensitive data off the endpoint device.
    FUNCTIONALITYOnboard and offboard users quickly and securely.
    FUNCTIONALITYProvides centralize workspace management.
    FUNCTIONALITYScale up or down on demand with a consumption- and subscription-based contract.
    FUNCTIONALITYSignificantly reduce operational overhead compared to managing a traditional VDI deployment.

    Technical capability comparison

    Table comparing technical capabilities using a scale of circle quarters: zero quarters being 'Poor' and 4 quarters being 'Good'. There are six columns in the body, three of which are under 'VDI': 'Thin Client', 'Thick Client', and 'Web Client', and the other three are 'Desktop as a service', 'Device as a service', and 'Win11 w/ Autopilot & Intune'. Rows are split into four categories: In 'Performance' are 'Reliability', 'Response Time', and 'Latency'; in 'Availability' are 'Uptime' and 'Degradation'; in 'Functionality' are 'Usability', 'Graphics Quality', and 'User Friction'; in 'Security' are 'Endpoint Mgt.', 'Control Plane', and 'Identity'.

    X as an endpoint client

    From an end-user experience perspective, what makes sense in terms of usage and cost?

    Thin Client
    • ✓ Easy provisioning and simple to use and manage
    • ✓ Easy to secure and update
    • ✓ Less vulnerable to data loss
    • ✓ Easily scaled
    • ✓ Requires less power
    • ✓ Cheaper than PCs
    • x compared to a PC
    • x Not powerful enough to manage loads such as CAD
    • x Infrastructure and network must be robust and up to date to avoid possible network latency
    • Examples: Terminals, Dell Wyse 5070, Lenovo M625, IGEL, HP Thin Client, repurposed PCs, Chromebook
    Desktop as a Service
    • ✓ Flexibility: work from anywhere, on any device, collaboratively
    • ✓ Resource scalability not reliant on on-premises server hardware
    • ✓ Easy to configure, install, and maintain
    • ✓ Reliable and easy to provision
    • ✓ Centralized sensitive data cloud security
    • x Requires high-speed internet, especially for remote users
    • x Learning curve can cause user friction
    • x Workload configuration use cases
    • Examples: Citrix, VM Horizon, AWS WorkSpaces, WVD, BYOD
    Thick Client
    • ✓ Completely flexible, for use with on-premises or cloud infrastructure
    • ✓ Able to work offline
    • ✓ Multimedia or bandwidth-intensive resource processing
    • ✓ Higher server capacity due to less resource load on servers
    • x Higher maintenance and updates attention
    • x Patching, security, and data migration friction
    • x More security vulnerability
    • x Less cost effective
    • Examples: Windows, MacOS desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets
    Device as a Service
    • ✓ Device supply chain flow fulfillment, services, and recovery
    • ✓ Able to update to new equipment more frequently
    • ✓ Scale up and down as needed
    • ✓ Better device backup, asset tracking , security, and EOL disposal
    • x Challenging risk management, regulatory obligations, and liabilities
    • x Change in helpdesk and business workflows
    • x Vendor may limit selection
    • Examples: PCs, smartphones, mobile computing devices, Lenovo, HP, Microsoft, Dell, Macs, iPads, iPhones
    Web Client
    • ✓ Can be accessed from any computer; only requires username and password
    • ✓ Client works with a URL, so browser-based
    • ✓ Updates are easier than on a Windows client
    • x Security risk and information leakage
    • x Dependent on internet access
    • x Unable to work on high-impact resource apps (e.g. CAD, graphics)
    • x Limited user base, less technical operations
    • Examples: Chrome, Edge, HTML5

    Security: on-premises versus cloud

    Security decisions based on risk tolerance

    • What is your risk tolerance? When deciding between VDI and DaaS, the first consideration is whether the business is better served with an on-premises or a cloud solution.
    • Low risk tolerance: Considerer data sovereignty, complex compliance requirements, and data classification. For example, at the Pentagon, DoD requires heavy compliance with security and data sovereignty. DaaS cloud providers may be in a better position to respond to threats and attacks in a timely manner.
    • Low risk tolerance: If the business mandates security tools that cannot be deployed in cloud solutions, VDI is a better solution.
    • Low risk tolerance: Smaller businesses that don’t have resources with the expertise and skill set to handle security are better served in cloud. Security operations centers (SOCs) are more likely to present in large corporations.
    • Low risk tolerance: When patching requires customization, for example in legacy applications, the ability to test patches is impacted, which may cause possible complications or failures.
    • High risk tolerance: For cloud-based solutions, patching is taken out of the IT team’s hands, and testing is done against the complete cloud solution.

    Info-Tech Insight

    What is the better security posture and control plane? Clarify your stakeholders’ objectives, then see if VDI is an adequate solution.

    Security needs for VDI and DaaS

    • IDENTITY AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT — MFA, authorization, provisioning, SSO, identity federation, data owners, workflows, role-based access control (RBAC), user lifecycle management
    • ENCRYPTION — TLS 1.3, and 256-bit, endpoint encryption, file encryption, AES, PKI, BitLocker
    • DATA LOSS PREVENTION — Centralized policy management, sensitive data detection, HIPAA, GDPR
    • ANTIVIRUS & PATCH MANAGEMENT — Group policy management, AV exclusions, anti-ransomware, keylogger mitigation
    • DDoS protection — HTTP, UDP flood mitigation, content delivery network, always-on services
    • ENDPOINT DETECTION & RESPONSE — Detect and react to advanced active attacks on endpoints

    Activity

    Define the virtual infrastructure solution for your end users

    1. Define and build your value hypothesis/proposition
      1. What is the business case? Who is championing the investment?
      2. Identify the project management team and stakeholders.
      3. Set goals to be achieved based on value.
      4. Identify KPIs and metrics to measure success.
    2. Identify use cases and personas
      1. Identify possible user friction (e.g. emotional, cognitive, interaction).
      2. Understand current infrastructure shortcomings/capabilities (e.g. network, security posture/tolerance, staffing needs, qualified technicians, end-user devices).
    3. Articulate use cases into functional and nonfunctional requirements
      1. Separate must haves and nice to haves.
      2. Categorize requirements into identifiable functionality capabilities.
      3. Review your outputs and identify “gotchas” using the MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) principle.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Stock image of a dashboard.Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy

    Phase 3.2 of this research set covers virtual desktop infrastructure.

    Stock image of a world surrounded by clouds.Implement Desktop Virtualization and Transition to Everything as a Service

    Follow Info-Tech’s process for implementing the right desktop virtualization solution to create a project plan that will help ensure that you not only choose the right solution but also implement it effectively.

    Stock image of a finger pushing a button.Cloud Strategy Workbook

    Use this tool to assess cloud services (desktop-as-a-service).

    Stock image of a world surrounded by clouds.Desktop Virtualization TCO Calculator

    This tool is designed to help you understand what desktop virtualization looks like from a cost perspective.

    Bibliography

    Anderson, Joseph. “Five Ways VDI Will Grow in 2022 Thanks to Hybrid Work.” StratoDesk, 28 Feb. 2022. Web.

    Bowker, Mark. “Are Desktops Doomed? Trends in Digital Workspaces, VDI, and DaaS.” ESG, May 2020. Web.

    “The CISO's Dilemma: How Chief Information Security Officers Are Balancing Enterprise Endpoint Security and Worker Productivity in Response to COVID-19.” Hysolate, Oct. 2020. Web.

    King, Val. “Why the End-User Experience Is Not Good for Your Remote Workforce .” Whitehat Virtual Technologies, 2 Dec. 2021. Web.

    Perry, Yifat. “VDI vs DaaS: 5 Key Differences and 6 Leading Solutions.” NetApp, 26 Aug. 2020. Web.

    Rigg, Christian. “Best virtual desktop services 2022.” TechRadar, 20 Jan. 2022 . Web.

    Seget, Vladan. “Key metrics to consider when assessing the performance of your VDI/DaaS environment.” vladan.fr, 19 April 2021. Web.

    Spruijt, Ruben. “Why Should You Care About VDI and Desktop-as-a-Service?” Nutanix, 28 Jan. 2020. Web.

    Stowers, Joshua. “The Best Desktop as a Service (DaaS) Providers 2022.” business.com, 21 Dec. 2021. Web.

    “Virtual Desktop Infrastructure(VDI) Market 2022.” MarketWatch, 5 Jan. 2022. Web. Press release.

    Zamir, Tal. “VDI Security Best Practices: Busting the Myths.” Hysolate, 29 Nov. 2021. Web.

    Zychowicz, Paul. “Why do virtual desktop deployments fail?” Turbonomic Blog, 16 Dec. 2016. Web.

    Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • Each year, SMB IT organizations spend more money “outsourcing” tasks, activities, applications, functions, and other items.
    • Many SMBs lack the affordability of implementing a sophisticated vendor management initiative or office.
    • The increased spend and associated outsourcing leads to less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. There are commonalities among vendor management initiatives, but the key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs, not the other way around.
    • All vendors are not of equal importance to an organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.
    • Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally”, starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Build and implement a vendor management initiative tailored to your environment.
    • Create a solid foundation to sustain your vendor management initiative as it evolves and matures.
    • Leverage vendor management-specific tools and templates to manage vendors more proactively and improve communication.
    • Concentrate your vendor management resources on the right vendors.
    • Build a roadmap and project plan for your vendor management journey to ensure you reach your destination.
    • Build collaborative relationships with critical vendors.

    Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand how changes in the vendor landscape and customer reliance on vendors have made a vendor management initiative indispensible.

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

    1. Plan

    This phase helps you organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 1: Plan
    • Phase 1 Small Business Tools and Templates Compendium

    2. Build

    This phase helps you configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 2: Build
    • Phase 2 Small Business Vendor Classification Tool
    • Phase 2 Small Business Risk Assessment Tool
    • Phase 2 Small Business Tools and Templates Compendium

    3. Run

    This phase helps you begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 3: Run

    4. Review

    This phase helps the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 4: Review
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business

    Create and implement a vendor management framework to begin obtaining measurable results in 90 days.


    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Vendor Management Challenge

    Small businesses are often challenged by the growth and complexity of their vendor ecosystem, including the degree to which the vendors control them. Vendors are increasing, obtaining more and more budget dollars, while funding for staff or headcount is decreasing as a result of cloud-based applications and an increase in our reliance on Managed Service Providers. Initiating a vendor management initiative (VMI) vs. creating a fully staffed vendor management office will get you started on the path of proactively controlling your vendors instead of consistently operating in a reactionary mode. This blueprint is designed with that very thought: to assist small businesses in creating the essentials of a vendor management initiative.

    This is a picture of Steve Jeffery

    Steve Jeffery
    Principal Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Each year, IT organizations "outsource" tasks, activities, functions, and other items. During 2021:

    • Spend on as-a-service providers increased 38% over 2020.*
    • Spend on managed service providers increased 16% over 2020.*
    • IT service providers increased their merger and acquisition numbers by 47% over 2020.*

    This leads to more spend, less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Common Obstacles

    As new contracts are negotiated and existing contracts are renegotiated or renewed, there is a perception that the contracts will yield certain results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes. The hope is that these will provide a measurable expected value to IT and the organization. Oftentimes, much of the expected value is never realized. Many organizations don't have a VMI to help:

    • Ensure at least the expected value is achieved.
    • Improve on the expected value through performance management.
    • Significantly increase the expected value through a proactive VMI.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Vendor Management is a proactive, cross-functional lifecycle. It can be broken down into four phases:

    • Plan
    • Build
    • Run
    • Review

    The Info-Tech process addresses all four phases and provides a step-by-step approach to configure and operate your VMI. The content in this blueprint helps you quickly establish your VMI and sets a solid foundation for its growth and maturity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vendor management is not a one-size-fits-all initiative. It must be configured:

    • For your environment, culture, and goals.
    • To leverage the strengths of your organization and personnel.
    • To focus your energy and resources on your critical vendors.

    Executive Summary

    Your challenge

    Spend on managed service providers and as-a-service providers continues to increase. In addition, IT services vendors continue to be active in the mergers and acquisitions arena. This increases the need for a VMI to help with the changing IT vendor landscape.

    38%

    2021

    16%

    2021

    47%

    2021

    Spend on as-a-service providers

    Spend on managed services providers

    IT services merger & acquisition growth (transactions)

    Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Executive Summary

    Common obstacles

    When organizations execute, renew, or renegotiate a contract, there is an "expected value" associated with that contract. Without a robust VMI, most of the expected value will never be realized. With a robust VMI, the realized value significantly exceeds the expected value during the contract term.

    A contract's realized value with and without a vendor management initiative

    This is an image of a bar graph showing the difference in value between those with and without a VMI, with and for those with a VMI, with Vendor Collaboration and with Vendor Performance Management. The data for those with a VMI have substantially more value.

    Source: Based on findings from Geller & Company, 2003.

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech's approach

    A sound, cyclical approach to vendor management will help you create a VMI that meets your needs and stays in alignment with your organization as they both change (i.e. mature and grow).

    This is an image of the 4 Step Vendor Management Process. The four steps are: 1. Plan; 2. Build; 3. Run; 4. Review.

    Info-Tech's methodology for creating and operating your vmi

    Phase 1 - Plan Phase 2 - Build Phase 3 - Run Phase 4 - Review
    Phase Steps

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    Phase Outcomes This phase helps you organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI. This phase helps you configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan. This phase helps you begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI. This phase helps the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    Insight Summary

    Insight 1

    Vendor management is not "plug and play" – each organization's vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. While there are commonalities and leading practices associated with vendor management, your initiative won't look exactly like another organization's. The key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs.

    Insight 2

    All vendors are not of equal importance to your organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization's investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.

    Insight 3

    Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI's ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates "informally", starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT benefits

    • Identify and manage risk proactively.
    • Reduce costs and maximize value.
    • Increase visibility with your critical vendors.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Create a collaborative environment with key vendors.
    • Segment vendors to allocate resources more effectively and more efficiently.

    Business benefits

    • Improve vendor accountability.
    • Increase collaboration between departments.
    • Improve working relationships with your vendors.
    • Create a feedback loop to address vendor/customer issues before they get out of hand or are more costly to resolve.
    • Increase access to meaningful data and information regarding important vendors.

    Phase 1 - Plan

    Phase 1

    Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activity:

    • Organizing your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 1 – Plan

    Get Organized

    Phase 1 – Plan focuses on getting organized. Foundational elements (Mission Statement, Goals, Scope, Strengths and Obstacles, Roles and Responsibilities, and Process Mapping) will help you define your VMI. These and the other elements of this Phase will follow you throughout the process of starting up your VMI and running it.

    Spending time up front to ensure that everyone is on the same page will help avoid headaches down the road. The tendency is to skimp (or even skip) on these steps to get to "the good stuff." To a certain extent, the process provided here is like building a house. You wouldn't start building your dream home without having a solid blueprint. The same is true with vendor management. Leveraging vendor management tools and techniques without the proper foundation may provide some benefit in the short term, but in the long term it will ultimately be a house of cards waiting to collapse.

    Step 1.1 – Mission statement and goals

    Identify why the VMI exists and what it will achieve

    Whether you are starting your vendor management journey or are already down the path, it is important to know why the vendor management initiative exists and what it hopes to achieve. The easiest way to document this is with a written declaration in the form of a Mission Statement and Goals. Although this is the easiest way to proceed, it is far from easy.

    The Mission Statement should identify at a high level the nature of the services provided by the VMI, who it will serve, and some of the expected outcomes or achievements. The Mission Statement should be no longer than one or two sentences.

    The complement to the Mission Statement is the list of goals for the VMI. Your goals should not be a reassertion of your Mission Statement in bullet format. At this stage it may not be possible to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based), but consider making them as SMART as possible. Without some of the SMART parameters attached, your goals are more like dreams and wishes. At a minimum, you should be able to determine the level of success achieved for each of the VMI goals.

    Although the VMI's Mission Statement will stay static over time (other than for significant changes to the VMI or organization as a whole), the goals should be reevaluated periodically using a SMART filter, and adjusted as needed.

    1.1.1 – Mission statement and goals

    20 – 40 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list, on a whiteboard or flip chart, the reasons why the VMI will exist.
    2. Review external mission statements for inspiration.
    3. Review internal mission statements from other areas to ensure consistency.
    4. Draft and document your Mission Statement in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    5. Continue brainstorming and identify the high-level goals for the VMI.
    6. Review the list of goals and make them as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based) as possible.
    7. Document your goals in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium– Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    8. Obtain signoff on the Mission Statement and goals from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming results
    • Mission statements from other internal and external sources

    Output

    • Completed Mission Statement and Goals

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.2 – Scope

    Determine what is in scope and out of scope for the VMI

    Regardless of where your VMI resides or how it operates, it will be working with other areas within your organization. Some of the activities performed by the VMI will be new and not currently handled by other groups or individuals internally; at the same time, some of the activities performed by the VMI may be currently handled by other groups or individuals internally. In addition, executives, stakeholders, and other internal personnel may have expectations or make assumptions about the VMI. As a result, there can be a lot of confusion about what the VMI does and doesn't do, and the answers cannot always be found in the VMI's Mission Statement and Goals.

    One component of helping others understand the VMI landscape is formalizing the VMI Scope. The Scope will define boundaries for the VMI. The intent is not to fence itself off and keep others out but provide guidance on where the VMI's territory begins and ends. Ultimately, this will help clarify the VMI's roles and responsibilities, improve workflow, and reduce errant assumptions.

    When drafting your VMI scoping document, make sure you look at both sides of the equation (similar to what you would do when following best practices for a statement of work). Identify what is in scope and what is out of scope. Be specific when describing the individual components of the VMI Scope, and make sure executives and stakeholders are onboard with the final version.

    1.2.1 – Scope

    20 - 40 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list, on a whiteboard or flip chart, the activities and functions in scope and out of scope for the VMI.
      1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
      2. Go back and forth between in scope and out of scope as needed; it is not necessary to list all the in-scope items and then turn your attention to the out-of-scope items.
    2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity. An item may be in scope or out of scope, but not both.
    3. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.2 Scope to document the results.
    4. Obtain signoff on the Scope from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming results
    • Mission Statement and Goals

    Output

    • Completed list of items in and out of scope for the VMI

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.2 Scope

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.3 – Strengths and obstacles

    Pinpoint the VMI's strengths and obstacles

    A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a valuable tool, but it is overkill for your VMI at this point. However, using a modified and simplified form of this tool (strengths and obstacles) will yield significant results and benefit the VMI as it grows and matures.

    Your output will be two lists: the strengths associated with the VMI and the obstacles the VMI is facing. For example, strengths could include items such as smart people working within the VMI and executive support. Obstacles could include items such as limited headcount and training required for VMI staff.

    The goals are 1) to harness the strengths to help the VMI be successful and 2) to understand the impact of the obstacles and plan accordingly. The output can also be used to enlighten executives and stakeholders about the challenges associated with their directives or requests (e.g. human bandwidth may not be sufficient to accomplish some of the vendor management activities and there is a moratorium on hiring until the next budget year).

    For each strength identified, determine how you will or can leverage it when things are going well or when the VMI is in a bind. For each obstacle, list the potential impact on the VMI (e.g. scope, growth rate, and number of vendors that can actively be part of the VMI).

    As you do your brainstorming, be as specific as possible and validate your lists with stakeholders and executives as needed.

    1.3.1 – Strengths and obstacles

    20 - 40 Minutes

    Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list, on a whiteboard or flip chart, the VMI's strengths and obstacles.

    Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.

    Go back and forth between strengths and obstacles as needed; it is not necessary to list all the strengths first and then all the obstacles.

    It is possible for an item to be a strength and an obstacle; when this happens, add details to distinguish the situations.

    Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity.

    Determine how you will leverage each strength and how you will manage each obstacle.

    Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles to document the results.

    Obtain signoff on the strengths and obstacles from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Mission Statement and Goals
    • Scope

    Output

    • Completed list of items impacting the VMI's ability to be successful: strengths the VMI can leverage and obstacles the VMI must manage

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.4 – Roles and responsibilities

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what

    One crucial success factor for VMIs is gaining and maintaining internal alignment. There are many moving parts to an organization, and a VMI must be clear on the various roles and responsibilities related to the relevant processes. Some of this information can be found in the VMI's Scope referenced in Step 1.2, but additional information is required to avoid stepping on each other's toes; many of the processes require internal departments to work together. (For example, obtaining requirements for a request for proposal takes more than one person or department). While it is not necessary to get too granular, it is imperative that you have a clear understanding of how the VMI activities will fit within the larger vendor management lifecycle (which is comprised of many sub processes) and who will be doing what.

    As we have learned through our workshops and guided implementations, a traditional RACI* or RASCI* Chart does not work well for this purpose. These charts are not intuitive, and they lack the specificity required to be effective. For vendor management purposes, a higher-level view and a slightly different approach provide much better results.

    This step will lead your through the creation of an OIC* Chart to determine vendor management lifecycle roles and responsibilities. Afterward, you'll be able to say, "Oh, I see clearly who is involved in each part of the process and what their role is."

    *RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

    *RASCI – Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consulted, Informed

    *OIC – Owner, Informed, Contributor

    This is an image of a table, where the row headings are: Role 1-5, and the Column Headings are: Step 1-5.

    Step 1.4 – Roles and responsibilities (cont'd)

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what

    To start, define the vendor management lifecycle steps or process applicable to your VMI. Next, determine who participates in the vendor management lifecycle. There is no need to get too granular – think along the lines of departments, subdepartments, divisions, agencies, or however you categorize internal operational units. Avoid naming individuals other than by title; this typically happens when a person oversees a large group (e.g. the CIO [chief information officer] or the CPO [chief procurement officer]). Be thorough, but don't let the chart get out of hand. For each role and step of the lifecycle, ask whether the entry is necessary; does it add value to the clarity of understanding the responsibilities associated with the vendor management lifecycle? Consider two examples, one for roles and one for lifecycle steps. 1) Is IT sufficient or do you need IT Operations and IT Development? 2) Is "negotiate contract documents" sufficient or do you need negotiate the contract and negotiate the renewal? The answer will depend on your culture and environment but be wary of creating a spreadsheet that requires an 85-inch monitor to view it.

    After defining the roles (departments, divisions, agencies) and the vendor management lifecycle steps or process, assign one of three letters to each box in your chart:

    • O – Owner – who owns the process; they may also contribute to it.
    • I – Informed – who is informed about the progress or results of the process.
    • C – Contributor – who contributes or works on the process; it can be tangible or intangible contributions.

    This activity can be started by the VMI or done as a group with representatives from each of the named roles. If the VMI starts the activity, the resulting chart should be validated by the each of the named roles.

    1.4.1 – Roles and responsibilities

    1 – 6 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and configure the OIC Chart in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.4 OIC Chart.
      1. Review the steps or activities across the top of the chart and modify as needed.
      2. Review the roles listed along the left side of the chart and modify as needed.
    2. For each activity or step across the top of the chart, assign each role a letter – O for owner of that activity or step, I for informed, or C for contributor. Use only one letter per cell.
    3. Work your way across the chart. Every cell should have an entry or be left blank if it is not applicable.
    4. Review the results and validate that every activity or step has an O assigned to it; there must be an owner for every activity or step.
    5. Obtain signoff on the OIC Chart from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • A list of activities or steps to complete a project starting with requirements gathering and ending with ongoing risk management.
    • A list of internal areas (departments, divisions, agencies, etc.) and stakeholders that contribute to completing a project.

    Output

    • Completed OCI chart indicating roles and responsibilities for the VMI and other internal areas.

    Materials

    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.4 OIC Chart

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Representatives from other areas as needed
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Phase 2 - Build

    Create and configure tools, templates, and processes

    Phase 1

    Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Configuring and creating the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Human Resources
    • Legal
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 2 – Build

    Create and configure tools, templates, and processes

    Phase 2 – Build focuses on creating and configuring the tools and templates that will help you run your VMI. Vendor management is not a plug and play environment, and unless noted otherwise, the tools and templates included with this blueprint require your input and thought. The tools and templates must work in concert with your culture, values, and goals. That will require teamwork, insights, contemplation, and deliberation.

    During this Phase you'll leverage the various templates and tools included with this blueprint and adapt them for your specific needs and use. In some instances, you'll be starting with mostly a blank slate; while in others, only a small modification may be required to make it fit your circumstances. However, it is possible that a document or spreadsheet may need heavy customization to fit your situation. As you create your VMI, use the included materials for inspiration and guidance purposes rather than as absolute dictates.

    Step 2.1 – Classification model

    Configure the COST vendor classification tool

    One of the functions of a VMI is to allocate the appropriate level of vendor management resources to each vendor since not all vendors are of equal importance to your organization. While some people may be able intuitively to sort their vendors into vendor management categories, a more objective, consistent, and reliable model works best. Info-Tech's COST model helps you assign your vendors to the appropriate vendor management category so that you can focus your vendor management resources where they will do the most good.

    COST is an acronym for Commodity, Operational, Strategic, and Tactical. Your vendors will occupy one of these vendor management categories, and each category helps you determine the nature of the resources allocated to that vendor, the characteristics of the relationship desired by the VMI, and the governance level used.

    The easiest way to think of the COST model is as a 2 x 2 matrix or graph. The model should be configured for your environment so that the criteria used for determining a vendor's classification align with what is important to you and your organization. However, at this point in your VMI's maturation, a simple approach works best. The Classification Model included with this blueprint requires minimal configuration to get your started, and that is discussed on the activity slide associated with this Step 2.1.

    This is an image of the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

    Step 2.1 – Classification model (cont'd)

    Configure the COST vendor classification tool

    Common characteristics by vendor management category

    Operational

    Strategic
    • Low to moderate risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Product or service used by more than one area
    • Price is a key negotiation point
    • Product or service is valued by the organization
    • Quality or the perception of quality is a differentiator (i.e. brand awareness)
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Few competitors and differentiated products and services
    • Product or service significantly advances the organization's vision, mission, and success
    • Well-established in their core industry

    Commodity

    Tactical
    • Low risk and criticality; low spend and switching costs
    • Product or service is readily available from many sources
    • Market has many competitors and options
    • Relationship is transactional
    • Price is the main differentiator
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; low to moderate spend and switching costs
    • Vendor offerings align with or support one or more strategic objectives
    • Often IT vendors "outside" of IT (i.e. controlled and paid for by other areas)
    • Often niche or new vendors

    Source: Compiled in part from Guth, Stephen. "Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More)." 2015.

    2.1.1 – Classification model

    15 – 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the spend ranges in Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 1. Configuration for your environment.
    2. Collect your vendors and their annual spend to sort by largest to lowest.
    3. Update cells F14-J14 in the Classification Model based on your actual data.
      1. Cell F14 – Set the boundary at a point between the spend for your 10th and 11th ranked vendors. For example, if the 10th vendor by spend is $1,009, 850 and the 11th vendor by spend is $980,763, the range for F14 would be $1,000,00+.
      2. Cell G14 – Set the bottom of the range at a point between the spend for your 30th and 31st ranked vendors; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in F14.
      3. Cell H14 – Set the bottom of the range slightly below the spend for your 50th ranked vendor; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in G14.
      4. Cells I14 and J14 – Divide the remaining range in half and split it between the two cells; for J14 the range will be $0 to $1 less than the bottom range in I14.
    4. Ignore the other variables at this time.

    Input

    • Phase 1 List of Vendors by Annual Spend

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Classification Tool

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 1. Configuration

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool

    Step 2.2 – Risk assessment tool

    Identify risks to measure, monitor, and report on

    One of the typical drivers of a VMI is risk management. Organizations want to get a better handle on the various risks their vendors pose. Vendor risks originate from many areas: financial, performance, security, legal, and others. However, security risk is the high-profile risk, and the one organizations often focus on almost exclusively, which leaves the organization vulnerable in other areas.

    Risk management is a program, not a project; there is no completion date. A proactive approach works best and requires continual monitoring, identification, and assessment. Reacting to risks after they occur can be costly and have other detrimental effects on the organization. Any risk that adversely affects IT will adversely affect the entire organization.

    While the VMI won't necessarily be quantifying or calculating the risk directly, it generally is the aggregator of risk information across the risk categories, which it then includes in its reporting function (see Steps 2.12 and 3.8).

    At a minimum, your risk management strategy should involve:

    • Identifying the risks you want to measure and monitor.
    • Identifying your risk appetite (the amount of risk you are willing to live with).
    • Measuring, monitoring, and reporting on the applicable risks.
    • Developing and deploying a risk management plan to minimize potential risk impact.

    Vendor risk is a fact of life, but you do have options for how to handle it. Be proactive and thoughtful in your approach, and focus your resources on what is important.

    2.2.1 – Risk assessment tool

    30 - 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the risk indicators in Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool – Tab 1. Set parameters for your environment.
    2. Review the risk categories and determine which ones you will be measuring and monitoring.
    3. Review the risk indicators under each risk category and determine whether the indicator is acceptable as written, is acceptable with modifications, should be replaced, or should be deleted.
    4. Make the necessary changes to the risk indicators; these changes will cascade to each of the vendor tabs. Limit the number of risk indicators to no more than seven per risk category.
    5. Gain input and approval as needed from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required.

    Input

    • Scope
    • OIC Chart
    • Process Maps
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool – Tab 1. Set Parameters

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    A vendor management scorecard is a great tool for measuring, monitoring, and improving relationship alignment. In addition, it is perfect for improving communication between you and the vendor.

    Conceptually, a scorecard is similar to a school report card. At the end of a learning cycle, you receive feedback on how well you do in each of your classes. For vendor management, the scorecard is also used to provide periodic feedback, but there are some nuances and additional benefits and objectives when compared to a report card.

    Although scorecards can be used in a variety of ways, the focus here will be on vendor management scorecards – contract management, project management, and other types of scorecards will not be included in the materials covered in this Step 2.3 or in Step 3.4.

    This image contains a table with the score for objectives A-D. The scores are: A4, B3, C5, D4.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Anatomy

    The Info-Tech scorecard includes five areas:

    • Measurement categories. Measurement categories help organize the scorecard. Limit the number of measurement categories to three to five; this allows the parties to stay focused on what's important. Too many measurement categories make it difficult for the vendor to understand the expectations.
    • Criteria. The criteria describe what is being measured. Create criteria with sufficient detail to allow the reviewers to fully understand what is being measured and to evaluate it. Criteria can be objective or subjective. Use three to five criteria per measurement category.
    • Measurement category weights. Not all your measurement categories may be of equal importance to you; this area allows you to give greater weight to a measurement category when compiling the overall score.
    • Rating. Reviewers will be asked to assign a score to each criteria using a 1 to 5 scale.
    • Comments. A good scorecard will include a place for reviewers to provide additional information regarding the rating, or other items that are relevant to the scorecard.

    An overall score is calculated based on the rating for each criteria and the measurement category weights.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Goals and objectives

    Scorecards can be used for a variety of reasons. Some of the common ones are:

    • Improving vendor performance.
    • Conveying expectations to the vendor.
    • Identifying and recognizing top vendors.
    • Increasing alignment between the parties.
    • Improving communication with the vendor.
    • Comparing vendors across the same criteria.
    • Measuring items not included in contract metrics.
    • Identifying vendors for "strategic alliance" consideration.
    • Helping the organization achieve specific goals and objectives.

    Identifying and resolving issues before they impact performance or the relationship.

    Identifying your scorecard drivers first will help you craft a suitable scorecard.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Info-Tech recommends starting with simple scorecards to allow you and the vendors to acclimate to the new process and information. As you build your scorecards, keep in mind that internal personnel will be scoring the vendors and the vendors will be reviewing the scorecard. Make your scorecard easy for your personnel to fill out, and containing meaningful content to drive the vendor in the right direction. You can always make the scorecard more complex in the future.

    Our recommendation of five categories is provided below. Choose three to five of the categories that help you accomplish your scorecard goals and objectives:

    1. Timeliness – Responses, resolutions, fixes, submissions, completions, milestones, deliverables, invoices, etc.
    2. Cost – Total cost of ownership, value, price stability, price increases/decreases, pricing models, etc.
    3. Quality – Accuracy, completeness, mean time to failure, bugs, number of failures, etc.
    4. Personnel – Skilled, experienced, knowledgeable, certified, friendly, trustworthy, flexible, accommodating, etc.
    5. Risk – Adequate contractual protections, security breaches, lawsuits, finances, audit findings, etc.

    Some criteria may be applicable in more than one category. The categories above should cover at least 80% of the items that are important to your organization. The general criteria listed for each category is not an exhaustive list, but most things break down into time, money, quality, people, and risk issues.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Additional Considerations

    • Even a good rating system can be confusing. Make sure you provide some examples or a way for reviewers to discern the differences between a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Don't assume your "rating key" will be intuitive.
    • When assigning weights, don't go lower than 10% for any measurement category. If the weight is too low, it won't be relevant enough to have an impact on the total score. If it doesn't "move the needle", don't include it.
    • Final sign-off on the scorecard template should occur outside the VMI. The heavy lifting can be done by the VMI to create it, but the scorecard is for the benefit of the organization overall, and those impacted by the vendors specifically. You may end up playing arbiter or referee, but the scorecard is not the exclusive property of the VMI. Try to reach consensus on your final template whenever possible.
    • You should notice improved ratings and total scores over time for your vendors. One explanation for this is the Pygmalion Effect: "The Pygmalion [E]ffect describes situations where someone's high expectations improves our behavior and therefore our performance in a given area. It suggests that we do better when more is expected of us."* Convey your expectations and let the vendors' competitive juices take over.
    • While creating your scorecard and materials to explain the process to internal personnel, identify those pieces that will help you explain it to your vendors during vendor orientation (see Steps 2.6 and 3.4). Leveraging pre-existing materials is a great shortcut.

    *Source: The Decision Lab, n.d.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Vendor Feedback

    After you've built your scorecard, turn your attention to the second half of the equation – feedback from the vendor. A communication loop cannot be successful without dialogue flowing both ways. While this can happen with just a scorecard, a mechanism specifically geared toward the vendor providing you with feedback improves communication, alignment, and satisfaction.

    You may be tempted to create a formal scorecard for the vendor to use; avoid that temptation until later in your maturity or development of the VMI. You'll be implementing a lot of new processes, deploying new tools and templates, and getting people to work together in new ways. Work on those things first.

    For now, implement an informal process for obtaining information from the vendor. Start by identifying information that you will find useful – information that will allow you to improve overall, to reduce waste or time, to improve processes, to identify gaps in skills. Incorporate these items into your business alignment meetings (see Steps 2.4 and 3.5). Create three to five good questions to ask the vendor and include these in the business alignment meeting agenda. The goal is to get meaningful feedback, and that starts with asking good questions.

    Keep it simple at first. When the time is right, you can build a more formal feedback form or scorecard. Don't be in a rush; as long as the informal method works, keep using it.

    2.3.1 – Scorecards and feedback

    30 – 60 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for your scorecard measurement categories:
      1. What makes a vendor valuable to your organization?
      2. What differentiates a "good" vendor from a "bad" vendor?
      3. What items would you like to measure and provide feedback on to the vendor to improve performance, the relationship, risk, and other areas?
    2. Select three, but no more than five, of the following measure categories: timeliness, cost, quality, personnel, and risk.
    3. Within each measurement category, list two or three criteria that you want to measure and track for your vendors. Choose items that are as universal as possible rather than being applicable to one vendor or one vendor type.
    4. Assign a weight to each measurement category, ensuring that the total weight is 100% for all measurement categories.
    5. Document your results as you go in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Scorecard.

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured Scorecard template

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Scorecard

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    2.3.2 – Scorecards and feedback

    15 to 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for feedback to seek from your vendors during your business alignment meetings. During the brainstorming, identify questions to ask the vendor about your organization that will:
      1. Help you improve the relationship.
      2. Help you improve your processes or performance.
      3. Help you improve ongoing communication.
      4. Help you evaluate your personnel.
    2. Identify the top five questions you want to include in your business alignment meeting agenda. (Note: you may need to refine the actual questions from the brainstorming activity before they are ready to include in your business alignment meeting agenda.)
    3. Document both your brainstorming activity and your final results in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback. The brainstorming questions can be used in the future as your VMI matures and your feedback transforms from informal to formal. The results will be used in Steps 2.4 and 3.5.

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Feedback questions to include with the business alignment meeting agenda

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.4 – Business alignment meeting agenda

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI

    A business alignment meeting (BAM) is a multi-faceted tool to ensure the customer and the vendor stay focused on what is important to the customer at a high level. BAMs are not traditional operational meetings where the parties get into the details of the contracts, deal with installation problems, address project management issues, or discuss specific cost overruns. The focus of the BAM is the scorecard (see Step 2.3), but other topics are discussed, and other purposes are served. For example:

    • You can use the BAM to develop the relationship with the vendor's leadership team so that if escalation is ever needed, your organization is more than just a name on a spreadsheet or customer list.
    • You can learn about innovations the vendor is working on (without the meeting turning into a sales call).
    • You can address high-level performance trends and request corrective action as needed.
    • You can clarify your expectations.
    • You can educate the vendor about your industry, culture, and organization.
    • You can learn more about the vendor.

    As you build your BAM Agenda, someone in your organization may say, "Oh, that's just a quarterly business review (QBR) or top-to-top meeting." In most instances, an existing QBRs or top-to-top meeting is not the same as a BAM. Using the term QBR or top-to-top meeting instead of BAM can lead to confusion internally. The VMI may say to the business unit, procurement, or another department, "We're going to start running some QBRs for our strategic vendors." The typical response is, "There's no need; we already run QBRs/top-to-top meetings with our important vendors." This may be accompanied by an invitation to join their meeting, where you may be an afterthought, have no influence, and get five minutes at the end to talk about your agenda items. Keep your BAM separate so that it meets your needs.

    Step 2.4 – Business alignment meeting agenda (cont'd)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI

    As previously noted, using the term BAM more accurately depicts the nature of the VMI meeting and prevents confusion internally with other meetings already occurring. In addition, hosting the BAM yourself rather than piggybacking onto another meeting ensures that the VMI's needs are met. The VMI will set and control the BAM agenda and determine the invite list for internal personnel and vendor personnel. As you may have figured out by now, having the right customer and vendor personnel attend will be essential.

    BAMs are conducted at the vendor level, not the contract level. As a result, the frequency of the BAMs will depend on the vendor's classification category (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1). General frequency guidelines are provided below, but they can be modified to meet your goals:

    • Commodity vendors – Not applicable
    • Operational vendors – Biannually or annually
    • Strategic vendors – Quarterly
    • Tactical vendors – Quarterly or biannually

    BAMs can help you achieve some additional benefits not previously mentioned:

    • Foster a collaborative relationship with the vendor.
    • Avoid erroneous assumptions by the parties.
    • Capture and provide a record of the relationship (and other items) over time.

    Step 2.4 – Business alignment meeting agenda (cont'd)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI

    As with any meeting, building the proper agenda will be one of the keys to an effective and efficient meeting. A high-level BAM agenda with sample topics is set out below:

    BAM Agenda

    • Opening remarks
      • Welcome and introductions
      • Review of previous minutes
    • Active discussion
      • Review of open issues
      • Scorecard and feedback
      • Current status of projects to ensure situational awareness by the vendor
      • Roadmap/strategy/future projects
      • Accomplishments
    • Closing remarks
      • Reinforce positives (good behavior, results, and performance, value added, and expectations exceeded)
      • Recap
    • Adjourn

    2.4.1 – Business alignment meeting agenda

    20 – 45 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the sample agenda in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.
    2. Using the sample agenda as inspiration and brainstorming activities as needed, create a BAM agenda tailored to your needs.
      1. Select the items from the sample agenda applicable to your situation.
      2. Add any items required based on your brainstorming.
      3. Add the feedback questions identified during Activity 2.3.2 and documented in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback.
    3. Gain input and approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required or appropriate.
    4. Document the final BAM agenda in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium –Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Output

    • Configured BAM agenda

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab2 .4 BAM Agenda

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.5 – Relationship alignment document

    Draft a document to convey important VMI information to your vendors

    Throughout this blueprint, alignment is mentioned directly (e.g. business alignment meetings [Steps 2.4 and 3.3]) or indirectly implied. Ensuring you and your vendors are on the same page, have clear and transparent communication, and understand each other's expectations is critical to fostering strong relationships. One component of gaining and maintaining alignment with your vendors is the Relationship Alignment Document (RAD). Depending upon the Scope of your VMI and what your organization already has in place, your RAD will fill in the gaps on various topics.

    Early in the VMI's maturation, the easiest approach is to develop a short document (1 one page) or a pamphlet (i.e. the classic trifold) describing the rules of engagement when doing business with your organization. The RAD can convey expectations, policies, guidelines, and other items. The scope of the document will depend on:

    1. What you believe is important for the vendors to understand.
    2. Any other similar information already provided to the vendors.

    The first step to drafting a RAD is to identify what information vendors need to know to stay on your good side. You may want vendors to know about your gift policy (e.g. employees may not accept vendor gifts above a nominal value, such as a pen or mousepad). Next, compare your list of what vendors need to know and determine if the content is covered in other vendor-facing documents such as a vendor code of conduct or your website's vendor portal. Lastly, create your RAD to bridge the gap between what you want and what is already in place. In some instances, you may want to include items from other documents to reemphasize them with the vendor community.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The RAD can be used with all vendors regardless of classification category. It can be sent directly to the vendors or given to them during vendor orientation (see Step 3.3)

    2.5.1 – Relationship alignment document

    1 to 4 Hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the RAD sample and checklist in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc.
    2. Determine:
      1. Whether you will create one RAD for all vendors or one RAD for strategic vendors and another RAD for tactical and operational vendors; whether you will create a RAD for commodity vendors.
      2. The concepts you want to include in your RAD(s).
      3. The format for your RAD(s) – traditional, pamphlet, or other.
      4. Whether signoff or acknowledgement will be required by the vendors.
    3. Draft your RAD(s) and work with other internal areas, such as Marketing to create a consistent brand for the RADS, and Legal to ensure consistent use and preservation of trademarks or other intellectual property rights and other legal issues.
    4. Review other vendor-facing documents (e.g. supplier code of conduct, onsite safety and security protocols) for consistencies between them and the RAD(s).
    5. Obtain signoff on the RAD(s) from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Marketing, and others as needed.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Vendor-facing documents, policies, and procedures

    Output

    • Completed Relationship Alignment Document(s)

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Marketing, as needed
    • Legal, as needed

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    Your organization is unique. It may have many similarities with other organizations, but your culture, risk tolerance, mission, vision, and goals, finances, employees, and "customers" (those that depend on you) make it different. The same is true of your VMI. It may have similar principles, objectives, and processes to other organizations' VMIs, but yours is still unique. As a result, your vendors may not fully understand your organization and what vendor management means to you.

    Vendor orientation is another means to helping you gain and maintain alignment with your important vendors, educate them on what is important to you, and provide closure when/if the relationship with the vendor ends. Vendor orientation is comprised of three components, each with a different function:

    • Orientation
    • Reorientation
    • Debrief

    Vendor orientation focuses on the vendor management pieces of the puzzle (e.g. the scorecard process) rather than the operational pieces (e.g. setting up a new vendor in the system to ensure invoices are processed smoothly).

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation (cont'd)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    Reorientation

    • Reorientation is either identical or similar to orientation, depending upon the circumstances. Reorientation occurs for several reasons, and each reason will impact the nature and detail of the reorientation content. Reorientation occurs whenever:
    • There is a significant change in the vendor's products or services.
    • The vendor has been through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.
    • A significant contract renewal/renegotiation has recently occurred.
    • Sufficient time has passed from orientation; commonly 2 to 3 years.
    • The vendor has been placed in a "performance improvement plan" or "relationship improvement plan" protocol.
    • Significant turnover has occurred within your organization (executives, key stakeholders, and/or VMI personnel).
    • Substantial turnover has occurred at the vendor at the executive or account management level.
    • The vendor has changed vendor classification categories after the most current classification.
    • As the name implies, the goal is to refamiliarize the vendor with your current VMI situation, governances, protocols, and expectations. The drivers for reorientation will help you determine the reorientation's scope, scale, and frequency.

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation (cont'd)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    Debrief

    To continue the analogy from orientation, debrief is like an exit interview for an employee when their employment is terminated. In this case, debrief occurs when the vendor is no longer an active vendor with your organization - all contracts have terminated or expired, and no new business with the vendor is anticipated within the next three months.

    Similar to orientation and reorientation, debrief activities will be based on the vendor's classification category within the COST model. Strategic vendors don't go away very often; usually, they transition to operational or tactical vendors first. However, if a strategic vendor is no longer providing products or services to you, dig a little deeper into their experiences and allocate extra time for the debrief meeting.

    The debrief should provide you with feedback on the vendor's experience with your organization and their participation in your VMI. Additionally, it can provide closure for both parties since the relationship is ending. Be careful that the debrief does not turn into a finger-pointing meeting or therapy session for the vendor. It should be professional and productive; if it is going off the rails, terminate the meeting before more damage can occur.

    End the debrief on a high note if possible. Thank the vendor, highlight its key contributions, and single out any personnel who went above and beyond. You never know when you will be doing business with this vendor again – don't burn bridges!

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation (cont'd)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    As you create your vendor orientation materials, focus on the message you want to convey.

    • For orientation and reorientation:
      • What is important to you that vendors need to know?
      • What will help the vendors understand more about your organization and your VMI?
      • What and how are you different from other organizations overall, and in your "industry"?
      • What will help them understand your expectations?
      • What will help them be more successful?
      • What will help you build the relationship?
    • For debrief:
      • What information or feedback do you want to obtain?
      • What information or feedback to you want to give?

    The level of detail you provide strategic vendors during orientation and reorientation may be different from the information you provide tactical and operational vendors. Commodity vendors are not typically involved in the vendor orientation process. The orientation meetings can be conducted on a one-to-one basis for strategic vendors and a one-to-many basis for operational and tactical vendors; reorientation and debrief are best conducted on a one-to-one basis. Lastly, face-to-face or video meetings work best for vendor orientation; voice-only meetings, recorded videos, or distributing only written materials seldom hit their mark or achieve the desired results.

    Step 2.7 – Three-year roadmap

    Plot your path at a high level

    1. The VMI exists in many planes concurrently:
    2. It operates both tactically and strategically.

    It focuses on different timelines or horizons (e.g., the past, the present, and the future). Creating a three-year roadmap facilitates the VMI's ability to function effectively across these multiple landscapes.

    The VMI roadmap will be influenced by many factors. The work product from Phase 1 – Plan, input from executives, stakeholders, and internal clients, and the direction of the organization are great sources of information as you begin to build your roadmap.

    To start, identify what you would like to accomplish in year 1. This is arguably the easiest year to complete: budgets are set (or you have a good idea what the budget will look like), personnel decisions have been made, resources have been allocated, and other issues impacting the VMI are known with a higher degree of certainty than any other year. This does not mean things won't change during the first year of the VMI, but expectations are usually lower, and the short event horizon makes things more predictable during the year-1 ramp-up period.

    Years 2 and 3 are more tenuous, but the process is the same: identify what you would like to accomplish or roll out in each year. Typically, the VMI maintains the year-1 plan into subsequent years and adds to the scope or maturity. For example, you may start year 1 with BAMs and scorecards for three of your strategic vendors; during year 2, you may increase that to five vendors; and during year 3, you may increase that to nine vendors. Or, you may not conduct any market research during year 1, waiting to add it to your roadmap in year 2 or 3 as you mature.

    Breaking things down by year helps you identify what is important and the timing associated with your priorities. A conservative approach is recommended. It is easy to overcommit, but the results can be disastrous and painful.

    2.7.1 – Three-year roadmap

    45 – 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate year 1 of your three-year roadmap with your existing fiscal year or reporting year. Year 1 may be shorter or longer than a calendar year.
    2. Review the VMI activities listed in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.7 Three-year roadmap. Use brainstorming and your prior work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2 to identify additional items for the roadmap and add them at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
    3. Starting with the first activity, determine when that activity will begin and put an X in the corresponding column; if the activity is not applicable, leave it blank or insert N/A.
    4. Go back to the top of the list and add information as needed.
      1. For any year-1 or year-2 activities, add an X in the corresponding columns if the activity will be expanded/continued in subsequent periods (e.g., if a Year 2 activity will continue in year 3, put an X in year 3 as well).
      2. Use the comments column to provide clarifying remarks or additional insights related to your plans or "X's". For example, "Scorecards begin in year 1 with three vendors and will roll out to five vendors in year 2 and nine vendors in year 3."
    5. Obtain signoff from stakeholders, sponsors, and executives as needed.

    Input

    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1 – 2.6 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • High level three-year roadmap for the VMI

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.7 Three-Year Roadmap

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.8 – 90-day plan

    Pave your short-term path with a series of detailed quarterly plans

    Now that you have prepared a three-year roadmap, it's time to take the most significant elements from the first year and create action plans for each three-month period. Your first 90-day plan may be longer or shorter if you want to sync to your fiscal or calendar quarters. Aligning with your fiscal year can make it easier for tracking and reporting purposes; however, the more critical item is to make sure you have a rolling series of four 90-day plans to keep you focused on the important activities and tasks throughout the year.

    The 90-day plan is a simple project plan that will help you measure, monitor, and report your progress. Use the Info-Tech tool to help you track:

    Activities.

    • Tasks comprising each activity.
    • Who will be performing the tasks.
    • An estimate of the time required per person per task.
    • An estimate of the total time to achieve the activity.
    • A due date for the activity.
    • A priority of the activity.

    The first 90-day plan will have the greatest level of detail and should be as thorough as possible; the remaining three 90-day plans will each have less detail for now. As you approach the middle of the first 90-day plan, start adding details to the next 90-day plan; toward the end of the first quarter add a high-level 90-day plan to the end of the chain. Continue repeating this cycle each quarter and consult the three-year roadmap and the leadership team, as necessary.

    2.8.1 – 90-day plan

    45 – 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate the first "90-day" plan with your existing fiscal year or reporting cycles. Your first plan may be shorter or longer than 90 days.
    2. Looking at the year-1 section of the three-year roadmap, identify the activities that will be started during the next 90 days.
    3. Using the Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.8 90-Day Plan, enter the following information into the spreadsheet for each activity to be accomplished during the next 90 days:
      1. Activity description.
      2. Tasks required to complete the activity (be specific and descriptive).
      3. The people who will be performing each task.
      4. The estimated number of hours required to complete each task.
      5. The start date and due date for each task or the activity.
    4. Validate the tasks are a complete list for each activity and the people performing the tasks have adequate time to complete the tasks by the due date(s).
    5. Assign a priority to each Activity.

    Input

    • Three-Year Roadmap
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1 – 2.7 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Detailed plan for the VMI for the next quarter or "90" days

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.8 90-Day Plan

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.9 – Quick wins

    Identify potential short-term successes to gain momentum and show value immediately

    As the final step in the timeline trilogy, you are ready to identify some quick wins for the VMI. Using the first 90-day plan and a brainstorming activity, create a list of things you can do in 15 to 30 days that add value to your initiative and build momentum.

    As you evaluate your list of potential candidates, look for things that:

    • Are achievable within the stated timeline.
    • Don't require a lot of effort.
    • Involve stopping a certain process, activity, or task; this is sometimes known as a "stop doing stupid stuff" approach.
    • Will reduce or eliminate inefficiencies; this is sometimes known as the war on waste.
    • Have a moderate to high impact or bolster the VMI's reputation.

    As you look for quick wins, you may find that everything you identify does not meet the criteria. That's okay; don't force the issue. Return your focus to the 90-day plan and three-year roadmap and update those documents if the brainstorming activity associated with Step 2.9 identified anything new.

    2.9.1 – Quick wins

    15 - 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the three-year roadmap and 90-day plan. Determine if any item on either document can be completed:
      1. Quickly (30 days or less).
      2. With minimal effort.
      3. To provide or show moderate to high levels of value or provide the VMI with momentum.
    2. Brainstorm to identify any other items that meet the criteria in step 1 above.
    3. Compile a comprehensive list of these items and select up to five to pursue.
    4. Document the list in the Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.9 Quick Wins.
    5. Manage the quick wins list and share the results with the VMI team and applicable stakeholders and executives.

    Input

    • Three-Year Roadmap
    • 90-Day Plan
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • A list of activities that require low levels of effort to achieve moderate to high levels of value in a short period

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.9 Quick Wins

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.10 – Reports

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience

    Issuing reports is a critical piece of the VMI since the VMI is a conduit of information for the organization. It may be aggregating risk data from internal areas, conducting vendor research, compiling performance data, reviewing market intelligence, or obtaining relevant statistics, feedback, comments, facts, and figures from other sources. Holding onto this information minimizes the impact a VMI can have on the organization; however, the VMI's internal clients, stakeholders, and executives can drown in raw data and ignore it completely if it is not transformed into meaningful, easily-digested information.

    Before building a report, think about your intended audience:

    • What information are they looking for? What will help them understand the big picture?
    • What level of detail is appropriate, keeping in mind the audience may not be like-minded?
    • What items are universal to all the readers and what items are of interest to one or two readers?
    • How easy or hard will it be to collect the data? Who will be providing it, and how time consuming will it be?
    • How accurate, valid, and timely will the data be?
    • How frequently will each report need to be issued?

    Step 2.10 – Reports (cont'd)

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience

    Use the following guidelines to create reports that will resonate with your audience:

    • Value information over data, but sometimes data does have a place in your report.
    • Use pictures, graphics, and other representations more than words, but words are often necessary in small, concise doses.
    • Segregate your report by user; for example, general information up top, CIO information below that on the right, CFO information to the left of CIO information, etc.
    • Send a draft report to the internal audience and seek feedback, keeping in mind you won't be able to cater to or please everyone.

    2.10.1 – Reports

    15 – 45 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the applicable work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2; identify qualitative and quantitative items the VMI measures, monitors, tracks, or aggregates.
    2. Determine which items will be reported and to whom (by category):
      1. Internally to personnel within the VMI.
      2. Internally to personnel outside the VMI.
      3. Externally to vendors.
    3. Within each category above, determine your intended audiences/recipients. For example, you may have a different list of recipients for a risk report than you do a scorecard summary report. This will help you identify the number of reports required.
    4. Create a draft structure for each report based on the audience and the information being conveyed. Determine the frequency of each report and person responsible for creating for each report.
    5. Document your final choices in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.10 Reports.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1 – 2.11 work product

    Output

    • A list of reports used by the VMI
    • For each report
      • The conceptual content
      • A list of who will receive or have access
      • A creation/distribution frequency

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.10 Reports

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Phase 3 - Run

    Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates

    Phase 1

    Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activity:

    • Beginning to operate the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to initiate your VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 3 – Run

    Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates

    All the hard work invested in Phase 1 – Plan and Phase 2 – Build begins to pay off in Phase 3 – Run. It's time to stand up your VMI and ensure that the proper level of resources is devoted to your vendors and the VMI itself. There's more hard work ahead, but the foundational elements are in place. This doesn't mean there won't be adjustments and modifications along the way, but you are ready to use the tools and templates in the real world; you are ready to begin reaping the fruits of your labor.

    Phase 3 – Run guides you through the process of collecting data, monitoring trends, issuing reports, and conducting effective meetings to:

    • Manage risk better.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Improve vendor relationships.
    • Identify areas where the parties can improve.
    • Improve communication between the parties.
    • Increase the value proposition with your vendors.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors

    Begin classifying your top 25 vendors by spend

    Step 3.1 sets the table for many of the subsequent steps in Phase 3 – Run. The results of your classification process will determine which vendors go through the scorecarding process (Step 3.2); which vendors participate in BAMs (Step 3.3), and which vendors you will devote relationship-building resources to (Step 3.6).

    As you begin classifying your vendors, Info-Tech recommends using an iterative approach initially to validate the results from the classification model you configured in Step 2.1.

    1. Identify your top 25 vendors by spend.
    2. Run your top 10 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results.
      1. If the results are what you expected and do not contain any significant surprises, go to 3. on the next page.
      2. If the results are not what you expected or do contain significant surprises, look at the configuration page of the tool (Tab 1) and adjust the weights or the spend categories slightly. Be cautious in your evaluation of the results before modifying the configuration page - some legitimate results are unexpected, or are surprises based on bias. If you modify the weighting, review the new results and repeat your evaluation. If you modify the spend categories, review the answers on the vendor tabs to ensure that the answers are still accurate; review the new results and repeat your evaluation.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Review your results and adjust the classification tool as needed

    1. Run your top 11-through-25 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results. Identify any unexpected results. Determine if further configuration makes sense and repeat the process outlined in 2.b., previous page, as necessary. If no further modifications are required, continue to 4., below.
    2. Share the preliminary results with the leadership team, executives, and stakeholders to obtain their approval or adjustments to the results.
      1. They may have questions and want to understand the process before approving the results.
      2. They may request that you move a vendor from one quadrant to another based on your organization's roadmap, the vendor's roadmap, or other information not available to you.
    3. Identify the vendors that will be part of the VMI at this stage – how many and which ones. Based on this number and the VMI's scope (Step 1.2), make sure you have the resources necessary to accommodate the number of vendors participating in the VMI. Proceed cautiously and gradually increase the number of vendors participating in the VMI.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Finalize the results and update VMI tools and templates

    1. Update the vendor inventory tool (Step 1.7) to indicate the current classification status for the top 25 vendors by spend. Once your vendors have been classified, you can sort the vendor inventory tool by classification status to see all the vendors in that category at once.
    2. Review your three-year roadmap (Step 2.9) and 90-day plans (Step 2.6) to determine if any modifications are needed to the activities and timelines.

    Additional classification considerations:

    • You should only have a few vendors that fit in the strategic category. As a rough guideline, no more than 5% to 10% of your IT vendors should end up in the strategic category. If you have many vendors, even 5% may be too many. the classification model is an objective start to the classification process, but common sense must prevail over the "math" at the end of the day.
    • At this point, there is no need to go beyond the top 25 by spend. Most VMIs starting out can't handle more than three to five strategic vendors initially. Allow the VMI to run a pilot program with a small sample size, work out any bugs, make adjustments, and then ramp up the VMI's rollout in waves. Vendors can be added quarterly, biannually, or annually, depending upon the desired goals and available resources.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Align your vendor strategy to your classification results

    As your VMI matures, additional vendors will be part of the VMI. Review the table below and incorporate the applicable strategies into your deployment of vendor management principles over time. Stay true to your mission, goals, and scope, and remember that not all your vendors are of equal importance.

    Operational

    Strategic
    • Focus on spend containment
    • Concentrate on lowering total cost of ownership
    • Invest moderately in cultivating the relationship
    • Conduct BAMs biannually or annually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly or biannually
    • Identify areas for performance and cost improvement
    • Focus on value, collaboration, and alignment
    • Review market intelligence for the vendor's industry
    • Invest significantly in cultivating the relationship
    • Initiate executive-to-executive relationships
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Understand how the vendors view your organization

    Commodity

    Tactical
    • Investigate vendor rationalization and consolidation
    • Negotiate for the best-possible price
    • Leverage competition during negotiations
    • Streamline the purchasing and payment process
    • Allocate minimal VMI resources
    • Assign the lowest priority for vendor management metrics
    • Conduct risk assessments biannually or annually
    • Cultivate a collaborative relationship based on future growth plans or potential with the vendor
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly or biannually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Identify areas of performance improvement
    • Leverage innovation and creative problem solving

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Be careful when using the word "partner" with your strategic and other vendors

    For decades, vendors have used the term "partner" to refer to the relationship they have with their clients and customers. This is often an emotional ploy used by the vendors to get the upper hand. To fully understand the terms "partner" and "partnership", let's evaluate them through two more objective, less cynical lenses.

    If you were to talk to your in-house or outside legal counsel, you may be told that partners share in profits and losses, and they have a fiduciary obligation to each other. Unless there is a joint venture between the parties, you are unlikely to have a partnership with a vendor from this perspective.

    What about a "business" partnership — one that doesn't involve sharing profits and losses? What would that look like? Here are some indicators of a business partnership (or preferably a strategic alliance):

    • Trust and transparent communication exist.
    • You have input into the vendor's roadmap for products and services.
    • The vendor is aligned with your desired outcomes and helps you achieve success.
    • You and the vendor are accountable for actions and inactions, with both parties being at risk.
    • There is parity in the peer-to-peer relationships between the organizations (e.g. C-Level to C-Level).
    • The vendor provides transparency in pricing models and proactively suggests ways for you to reduce costs.
    • You and the vendor work together to make each party better, providing constructive feedback on a regular basis.
    • The vendor provides innovative suggestions for you to improve your processes, performance, the bottom line, etc.
    • Negotiations are not one-sided; they are meaningful and productive, resulting in an equitable distribution of money and risk.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Understand the implications and how to leverage the words "partner" and "partnership"

    By now you might be thinking, "What's all the fuss? Why does it matter?" At Info-Tech, we've seen firsthand how referring to the vendor as a partner can have the following impact:

    • Confidences are disclosed unnecessarily.
    • Negotiation opportunities and leverage are lost.
    • Vendors no longer have to earn the customer's business.
    • Vendor accountability is missing due to shared responsibilities.
    • Competent skilled vendor resources are assigned to other accounts.
    • Value erodes over time since contracts are renewed without being competitively sourced.
    • One-sided relationships are established, and false assurances are provided at the highest levels within the customer organization.

    Proceed with caution when using partner or partnership with your vendors. Understand how your organization benefits from using these terms and mitigate the negatives outlined above by raising awareness internally to ensure people understand the psychology behind the terms. Finally, use the term to your advantage when warranted by referring to the vendor as a partner when you want or need something that the vendor is reluctant to provide. Bottom line: be strategic in how you refer to vendors and know the risks.

    Step 3.2 – Compile scorecards

    Begin scoring your top vendors

    The scorecard process typically is owned and operated by the VMI, but the actual rating of the criteria within the measurement categories is conducted by those with day-to-day interactions with the vendors, those using or impacted by the services and products provided by the vendors, and those with the skills to research other information on the scorecard (e.g. risk). Chances are one person will not be able to complete an entire scorecard by themselves. As a result, the scorecard process is a team sport comprised of sub-teams where necessary.

    The VMI will compile the scores, calculate the final results, and aggregate all the comments into one scorecard. There are two common ways to approach this task:

    1. Send out the scorecard template to those who will be scoring the vendor and ask them to return it when completed, providing them with a due date a few days before you need it; you'll need time to compile, calculate, and aggregate.
    2. Invite those who will be scoring the vendor to a meeting and let the contributors use that time to score the vendors; make VMI team members available to answer questions and facilitate the process.

    Step 3.2 – Compile scorecards (cont'd)

    Gather input from stakeholders and others impacted by the vendors

    Since multiple people will be involved in the scorecarding process or have information to contribute, the VMI will have to work with the reviewers to ensure he right mix of data is provided. For example:

    • If you are tracking lawsuits filed by or against the vendor, one person from Legal may be able to provide that, but they may not be able to evaluate any other criteria on the scorecard.
    • If you are tracking salesperson competencies, multiple people from multiple areas may have valuable insights.
    • If you are tracking deliverable timeliness, several project managers may want to contribute across several projects.

    Where one person is contributing exclusively to limited criteria, make it easy for them to identify the criteria they are to evaluate. When multiple people from the same functional area will provide insights, they can contribute individually (and the VMI will average their responses) or they can respond collectively after reaching consensus as a group.

    After the VMI has compiled, calculated, and aggregated, share the results with executives, impacted stakeholders, and others who will be attending the BAM for that vendor. Depending upon the comments provided by internal personnel, you may need to create a sanitized version of the scorecard for the vendor.

    Make sure your process timeline has a buffer built in. You'll be sending the final scorecard to the vendor three to five days before the BAM, and you'll need some time to assemble the results. The scorecarding process can be perceived as a low-priority activity for people outside of the VMI, and other "priorities" will arise for them. Without a timeline buffer, the VMI may find itself behind schedule and unprepared, due to things beyond its control.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings

    Determine which vendors will participate and how long the meetings will last

    At their core, BAMs aren't that different from any other meeting. The basics of running a meeting still apply, but there are a few nuances that apply to BAMs. Set out below are leading practices for conducing your BAMs; adapt them to meet your needs and suit your environment.

    Who

    Initially, BAMs are conducted with the strategic vendors in your pilot program. Over time you'll add vendors until all your strategic vendors are meeting with you quarterly. After that, roll out the BAMs to those tactical and operational vendors located close to the strategic quadrant in the classification model (Steps 2.1 and 3.1) and as VMI resources allow. It may take several years before you are holding regular BAMs with all your strategic, tactical, and operational vendors.

    Duration

    Keep the length of your meetings reasonable. The first few with a vendor may need to be 60 to 90 minutes long. After that, you should be able to trim them to 45 minutes to 60 minutes. The BAM does not have to fill the entire time. When you are done, you are done.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings (cont'd)

    Identify who will be invited and send out invitations

    Invitations

    Set up a recurring meeting whenever possible. Changes will be inevitable but keeping the timeline regular works to your advantage. Also, the vendors included in your initial BAMs won't change for twelve months. For the first BAM with a vendor, provide adequate notice; four weeks is usually sufficient, but calendars will fill up quickly for the main attendees from the vendor. Treat the meeting as significant and make sure your invitation reflects this. A simple meeting request will often be rejected, treated as optional, or ignored completely by the vendor's leadership team (and maybe yours as well!).

    Invitees

    Internal invitees should include those with a vested interest in the vendor's performance and the relationship. Other functional areas may be invited based on need or interest. Be careful the attendee list doesn't get too big. Based on this, internal BAM attendees often include representatives from IT, Sourcing/Procurement, and the applicable business units. At times, Finance and Legal are included.

    From the vendor's side, strive to have decision makers and key leaders attend. The salesperson/account manager is often included for continuity, but a director or vice president of sales will have more insights and influence. The project manager is not needed at this meeting due to the nature of the meeting and its agenda; however, a director or vice president from the product or service delivery area is a good choice. Bottom line: get as high into the vendor's organization as possible whenever possible; look at the types of contracts you have with that vendor to provide guidance on the type of people to invite.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings (cont'd)

    Prepare for the Meetings and Maintain Control

    Preparation

    Send the scorecard and agenda to the vendor five days prior to the BAM. The vendor should provide you with any information you require for the meeting five days prior, as well.

    Decide who will run the meeting. Some customers like to lead, and others let the vendor present. How you craft the agenda and your preferences will dictate who runs the show.

    Make sure the vendor knows what materials they should bring to the meeting or have access to. This will relate to the agenda and any specific requests listed under the discussion points. You don't want the vendor to be caught off guard and unable to discuss a matter of importance to you.

    Running the BAM

    Regardless of which party leads, make sure you manage the agenda to stay on topic. This is your meeting – not the vendor's, not IT's, not Procurement's or Sourcing's. Don't let anyone hijack it.

    Make sure someone is taking notes. If you are running this virtually, consider recording the meeting. Check with your legal department first for any concerns, notices, or prohibitions that may impact your recording the session.

    Remember, this is not a sales call, and it is not a social activity. Innovation discussions are allowed and encouraged, but that can quickly devolve into a sales presentation. People can be friendly toward one another, but the relationship building should not overwhelm the other purposes.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings (cont'd)

    Follow these additional guidelines to maximize your meetings

    More leading practices

    • Remind everyone that the conversation may include items covered by various confidentiality provisions or agreements.
    • Publish the meeting minutes on a timely basis (within 48 hours).
    • Focus on the bigger picture by looking at trends over time; get into the details only when warranted.
    • Meet internally immediately beforehand to prepare – don't go in cold. Review the agenda and the roles and responsibilities for the attendees.
    • Physical meetings are better than virtual meetings, but travel constraints, budgets, and pandemics may not allow for physical meetings.

    Final thoughts

    • When performance or the relationship is suffering, be constructive in your feedback and conversations rather than trying to assign blame; lead with the carrot rather than the stick.
    • Look for collaborative solutions whenever possible and avoid referencing the contract if possible. Communicate your willingness to help resolve outstanding issues.
    • Use inclusive language and avoid language that puts the vendor on the defensive.
    • Make sure that your meetings are not focused exclusively on the negative, but don't paint a rosy picture where one doesn't exist.
    • A vendor that is doing well should be commended. This is an important part of relationship building.

    Step 3.4 – Work the 90-day plan

    Monitor your progress and share your results

    Having a 90-day plan is a good start, but assuming the tasks on the plan will be accomplished magically or without any oversight can lead to failure. While it won't take a lot of time to work the plan, following a few basic guidelines will help ensure the 90-day plan gets results and wasn't created in vain.

    1. Measure and track your progress against the initial/current 90-day plan at least weekly; with a short timeline, any delay can have a huge impact.
    2. If adjustments are needed to any elements of the plan, understand the cause and the impact of those adjustments before making them.
    3. Make adjustments ONLY when warranted. The temptation will be to push activities and tasks further out on the timeline (or to the next 90-day plan!) when there is any sort of hiccup along the way, especially when personnel outside the VMI are involved. Hold true to the timeline whenever possible; once you start slipping, it often becomes a habit.
    4. Report on progress every week and hold people accountable for their assignments and contributions.
    5. Take the 90-day plan seriously and treat it as you would any significant project. This is part of the VMI's branding and image.

    Step 3.5 – Manage the three-year roadmap

    Keep an eye on the future since it will feed the present

    The three-year roadmap is a great planning tool, but it is not 100% reliable. There are inherent flaws and challenges. Essentially, the roadmap is a set of three "crystal balls" attempting to tell you what the future holds. The vision for year 1 may be clear, but for each subsequent year, the crystal ball becomes foggier. In addition, the timeline is constantly changing; before you know it, tomorrow becomes today and year 2 becomes year 1.

    To help navigate through the roadmap and maximize its potential, follow these principles:

    • Manage each year of the roadmap differently.
      • Review the year-1 map each quarter to update your 90-day plans (See steps 2.10 and 3.4).
      • Review the year-2 map every six months to determine if any changes are necessary. As you cycle through this, your vantage point of year 2 will be 6 months or 12 months away from the beginning of year 2, and time moves quickly.
      • Review the year-3 map annually, and determine what needs to be added, changed, or deleted. Each time you review year 3, it will be a "new" year 3 that needs to be built.
    • Analyze the impact on the proposed modifications from two perspectives: 1) What is the impact if a requested modification is made? 2) What is the impact if a requested modification is not made?
    • Validate all modifications with leadership and stakeholders before updating the three-year roadmap to ensure internal alignment.

    Step 3.6 – Develop/improve vendor relationships

    Drive better performance through better relationships

    One of the key components of a VMI is relationship management. Good relationships with your vendors provide many benefits for both parties, but they don't happen by accident. Do not assume the relationship will be good or is good merely because your organization is buying products and services from a vendor.

    In many respects, the VMI should mirror a vendor's sales organization by establishing relationships at multiple levels within the vendor organizations, not just with the salesperson or account manager. Building and maintaining relationships is hard work, but the return on investment makes it worthwhile.

    Business relationships are comprised of many components, not all of which must be present to have a great relationship. However, there are some essential components. Whether you are trying to develop, improve, or maintain a relationship with a vendor, make sure you are conscious of the following:

    • Focusing your energies on strategic vendors first and then tactical and operational vendors.
    • Being transparent and honest in your communications.
    • Continuously building trust by being responsive and honoring commitments (timely).
    • Creating a collaborative environment and build upon common ground.
    • Thanking the vendor when appropriate.
    • Resolving disputes early, avoiding the "blame game", and being objective when there are disagreements.

    Phase 4 - Review

    Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly

    Phase 1

    Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activity:

    • Helping the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 4 – Review

    Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly

    As the adage says, "The only thing constant in life is change." This is particularly true for your VMI. It will continue to mature, people inside and outside of the VMI will change, resources will expand or contract from year to year, your vendor base will change. As a result, your VMI needs the equivalent of a physical every year. In place of bloodwork, x-rays, and the other paces your physician may put you through, you'll assess compliance with your policies and procedures, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

    Be thorough in your actions during this Phase to get the most out of it. It requires more than the equivalent of gauging a person's health by taking their temperature, measuring their blood pressure, and determining their body mass index. Keeping your VMI up-to-date and running smoothly takes hard work.

    Some of the items presented in this Phase require an annual review; others may require quarterly review or timely review (i.e. when things are top of mind and current). For example, collecting lessons learned should happen on a timely basis rather than annually, and classifying your vendors should occur annually rather than every time a new vendor enters the fold.

    Ultimately, the goal is to improve over time and stay aligned with other areas internally. This won't happen by accident. Being proactive in the review of your VMI further reinforces the nature of the VMI itself – proactive vendor management, not reactive!

    Step 4.1 – Incorporate leading practices

    Identify and evaluate what external VMIs are doing

    The VMI's world is constantly shifting and evolving. Some changes will take place slowly, while others will occur quickly. Think about how quickly the cloud environment has changed over the past five years versus the 15 years before that; or think about issues that have popped up and instantly altered the landscape (we're looking at you COVID and ransomware). As a result, the VMI needs to keep pace, and one of the best ways to do that is to incorporate leading practices.

    At a high level, a leading practice is a way of doing something that is better at producing a particular outcome or result or performing a task or activity than other ways of proceeding. The leading practice can be based on methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, and other items. Leading practices change periodically due to innovation, new ways of thinking, research, and other factors. Consequently, a leading practice is to identify and evaluate leading practices each year.

    Step 4.1 – Incorporate leading practices (cont'd)

    Update your VMI based on your research

    • A simple approach for incorporating leading practices into your regular review process is set out below:
    • Research:
      • What other VMIs in your industry are doing.
      • What other VMIs outside your industry are doing.
      • Vendor management in general.
    • Based on your results, list specific leading practices others are doing that would improve your VMI (be specific – e.g. other VMIs are incorporating risk into their classification process).
    • Evaluate your list to determine which of these potential changes fit or could be modified to fit your culture and environment.
    • Recommend the proposed changes to leadership (with a short business case or explanation/justification, as needed) and gain approval.

    Remember: Leading practices or best practices may not be what is best for you. In some instances, you will have to modify them to fit in your culture and environment; in other instances, you will elect not to implement them at all (in any form).

    Step 4.2 – Leverage lessons learned

    Tap into the collective wisdom and experience of your team members

    There are many ways to keep your VMI running smoothly, and creating a lessons learned library is a great complement to the other ways covered in this Phase 4 - Review. By tapping into the collective wisdom of the team and creating a safe feedback loop, the VMI gains the following benefits:

    • Documented institutional wisdom and knowledge normally found only in the team members' brains.
    • The ability for one team member to gain insights and avoid mistakes without having to duplicate the events leading to the insights or mistakes.
    • Improved methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, skills, and relationships.

    Many of the processes raised in this Phase can be performed annually, but a lessons learned library works best when the information is deposited in a timely manner. How you choose to set up your lessons learned process will depend on the tools you select and your culture. You may want to have regular input meetings to share the lessons as they are being deposited, or you may require team members to deposit lessons learned on a regular basis (within a week after they happen, monthly, or quarterly). Waiting too long can lead to vague or lost memories and specifics; timeliness of the deposits is a crucial element.

    Step 4.2 – Leverage lessons learned (cont'd)

    Create a library to share valuable information across the team

    Lessons learned are not confined to identifying mistakes or dissecting bad outcomes. You want to reinforce good outcomes, as well. When an opportunity for a lessons-learned deposit arises, identify the following basic elements:

    • A brief description of the situation and outcome.
    • What went well (if anything) and why did it go well?
    • What didn't go well (if anything) and why didn't it go well?
    • What would/could you do differently next time?
    • A synopsis of the lesson(s) learned.

    Info-Tech Insights

    The lessons learned library needs to be maintained. Irrelevant material needs to be culled periodically, and older or duplicate material may need to be archived.

    the lessons learned process should be blameless. The goal is to share insightful information, not to reward or punish people based on outcomes or results.

    Step 4.3 – Maintain internal alignment

    Review the plans of other internal areas to stay in sync

    Maintaining internal alignment is essential for the ongoing success of the VMI. Over time, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the VMI does not operate in a vacuum; it is an integral component of a larger organization whose parts must work well together to function optimally. Focusing annually on the VMI's alignment within the enterprise helps reduce any breakdowns that could derail the organization.

    To ensure internal alignment:

    • Review the key components of the applicable materials from Phase 1 - Plan and Phase 2 - Build with the appropriate members of the leadership team (e.g. executives, sponsors, and stakeholders). Not every item from those Phases and Steps needs to be reviewed but err on the side of caution for the first set of alignment discussions, and be prepared to review each item. You can gauge the audience's interest on each topic and move quickly when necessary or dive deeper when needed. Identify potential changes required to maintain alignment.
    • Review the strategic plans (e.g. 1-, 3-, and 5- year plans) for various portions of the organization if you have access to them or gather insights if you don't have access.
      • If the VMI is under the IT umbrella, review the strategic plans for IT and its departments.
      • Review the strategic plans for the areas the VMI works with (e.g. Procurement, Business Units).
      • The organization itself.
    • Create and vet a list of modifications to the VMI and obtain approval.
    • Develop a plan for making the necessary changes.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem solved

    Vendor management is a broad, often overwhelming, comprehensive spectrum that encompasses many disciplines. By now, you should have a great idea of what vendor management can or will look like in your organization. Focus on the basics first: Why does the VMI exist and what does it hope to achieve? What is it's scope? What are the strengths you can leverage, and what obstacles must you manage? How will the VMI work with others? From there, the spectrum of vendor management will begin to clarify and narrow.

    Leverage the tools and templates from this blueprint and adapt them to your needs. They will help you concentrate your energies in the right areas and on the right vendors to maximize the return on your organization's investment in the VMI of time, money, personnel, and other resources. You may have to lead by example internally and with your vendors at first, but they will eventually join you on your path if you stay true to your course.

    At the heart of a good VMI is the relationship component. Don't overlook its value in helping you achieve your vendor management goals. The VMI does not operate in a vacuum, and relationships (internal and external) will be critical.

    Lastly, seek continual improvement from the VMI and from your vendors. Both parties should be held accountable, and both parties should work together to get better. Be proactive in your efforts, and you, the VMI, and the organization will be rewarded.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information

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

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    Bibliography

    Slide 5 – ISG Index 4Q 2021, Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Slide 6 – ISG Index 4Q 2021, Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Slide 7 – Geller & Company. "World-Class Procurement — Increasing Profitability and Quality." Spend Matters. 2003. Web. Accessed 4 Mar. 2019.

    Slide 26 – Guth, Stephen. The Vendor Management Office: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Sourcing. Lulu.com, 2007. Print. Protiviti. Enterprise Risk Management. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.

    Slide 34 – "Why Do We Perform Better When Someone Has High Expectations of Us?" The Decision Lab. Accessed January 31, 2022.

    Slide 56 - Top 10 Tips for Creating Compelling Reports," October 11, 2019, Design Eclectic. Accessed March 29, 2022.

    Slide 56 – "Six Tips for Making a Quality Report Appealing and Easy To Skim," Agency for Health Research and Quality. Accessed March 29, 2022.

    Slide 56 –Tucker, Davis. Marketing Reporting: Tips to Create Compelling Reports, March 28, 2020, 60 Second Marketer. Accessed March 29, 2022.

    Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software

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    • PPM suite deployments are complicated and challenging. Vendors and consultants can provide much needed expertise and assistance to organizations deploying new PPM suites.
    • While functional requirements are often defined during the procurement stage (for example, in an RFP), the level of detail during this stage is likely insufficient for actually configuring the solution to your specific PPM needs. Too many organizations fail to further develop these functional requirements between signing their contracts and the official start of their professional implementation engagement.
    • Many organizations fail to organize and record the PPM data they will need to populate the new PPM suite. In almost all cases, customers have the expertise and are in the best position to collect and organize their own data. Leaving this until the vendor or consultant arrives to help with the deployment can result in using your professional services in a suboptimal way.
    • Vendors and consultants want you to prepare for their implementation engagements so that you can make the best use of their expertise and assistance. They want you to deploy a PPM suite that can be sustainably adopted in the long term. All too often, however, they arrive onsite to find customers that are disorganized and underprepared.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Preparing for a professional implementation engagement allows you to make the best use of your professional services, as well as helping to ensure that the PPM suite is deployed according to your specific PPM needs.
    • Involving your internal resources in the preparation of data and in fully defining functional requirements for the PPM suite helps to establish stakeholder buy-in early on, helping to build internal ownership of the solution from the beginning. This avoids the solution being perceived as something the vendor/consultant “forced upon us.”
    • Vendors and consultants are happy when organizations are organized and prepared for their professional implementation engagements. Preparation ensures these engagements are positive experiences for everyone involved.

    Impact and Result

    • Ensure that the data necessary to deploy the new PPM suite is recorded and organized.
    • Make your functional requirements detailed enough to ensure that the new PPM suite can be configured/customized during the deployment engagement in a way that best fits the organization’s actual PPM needs.
    • Through carefully preparing data and fully defining functional requirements, you help the solution become sustainably adopted in the long term.

    Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand why preparing for PPM deployment will ensure that organizations get the most value out of the implementation professional services they purchased and will help drive long-term sustainable adoption of the new PPM suite.

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

    1. Create a preparation team and plan

    Engage in purposeful and effective PPM deployment planning by clearly defining what to prepare and when exactly it is time to move from planning to execution.

    • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 1: Create a Preparation Team and Plan
    • Prepare to Deploy PPM Suite Project Charter Template
    • PPM Suite Functional Requirements Document Template
    • PPM Suite Deployment Timeline Template (Excel)
    • PPM Suite Deployment Timeline Template (Project)
    • PPM Suite Deployment Communication Plan Template

    2. Prepare project-related requirements and deliverables

    Provide clearer definition to specific project-related functional requirements and collect the appropriate PPM data needed for an effective PPM suite deployment facilitated by vendors/consultants.

    • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 2: Prepare Project-Related Requirements and Deliverables
    • PPM Deployment Data Workbook
    • PPM Deployment Dashboard and Report Requirements Workbook

    3. Prepare PPM resource requirements and deliverables

    Provide clearer definition to specific resource management functional requirements and data and create a communication and training plan.

    • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 3: Prepare PPM Resource Requirements and Deliverables
    • PPM Suite Transition Plan Template
    • PPM Suite Training Plan Template
    • PPM Suite Training Management Tool

    4. Provide preparation materials to the vendor and implementation professionals

    Plan how to engage vendors/consultants by communicating functional requirements to them and evaluating changes to those requirements proposed by them.

    • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 4: Provide Preparation Materials to the Vendor and Implementation Professionals
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software

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

    1 Plan the Preparation Project

    The Purpose

    Select a preparation team and establish clear assignments and accountabilities.

    Establish clear deliverables, milestones, and metrics to ensure it is clear when the preparation phase is complete.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Preparation activities will be organized and purposeful, ensuring that you do not threaten deployment success by being underprepared or waste resources by overpreparing.

    Activities

    1.1 Overview: Determine appropriate functional requirements to define and data to record in preparation for the deployment.

    1.2 Create a timeline.

    1.3 Create a charter for the PPM deployment preparation project: record lessons learned, establish metrics, etc.

    Outputs

    PPM Suite Deployment Timeline

    Charter for the PPM Suite Preparation Project Team

    2 Prepare Project-Related Requirements and Deliverables

    The Purpose

    Collect and organize relevant project-related data so that you are ready to populate the new PPM suite when the vendor/consultant begins their professional implementation engagement with you.

    Clearly define project-related functional requirements to aid in the configuration/customization of the tool.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An up-to-date and complete record of all relevant PPM data.

    Avoidance of scrambling to find data at the last minute, risking importing out-of-date or irrelevant information into the new software.

    Clearly defined functional requirements that will ensure the suite is configured in a way that can be adoption in the long term.

    Activities

    2.1 Define project phases and categories.

    2.2 Create a list of all projects in progress.

    2.3 Record functional requirements for project requests, project charters, and business cases.

    2.4 Create a list of all existing project requests.

    2.5 Record the current project intake processes.

    2.6 Define PPM dashboard and reporting requirements.

    Outputs

    Project List (basic)

    Project Request Form Requirements (basic)

    Scoring/Requirements (basic)

    Business Case Requirements (advanced)

    Project Request List (basic)

    Project Intake Workflows (advanced)

    PPM Reporting Requirements (basic)

    3 Prepare PPM Resource Requirements and Deliverables

    The Purpose

    Collect and organize relevant resource-related data.

    Clearly define resource-related functional requirements.

    Create a purposeful transition, communication, and training plan for the deployment period.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An up-to-date and complete record of all relevant PPM data that allows your vendor/consultant to get right to work at the start of the implementation engagement.

    Improved buy-in and adoption through transition, training, and communication activities that are tailored to the actual needs of your specific organization and users.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a portfolio-wide roster of project resources (and record their competencies and skills, if appropriate).

    3.2 Record resource management processes and workflows.

    3.3 Create a transition plan from existing PPM tools and processes to the new PPM suite.

    3.4 Identify training needs and resources to be leveraged during the deployment.

    3.5 Define training requirements.

    3.6 Create a PPM deployment training plan.

    Outputs

    Resource Roster and Competency Profile (basic)

    User Roles and Permissions (basic)

    Resource Management Workflows (advanced)

    Transition Approach and Plan (basic)

    Data Archiving Requirements (advanced)

    List of Training Modules and Attendees (basic)

    Internal Training Capabilities (advanced)

    Training Milestones and Deadlines (basic)

    4 Provide Preparation Materials to the Vendor and Implementation Professionals

    The Purpose

    Compile the data collected and the functional requirements defined so that they can be provided to the vendor and/or consultant before the implementation engagement.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Deliverables that record the outputs of your preparation and can be provided to vendors/consultants before the implementation engagement.

    Ensures that the customer is an active and equal partner during the deployment by having the customer prepare their material and initiate communication.

    Vendors and/or consultants have a clear understanding of the customer’s needs and expectations from the beginning.

    Activities

    4.1 Collect, review, and finalize the functional requirements.

    4.2 Compile a functional requirements and data package to provide to the vendor and/or consultants.

    4.3 Discuss how proposed changes to the functional requirements will be reviewed and decided.

    Outputs

    PPM Suite Functional Requirements Documents

    PPM Deployment Data Workbook

    Build a Data Classification MVP for M365

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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Applications
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    • Resources are the primary obstacle to getting a foot hold in O365 governance, whether it is funding or FTE resources.
    • Data is segmented and is difficult to analyze when you can’t see it or manage the relationships between sources.
    • Organizations expect results early and quickly and a common obstacle is that building a proper data classification framework can take more than two years and the business can't wait that long.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Data classification is the lynchpin to ANY effective governance of O/M365 and your objective is to navigate through this easily and effectively and build a robust, secure, and viable governance model.
    • Start your journey by identifying what and where your data is and how much data you have. You need to understand what sensitive data you have and where it is stored before you can protect it or govern that data.
    • Ensure there is a high-level leader who is the champion of the governance objective.

    Impact and Result

    • Using least complex sensitivity labels in your classification are your building blocks to compliance and security in your data management schema; they are your foundational steps.

    Build a Data Classification MVP for M365 Research & Tools

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

    1. Build a Data Classification MVP for M365 Deck – A guide for how to build a minimum-viable product for data classification that end users will actually use.

    Discover where your data resides, what governance helps you do, and what types of data you're classifying. Then build your data and security protection baselines for your retention policy, sensitivity labels, workload containers, and both forced and unforced policies.

    • Build a Data Classification MVP for M365 Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Build a Data Classification MVP for M365

    Kickstart your governance with data classification users will actually use!

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech Insight

    • Creating an MVP gets you started in data governance
      Information protection and governance are not something you do once and then you are done. It is a constant process where you start with the basics (a minimum-viable product or MVP) and enhance your schema over time. The objective of the MVP is reducing obstacles to establishing an initial governance position, and then enabling rapid development of the solution to address a variety of real risks, including data loss prevention (DLP), data retention, legal holds, and data labeling.
    • Define your information and protection strategy
      The initial strategy is to start looking across your organization and identifying your customer data, regulatory data, and sensitive information. To have a successful data protection strategy you will include lifecycle management, risk management, data protection policies, and DLP. All key stakeholders need to be kept in the loop. Ensure you keep track of all available data and conduct a risk analysis early. Remember, data is your highest valued intangible asset.
    • Planning and resourcing are central to getting started on MVP
      A governance plan and governance decisions are your initial focus. Create a team of stakeholders that include IT and business leaders (including Legal, Finance, HR, and Risk), and ensure there is a top-level leader who is the champion of the governance objective, which is to ensure your data is safe, secure, and not prone to leakage or theft, and maintain confidentiality where it is warranted.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge
    • Today, the amount of data companies are gathering is growing at an explosive rate. New tools are enabling unforeseen channels and ways of collaborating.
    • Combined with increased regulatory oversight and reporting obligations, this makes the discovery and management of data a massive undertaking. IT can’t find and protect the data when the business has difficulty defining its data.
    • The challenge is to build a framework that can easily categorize and classify data yet allows for sufficient regulatory compliance and granularity to be useful. Also, to do it now because tomorrow is too late.
    Common Obstacles

    Data governance has several obstacles that impact a successful launch, especially if governing M365 is not a planned strategy. Below are some of the more common obstacles:

    • Resources are the primary obstacle to starting O365 governance, whether it is funding or people.
    • Data is segmented and is difficult to analyze when you can’t see it or manage the relationships between sources.
    • Organizations expect results early and quickly and a common obstacle is that building a "proper data classification framework” is a 2+ year project and the business can't wait that long.
    Info-Tech’s Approach
    • Start with the basics: build a minimum-viable product (MVP) to get started on the path to sustainable governance.
    • Identify what and where your data resides, how much data you have, and understand what sensitive data needs to be protected.
    • Create your team of stakeholders, including Legal, records managers, and privacy officers. Remember, they own the data and should manage it.
    • Categorization comes before classification, and discovery comes before categorization. Use easy-to-understand terms like high, medium, or low risk.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Data classification is the lynchpin to any effective governance of O/M365 and your objective is to navigate through this easily and effectively and build a robust, secure, and viable governance model. Start your journey by identifying what and where your data is and how much data do you have. You need to understand what sensitive data you have and where it is stored before you can protect or govern it. Ensure there is a high-level leader who is the champion of the governance objectives. Data classification fulfills the governance objectives of risk mitigation, governance and compliance, efficiency and optimization, and analytics.

    Questions you need to ask

    Four key questions to kick off your MVP.

    1

    Know Your Data

    Do you know where your critical and sensitive data resides and what is being done with it?

    Trying to understand where your information is can be a significant project.

    2

    Protect Your Data

    Do you have control of your data as it traverses across the organization and externally to partners?

    You want to protect information wherever it goes through encryption, etc.

    3

    Prevent Data Loss

    Are you able to detect unsafe activities that prevent sharing of sensitive information?

    Data loss prevention (DLP) is the practice of detecting and preventing data breaches, exfiltration, or unwanted destruction of sensitive data.

    4

    Govern Your Data

    Are you using multiple solutions (or any) to classify, label, and protect sensitive data?

    Many organizations use more than one solution to protect and govern their data, making it difficult to determine if there are any coverage gaps.

    Classification tiers

    Build your schema.

    Pyramid visualization for classification tiers. The top represents 'Simplicity', and the bottom 'Complexity' with the length of the sides at each level representing the '# of policies' and '# of labels'. At the top level is 'MVP (Minimum-Viable Product) - Confidential, Internal (Subcategory: Personal), Public'. At the middle level is 'Regulated - Highly Confidential, Confidential, Sensitive, General, Internal, Restricted, Personal, Sub-Private, Public'. And a the bottom level is 'Government (DOD) - Top Secret (TS), Secret, Confidential, Restricted, Official, Unclassified, Clearance'

    Info-Tech Insight

    Deciding on how granular you go into data classification will chiefly be governed by what industry you are in and your regulatory obligations – the more highly regulated your industry, the more classification levels you will be mandated to enforce. The more complexity you introduce into your organization, the more operational overhead both in cost and resources you will have to endure and build.

    Microsoft MIP Topology

    Microsoft Information Protection (MIP), which is Microsoft’s Data Classification Services, is the key to achieving your governance goals. Without an MVP, data classification will be overwhelming; simplifying is the first step in achieving governance.

    A diagram of multiple offerings all connected to 'MIP Data Classification Service'. Circled is 'Sensitivity Labels' with an arrow pointing back to 'MIP' at the center.
    (Source: Microsoft, “Microsoft Purview compliance portal”)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Using least-complex sensitivity labels in your classification are your building blocks to compliance and security in your data management schema; they are your foundational steps.

    MVP RACI Chart

    Data governance is a "takes a whole village" kind of effort.

    Clarify who is expected to do what with a RACI chart.

    End User M365 Administrator Security/ Compliance Data Owner
    Define classification divisions R A
    Appy classification label to data – at point of creation A R
    Apply classification label to data – legacy items R A
    Map classification divisions to relevant policies R A
    Define governance objectives R A
    Backup R A
    Retention R A
    Establish minimum baseline A R

    What and where your data resides

    Data types that require classification.

    Logos for 'Microsoft', 'Office 365', and icons for each program included in that package.
    M365 Workload Containers
    Icon for MS Exchange. Icon for MS SharePoint.Icon for MS Teams. Icon for MS OneDrive. Icon for MS Project Online.
    Email
    • Attachments
    Site Collections, Sites Sites Project Databases
    Contacts Teams and Group Site Collections, Sites Libraries and Lists Sites
    Metadata Libraries and Lists Documents
    • Versions
    Libraries and Lists
    Teams Conversations Documents
    • Versions
    Metadata Documents
    • Versions
    Teams Chats Metadata Permissions
    • Internal Sharing
    • External Sharing
    Metadata
    Permissions
    • Internal Sharing
    • External Sharing
    Files Shared via Teams Chats Permissions
    • Internal Sharing
    • External Sharing

    Info-Tech Insight

    Knowing where your data resides will ensure you do not miss any applicable data that needs to be classified. These are examples of the workload containers; you may have others.

    Discover and classify on- premises files using AIP

    AIP helps you manage sensitive data prior to migrating to Office 365:
    • Use discover mode to identify and report on files containing sensitive data.
    • Use enforce mode to automatically classify, label, and protect files with sensitive data.
    Can be configured to scan:
    • SMB files
    • SharePoint Server 2016, 2013
    Stock image of a laptop uploading to the cloud with a padlock and key in front of it.
    • Map your network and find over-exposed file shares.
    • Protect files using MIP encryption.
    • Inspect the content in file repositories and discover sensitive information.
    • Classify and label file per MIP policy.
    Azure Information Protection scanner helps discover, classify, label, and protect sensitive information in on-premises file servers. You can run the scanner and get immediate insight into risks with on-premises data. Discover mode helps you identify and report on files containing sensitive data (Microsoft Inside Track and CIAOPS, 2022). Enforce mode automatically classifies, labels, and protects files with sensitive data.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Any asset deployed to the cloud must have approved data classification. Enforcing this policy is a must to control your data.

    Understanding governance

    Microsoft Information Governance

    Information Governance
    • Retention policies for workloads
    • Inactive and archive mailboxes

    Arrow pointing down-right

    Records Management
    • Retention labels for items
    • Disposition review

    Arrow pointing down-left

    Retention and Deletion

    ‹——— Connectors for Third-Party Data ———›

    Information governance manages your content lifecycle using solutions to import, store, and classify business-critical data so you can keep what you need and delete what you do not. Backup should not be used as a retention methodology since information governance is managed as a “living entity” and backup is a stored information block that is “suspended in time.” Records management uses intelligent classification to automate and simplify the retention schedule for regulatory, legal, and business-critical records in your organization. It is for that discrete set of content that needs to be immutable.
    (Source: Microsoft, “Microsoft Purview compliance portal”)

    Retention and backup policy decision

    Retention is not backup.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Retention is not backup. Retention means something different: “the content must be available for discovery and legal document production while being able to defend its provenance, chain of custody, and its deletion or destruction” (AvePoint Blog, 2021).

    Microsoft Responsibility (Microsoft Protection) Weeks to Months Customer Responsibility (DLP, Backup, Retention Policy) Months to Years
    Loss of service due to natural disaster or data center outage Loss of data due to departing employees or deactivated accounts
    Loss of service due to hardware or infrastructure failure Loss of data due to malicious insiders or hackers deleting content
    Short-term (30 days) user error with recycle bin/ version history (including OneDrive “File Restore”) Loss of data due to malware or ransomware
    Short-term (14 days) administrative error with soft- delete for groups, mailboxes, or service-led rollback Recovery from prolonged outages
    Long-term accidental deletion coverage with selective rollback

    Understand retention policy

    What are retention policies used for? Why you need them as part of your MVP?

    Do not confuse retention labels and policies with backup.

    Remember: “retention [policies are] auto-applied whereas retention label policies are only applied if the content is tagged with the associated retention label” (AvePoint Blog, 2021).

    E-discovery tool retention policies are not turned on automatically.

    Retention policies are not a backup tool – when you activate this feature you are unable to delete anyone.

    “Data retention policy tools enable a business to:

    • “Decide proactively whether to retain content, delete content, or retain and then delete the content when needed.
    • “Apply a policy to all content or just content meeting certain conditions, such as items with specific keywords or specific types of sensitive information.
    • “Apply a single policy to the entire organization or specific locations or users.
    • “Maintain discoverability of content for lawyers and auditors, while protecting it from change or access by other users. […] ‘Retention Policies’ are different than ‘Retention Label Policies’ – they do the same thing – but a retention policy is auto-applied, whereas retention label policies are only applied if the content is tagged with the associated retention label.

    “It is also important to remember that ‘Retention Label Policies’ do not move a copy of the content to the ‘Preservation Holds’ folder until the content under policy is changed next.” (Source: AvePoint Blog, 2021)

    Definitions

    Data classification is a focused term used in the fields of cybersecurity and information governance to describe the process of identifying, categorizing, and protecting content according to its sensitivity or impact level. In its most basic form, data classification is a means of protecting your data from unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction based on how sensitive or impactful it is.

    Once data is classified, you can then create policies; sensitive data types, trainable classifiers, and sensitivity labels function as inputs to policies. Policies define behaviors, like if there will be a default label, if labeling is mandatory, what locations the label will be applied to, and under what conditions. A policy is created when you configure Microsoft 365 to publish or automatically apply sensitive information types, trainable classifiers, or labels.

    Sensitivity label policies show one or more labels to Office apps (like Outlook and Word), SharePoint sites, and Office 365 groups. Once published, users can apply the labels to protect their content.

    Data loss prevention (DLP) policies help identify and protect your organization's sensitive info (Microsoft Docs, April 2022). For example, you can set up policies to help make sure information in email and documents is not shared with the wrong people. DLP policies can use sensitive information types and retention labels to identify content containing information that might need protection.

    Retention policies and retention label policies help you keep what you want and get rid of what you do not. They also play a significant role in records management.

    Data examples for MVP classification

    • Examples of the type of data you consider to be Confidential, Internal, or Public.
    • This will help you determine what to classify and where it is.
    Internal Personal, Employment, and Job Performance Data
    • Social Security Number
    • Date of birth
    • Marital status
    • Job application data
    • Mailing address
    • Resume
    • Background checks
    • Interview notes
    • Employment contract
    • Pay rate
    • Bonuses
    • Benefits
    • Performance reviews
    • Disciplinary notes or warnings
    Confidential Information
    • Business and marketing plans
    • Company initiatives
    • Customer information and lists
    • Information relating to intellectual property
    • Invention or patent
    • Research data
    • Passwords and IT-related information
    • Information received from third parties
    • Company financial account information
    • Social Security Number
    • Payroll and personnel records
    • Health information
    • Self-restricted personal data
    • Credit card information
    Internal Data
    • Sales data
    • Website data
    • Customer information
    • Job application data
    • Financial data
    • Marketing data
    • Resource data
    Public Data
    • Press releases
    • Job descriptions
    • Marketing material intended for general public
    • Research publications

    New container sensitivity labels (MIP)

    New container sensitivity labels

    Public Private
    Privacy
    1. Membership to group is open; anyone can join
    2. “Everyone except external guest” ACL onsite; content available in search to all tenants
    1. Only owner can add members
    2. No access beyond the group membership until someone shares it or changes permissions
    Allowed Not Allowed
    External guest policy
    1. Membership to group is open; anyone can join
    2. “Everyone except external guest” ACL onsite; content available in search to all tenants
    1. Only owner can add members
    2. No access beyond the group membership until someone shares it or changes permissions

    What users will see when they create or label a Team/Group/Site

    Table of what users will see when they create or label a team/group/site highlighting 'External guest policy' and 'Privacy policy options' as referenced above.
    (Source: Microsoft, “Microsoft Purview compliance portal”)

    Info-Tech Insights

    Why you need sensitivity container labels:
    • Manage privacy of Teams Sites and M365 Groups
    • Manage external user access to SPO sites and teams
    • Manage external sharing from SPO sites
    • Manage access from unmanaged devices

    Data protection and security baselines

    Data Protection Baseline

    “Microsoft provides a default assessment in Compliance Manager for the Microsoft 365 data protection baseline" (Microsoft Docs, June 2022). This baseline assessment has a set of controls for key regulations and standards for data protection and general data governance. This baseline draws elements primarily from NIST CSF (National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) as well as from FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union).

    Security Baseline

    The final stage in M365 governance is security. You need to implement a governance policy that clearly defines storage locations for certain types of data and who has permission to access it. You need to record and track who accesses content and how they share it externally. “Part of your process should involve monitoring unusual external sharing to ensure staff only share documents that they are allowed to” (Rencore, 2021).

    Info-Tech Insights

    • Controls are already in place to set data protection policy. This assists in the MVP activities.
    • Finally, you need to set your security baseline to ensure proper permissions are in place.

    Prerequisite baseline

    Icon of crosshairs.
    Security

    MFA or SSO to access from anywhere, any device

    Banned password list

    BYOD sync with corporate network

    Icon of a group.
    Users

    Sign out inactive users automatically

    Enable guest users

    External sharing

    Block client forwarding rules

    Icon of a database.
    Resources

    Account lockout threshold

    OneDrive

    SharePoint

    Icon of gears.
    Controls

    Sensitivity labels, retention labels and policies, DLP

    Mobile application management policy

    Building baselines

    Sensitivity Profiles: Public, Internal, Confidential; Subcategory: Highly Confidential

    Microsoft 365 Collaboration Protection Profiles

    Sensitivity Public External Collaboration Internal Highly Confidential
    Description Data that is specifically prepared for public consumption Not approved for public consumption, but OK for external collaboration External collaboration highly discouraged and must be justified Data of the highest sensitivity: avoid oversharing, internal collaboration only
    Label details
    • No content marking
    • No encryption
    • Public site
    • External collaboration allowed
    • Unmanaged devices: allow full access
    • No content marking
    • No encryption
    • Private site
    • External collaboration allowed
    • Unmanaged devices: allow full access
    • Content marking
    • Encryption
    • Private site
    • External collaboration allowed but monitored
    • Unmanaged devices: limited web access
    • Content marking
    • Encryption
    • Private site
    • External collaboration disabled
    • Unmanaged devices: block access
    Teams or Site details Public Team or Site open discovery, guests are allowed Private Team or Site members are invited, guests are allowed Private Team or Site members are invited, guests are not allowed
    DLP None Warn Block

    Please Note: Global/Compliance Admins go to the 365 Groups platform, the compliance center (Purview), and Teams services (Source: Microsoft Documentation, “Microsoft Purview compliance documentation”)

    Info-Tech Insights

    • Building baseline profiles will be a part of your MVP. You will understand what type of information you are addressing and label it accordingly.
    • Sensitivity labels are a way to classify your organization's data in a way that specifies how sensitive the data is. This helps you decrease risks in sharing information that shouldn't be accessible to anyone outside your organization or department. Applying sensitivity labels allows you to protect all your data easily.

    MVP activities

    PRIMARY
    ACTIVITIES
    Define Your Governance
    The objective of the MVP is reducing barriers to establishing an initial governance position, and then enabling rapid progression of the solution to address a variety of tangible risks, including DLP, data retention, legal holds, and labeling.
    Decide on your classification labels early.

    CATEGORIZATION





    CLASSIFICATION

    MVP
    Data Discovery and Management
    AIP (Azure Information Protection) scanner helps discover, classify, label, and protect sensitive information in on-premises file servers. You can run the scanner and get immediate insight into risks with on-premises data.
    Baseline Setup
    Building baseline profiles will be a part of your MVP. You will understand what type of information you are addressing and label it accordingly. Microsoft provides a default assessment in Compliance Manager for the Microsoft 365 data protection baseline.
    Default M365 settings
    Microsoft provides a default assessment in Compliance Manager for the Microsoft 365 data protection baseline. This baseline assessment has a set of controls for key regulations and standards for data protection and general data governance.
    SUPPORT
    ACTIVITIES
    Retention Policy
    Retention policy is auto-applied. Decide whether to retain content, delete content, or retain and then delete the content.
    Sensitivity Labels
    Automatically enforce policies on groups through labels; classify groups.
    Workload Containers
    M365: SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and Exchange, where your data is stored for labels and policies.
    Unforced Policies
    Written policies that are not enforceable by controls in Compliance Manager such as acceptable use policy.
    Forced Policies
    Restrict sharing controls to outside organizations. Enforce prefix or suffix to group or team names.

    ACME Company MVP for M/O365

    PRIMARY
    ACTIVITIES
    Define Your Governance


    Focus on ability to use legal hold and GDPR compliance.

    CATEGORIZATION





    CLASSIFICATION

    MVP
    Data Discovery and Management


    Three classification levels (public, internal, confidential), which are applied by the user when data is created. Same three levels are used for AIP to scan legacy sources.

    Baseline Setup


    All data must at least be classified before it is uploaded to an M/O365 cloud service.

    Default M365 settings


    Turn on templates 1 8 the letter q and the number z

    SUPPORT
    ACTIVITIES
    Retention Policy


    Retention policy is auto-applied. Decide whether to retain content, delete content, or retain and then delete the content.

    Sensitivity Labels


    Automatically enforce policies on groups through labels; classify groups.

    Workload Containers


    M365: SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and Exchange, where your data is stored for labels and policies.

    Unforced Policies


    Written policies that are not enforceable by controls in Compliance Manager such as acceptable use policy.

    Forced Policies


    Restrict sharing controls to outside organizations. Enforce prefix or suffix to group or team names.

    Related Blueprints

    Govern Office 365

    Office 365 is as difficult to wrangle as it is valuable. Leverage best practices to produce governance outcomes aligned with your goals.

    Map your organizational goals to the administration features available in the Office 365 console. Your governance should reflect your requirements.

    Migrate to Office 365 Now

    Jumping into an Office 365 migration project without careful thought of the risks of a cloud migration will lead to project halt and interruption. Intentionally plan in order to expose risk and to develop project foresight for a smooth migration.

    Microsoft Teams Cookbook

    Remote work calls for leveraging your Office 365 license to use Microsoft Teams – but IT is unsure about best practices for governance and permissions. Moreover, IT has few resources to help train end users with Teams best practices

    IT Governance, Risk & Compliance

    Several blueprints are available on a broader topic of governance, from Make Your IT Governance Adaptable to Improve IT Governance to Drive Business Results and Build an IT Risk Management Program.

    Bibliography

    “Best practices for sharing files and folders with unauthenticated users.” Microsoft Build, 28 April 2022. Accessed 2 April 2022.

    “Build and manage assessments in Compliance Manager.” Microsoft Docs, 15 June 2022. Web.

    “Building a modern workplace with Microsoft 365.” Microsoft Inside Track, n.d. Web.

    Crane, Robert. “June 2020 Microsoft 365 Need to Know Webinar.” CIAOPS, SlideShare, 26 June 2020. Web.

    “Data Classification: Overview, Types, and Examples.” Simplilearn, 27 Dec. 2021. Accessed 11 April 2022.

    “Data loss prevention in Exchange Online.” Microsoft Docs, 19 April 2022. Web.

    Davies, Nahla. “5 Common Data Governance Challenges (and How to Overcome Them).” Dataversity. 25 October 2021. Accessed 5 April 2022.

    “Default labels and policies to protect your data.” Microsoft Build, April 2022. Accessed 3 April 2022.

    M., Peter. "Guide: The difference between Microsoft Backup and Retention." AvePoint Blog, 9 Oct. 2021. Accessed 4 April 2022.

    Meyer, Guillaume. “Sensitivity Labels: What They Are, Why You Need Them, and How to Apply Them.” nBold, 6 October 2021. Accessed 2 April 2022.

    “Microsoft 365 guidance for security & compliance.” Microsoft, 27 April 2022. Accessed 28 April 2022.

    “Microsoft Purview compliance portal.” Microsoft, 19 April 2022. Accessed 22 April 2022.

    “Microsoft Purview compliance documentation.” Microsoft, n.d. Accessed 22 April 2022.

    “Microsoft Trust Center: Products and services that run on trust.” Microsoft, 2022. Accessed 3 April 2022.

    “Protect your sensitive data with Microsoft Purview.” Microsoft Build, April 2022. Accessed 3 April 2022.

    Zimmergren, Tobias. “4 steps to successful cloud governance in Office 365.” Rencore, 9 Sept. 2021. Accessed 5 April 2022.

    Improve Service Desk Ticket Queue Management

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
    • Parent Category Link: /service-desk
    • Service desk tickets pile up in the queue, get lost or buried, jump between queues without progress, leading to slow response and resolution times, a seemingly insurmountable backlog and breached SLAs.
    • There are no defined rules or processes for how tickets should be assigned and routed and technicians don’t know how to prioritize their assigned work, meaning tickets take too long to get to the right place and aren’t always resolved in the correct or most efficient order.
    • Nobody has authority or accountability for queue management, meaning everyone has eyes only on their own tickets while others fall through the cracks.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    If everybody is managing the queue, then nobody is. Without clear ownership and accountability over each and every queue, then it becomes too easy for everyone to assume someone else is handling or monitoring a ticket when in fact nobody is. Assign a Queue Manager to each queue and ensure someone is responsible for monitoring ticket movement across all the queues.

    Impact and Result

    • Clearly define your queue structure, organize the queues by content, then assign resources to relevant queues depending on their role and expertise.
    • Define and document queue management processes, from initial triage to how to prioritize work on assigned tickets. Once processes have been defined, identify opportunities to build in automation to improve efficiency.
    • Ensure everyone who handles tickets is clear on their responsibilities and establish clear ownership and accountability for queue management.

    Improve Service Desk Ticket Queue Management Research & Tools

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

    1. Ticket Queue Management Deck – A guide to service desk ticket queue management best practices and advice

    This storyboard reviews the top ten pieces of advice for improving ticket queue management at the service desk.

    • Improve Service Desk Ticket Queue Management Storyboard

    2. Service Desk Queue Structure Template – A template to help you map out and optimize your service desk ticket queues

    This template includes several examples of service desk queue structures, followed by space to build your own model of your optimal service desk queue structure and document who is assigned to each queue and responsible for managing each queue.

    • Service Desk Queue Structure Template
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Improve Service Desk Ticket Queue Management

    Strong queue management is the foundation to good customer service

    Analyst Perspective

    Secure your foundation before you start renovating.

    Service Desk and IT leaders who are struggling with low efficiency, high backlogs, missed SLAs, and poor service desk metrics often think they need to hire more resources or get a new ITSM tool with better automation and AI capabilities. However, more often than not, the root cause of their challenges goes back to the fundamentals.

    Strong ticket queue management processes are critical to the success of all other service desk processes. You can’t resolve incidents and fulfill service requests in time to meet SLAs without first getting the ticket to the right place efficiently and then managing all tickets in the queue effectively. It sounds simple, but we see a lot of struggles around queue management, from new tickets sitting too long before being assigned, to in-progress tickets getting buried in favor of easier or higher-priority tickets, to tickets jumping from queue to queue without progress, to a seemingly insurmountable backlog.

    Once you have taken the time to clearly structure your queues, assign resources, and define your processes for routing tickets to and from queues and resolving tickets in the queue, you will start to see response and resolution time decrease along with the ticket backlog. However, accountability for queue management is often overlooked and is really key to success.
    This is an image of Dr. Natalie Sansone, Senior Research Analyst at Info-Tech Research Group

    Natalie Sansone, PhD
    Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Tickets come into the service desk via multiple channels (email, phone, chat, portal) and aren’t consolidated into a single queue, making it difficult to know what to prioritize.
    • New tickets sit in the queue for too long before being assigned while assigned tickets sit for too long without progress or in the wrong queue, leading to slow response and resolution times.
    • Tickets quickly pile up in the queues, get lost or buried, or jump between queues without finding the right home, leading to a seemingly insurmountable backlog and breached SLAs.

    Common Obstacles

    • All tickets pile into the same queue, making it difficult to view, manage, or know who’s working on what.
    • There are no defined rules or processes for how tickets should be assigned and routed, meaning they often take too long to get to the right place.
    • Technicians have no guidelines as to how to prioritize their work, and no easy way to organize their tickets or queue to know what to work on next.
    • Nobody has authority or accountability for queue management, meaning everyone has eyes only on their own tickets while others fall through the cracks.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Clearly define your queue structure, organize the queues by content, then assign resources to relevant queues depending on their role and expertise.
    • Define and document queue management processes, from initial triage to how to prioritize work on assigned tickets. Ensure everyone who handles tickets is clear on their responsibilities.
    • Establish clear ownership and accountability for queue management.
    • Once processes have been defined, identify opportunities to build in automation to improve efficiency.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If everybody is managing the queue, then nobody is. Without clear ownership and accountability over each and every queue it becomes too easy for everyone to assume someone else is handling or monitoring a ticket when in fact nobody is. Assign a Queue Manager to each queue and ensure someone is responsible for monitoring ticket movement across all the queues.

    Timeliness is essential to customer satisfaction

    And timeliness can’t be achieved without good queue management practices.

    As soon as that ticket comes in, the clock starts ticking…

    A host of different factors influence service desk response time and resolution time, including process optimization and documentation, workflow automation, clearly defined prioritization and escalation rules, and a comprehensive and easily accessible knowledgebase.

    However, the root cause of poor response and resolution time often comes down to the basics like ticket queue management. Without clearly defined processes and ownership for assigning and actioning tickets from the queue in the most effective order and manner, customer satisfaction will suffer.

    For every 12-hour delay in response time*, CSAT drops by 9.6%.

    *to email and web support tickets
    Source: Freshdesk, 2021

    A Freshworks analysis of 107 million service desk interactions found the relationship between CSAT and response time is stronger than resolution time - when customers receive prompt responses and regular updates, they place less value on actual resolution time.

    A queue is simply a line of people (or tickets) waiting to be helped

    When customers reach out to the service desk for help, their messages are converted into tickets that are stored in a queue, waiting to be actioned appropriately.

    Ticket Queue

    Email/web
    Ideally, the majority of tickets come into the ticket queue through email or a self-service portal, allowing for appropriate categorization, prioritization, and assignment.

    Phone
    For IT teams with a high volume of support requests coming in through the phone, reducing wait time in queue may be a priority.

    Chat
    Live chat is growing in popularity as an intake method and may require routing and distribution rules to prevent long or multiple queues.

    Queue Management

    Queue management is a set of processes and tools to direct and monitor tickets or manage ticket flow. It involves the following activities:

    • Review incoming tickets
    • Categorize and prioritize tickets
    • Route or assign appropriately
    • View or update ticket status
    • Monitor resource workload
    • Ensure tickets are being actioned in time
    • Proactively identify SLA breaches

    Ineffective queue management can bury you in backlog

    Ticket backlog with poor queue management

    Without a clear and efficient process or accountability for moving incoming tickets to the right place, tickets will be worked on randomly, older tickets will get buried, the backlog will grow, and SLAs will be missed.

    Ticket backlog with good queue management

    With effective queue management and ownership, tickets are quickly assigned to the right resource, worked on within the appropriate SLO/SLA, and actively monitored, leading to a more manageable backlog and good response and resolution times.

    A growing backlog will quickly lead to dissatisfied end users and staff

    Failing to efficiently move tickets from the queue or monitor tickets in the queue can quickly lead to tickets being buried and support staff feeling buried in tickets.

    Common challenges with queue management include:

    • Tickets come in through multiple channels and aren’t consolidated into a single queue
    • New tickets sit unassigned for too long, resulting in long response times
    • Tickets move around between multiple queues with no clear ownership
    • Assigned tickets sit too long in a queue without progress and breach SLA
    • No accountability for queue ownership and monitoring
    • Technicians cherry pick the easiest tickets from the queue
    • Technicians have no easy way to organize their queue to know what to work on next

    This leads to:

    • Long response times
    • Long resolution times
    • Poor workload distribution and efficiency
    • High backlog
    • Disengaged, frustrated staff
    • Dissatisfied end users

    Info-Tech Insight

    A growing backlog will quickly lead to frustrated and dissatisfied customers, causing them to avoid the service desk and seek alternate methods to get what they need, whether going directly to their favorite technician or their peers (otherwise known as shadow IT).

    Dig yourself out with strong queue management

    Strong queue management is the foundation to good customer service.

    Build a mature ticket queue management process that allows your team to properly prioritize, assign, and work on tickets to maximize response and resolution times.

    A mature queue management process will:

    • Reduce response time to address tickets.
    • Effectively prioritize tickets and ensure everyone knows what to work on next.
    • Ensure tickets get assigned and routed to the right queue and/or resource efficiently.
    • Reduce overall resolution time to resolve tickets.
    • Enable greater accountability for queue management and monitoring of tickets.
    • Improve customer and employee satisfaction.

    As queue management maturity increases:
    Response time decreases
    Resolution time decreases
    Backlog decreases
    End-user satisfaction increases

    Ten Tips to Effectively Manage Your Queue

    The remaining slides in this deck will review these ten pieces of advice for designing and managing your ticket queues effectively and efficiently.

    1. Define your optimal queue structure
    2. Design and assign resources to relevant queues
    3. Define and document queue management processes
    4. Clearly define queue management responsibilities for every team member
    5. Establish clear ownership & accountability over all queues
    6. Always keep ticket status and documentation up to date
    7. Shift left to reduce queue volume
    8. Build-in automation to improve efficiency
    9. Configure your ITSM tool to support and optimize queue management processes
    10. Don’t lose visibility of the backlog

    #1: Define your optimal queue structure

    There is no one right way to do queue management; choose the approach that will result in the highest value for your customers and IT staff.

    Sample queue structures

    This is an image of a sample Queue structure, where Incoming Tickets from all channels pass through auto or manual Queue assignment, to a numbered queue position.

    *Queues may be defined by skillset, role, ticket category, priority, or a hybrid.

    Triage and Assign

    • All incoming tickets are assigned to an appropriate queue based on predefined criteria.
    • Queue assignment may be done through automated workflows based on specific fields within the ticket, or manually by a
    • Queue Manager, dedicated coordinator, or Tier 1 staff.
    • Queues may be defined based on:
      • Skillset/team (e.g. Infrastructure, Security, Apps, etc.)
      • Ticket category (e.g. Network, Office365, Hardware, etc.)
      • Priority (e.g. P1, P2, P3, P4, P5)
    • Resources may be assigned to multiple queues.

    Define your optimal queue structure (cont.)

    Tiered generalist model

    • All incidents and service requests are routed to Tier 1 first, who prioritize and, if appropriate, conduct initial triage, troubleshooting, and resolution on a wide range of issues.
    • More complex or high-priority tickets are escalated to resources at Tier 2 and/or Tier 3, who are specialists working on projects in addition to support tickets.
    This is an image of the Tiered Generalist Model

    Unassigned queue

    • Very small teams may work from an unassigned queue if there are processes in place to monitor tickets and workload balance.
    • Typically, these teams work by resolving the oldest tickets first regardless of complexity (also known as First In, First Out or FIFO). However, this doesn’t allow for much flexibility in terms of priority of the request or customer.
    This is an image of an unassigned queue model

    #2: Design and assign resources to relevant queues

    Once you’ve defined your overall structure, define the content of each queue.

    This image depicts a sample queue organization structure. The bin titles are: Workgroup; Customer Group; Problem Type; and Hybrid

    Info-Tech Insight

    Start small; don’t create a queue for every possible ticket type. Remember that someone needs to be accountable for each of these queues, so only build what you can monitor.

    #3 Define and document queue management processes

    A clear, comprehensive, easily digestible SOP or workflow outlining the steps for handling new tickets and working tickets from the queue will help agents deliver a consistent experience.

    PROCESS INCLUDES:

    DEFINE THE FOLLOWING:

    TRIAGING INCOMING TICKETS

    • Ensure a ticket is created for every issue coming from every channel (e.g. phone, email, chat, walk-in, portal).
    • Assign a priority to each ticket.
    • Categorize ticket and add any necessary documentation
    • Update ticket status.
    • Delete spam, merge duplicate tickets, clean up inbox.
    • Assign tickets to appropriate queue or resource, escalate when necessary.
    • How should tickets be prioritized?
    • How should tickets from each channel be prioritized and routed? (e.g. are phone calls resolved right away? Are chats responded to immediately?)
    • Criteria that determine where a ticket should be sent or assigned (i.e. ticket category, priority, customer type).
    • How should VIP tickets be handled?
    • When should tickets be automatically escalated?
    • Which tickets require hierarchical escalation (i.e. to management)?

    WORKING ON ASSIGNED TICKETS

    • Continually update ticket status and documentation.
    • Assess which tickets should be worked on or completed ahead of others.
    • Troubleshoot, resolve, or escalate tickets.
    • In what order should tickets be worked on (e.g. by priority, by age, by effort, by time to breach)?
    • How long should a ticket be worked on without progress before it should be escalated to a different tier or queue?
    • Exceptions to the rule (e.g. in which circumstances should a lower priority ticket be worked on over a higher priority ticket).

    Process recommendations

    As you define queue management processes, keep the following advice in mind:

    Rotate triage role

    The triage role is critical but difficult. Consider rotating your Tier 1 resources through this role, or your service desk team if you’re a very small group.

    Limit and prioritize channels

    You decide which channels to enable and prioritize, not your users. Phone and chat are very interrupt-driven and should be reserved for high-priority issues if used. Your users may not understand that but can learn over time with training and reinforcement.

    Prioritize first

    Priority matrixes are necessary for consistency but there are always circumstances that require judgment calls. Think about risk and expected outcome rather than simply type of issue alone. And if the impact is bigger than the initial classification, change it.

    Define VIP treatment

    In some organizations, the same issue can be more critical if it happens to a certain user role (e.g. client facing, c-suite). Identify and flag VIP users and clearly define how their tickets should be prioritized.

    Consider time zone

    If users are in different time zones, take their current business hours into account when choosing which ticket to work on.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Think of your service desk as an emergency room. Patients come in with different symptoms, and the triage nurse must quickly assess these symptoms to decide who the patient should see and how soon. Some urgent cases will need to see the doctor immediately, while others can wait in another queue (the waiting room) for a while before being dealt with. Some cases who come in through a priority channel (e.g. ambulance) may jump the queue. Checklists and criteria can help with this decision making, but some degree of judgement is also required and that comes with experience. The triage role is sometimes seen as a junior-level role, but it actually requires expertise to be done well.

    For more detailed process guidance, see Standardize the Service Desk

    Info-Tech’s blueprint Standardize the Service Desk will help you standardize and document core service desk processes and functions, including:

    • Service desk structure, roles, and responsibilities
    • Metrics and reporting
    • Ticket handling and ticket quality
    • Incident and critical incident management
    • Ticket categorization
    • Prioritization and escalation
    • Service request fulfillment
    • Self-service considerations
    • Building a knowledgebase
    this image contains three screenshots from Info-Tech's Standardize the Service Desk Blueprint

    #4 Clearly define queue management responsibilities for every team member

    This may be one of the most critical yet overlooked keys to queue management success. Define the following:

    Who will have overall accountability?

    Someone must be responsible for monitoring all incoming and open tickets as well as assigned tickets in every queue to ensure they are routed and fulfilled appropriately. This person must have authority to view and coordinate all queues and Queue Managers.

    Who will manage each queue?

    Someone must be responsible for managing each queue, including assigning resources, balancing workload, and ensuring SLOs are met for the tickets within their queue. For example, the Apps Manager may be the Queue Manager for all tickets assigned to the Apps team queue.

    Who is responsible for assigning tickets?

    Will you have a triage team who monitors and assigns all incoming tickets? What are their specific responsibilities (e.g. prioritize, categorize, attempt troubleshooting, assign or escalate)? If not, who is responsible for assigning new tickets and how is this done? Will the triage role be a rotating role, and if so, what will the schedule be?

    What are everyone’s responsibilities?

    Everyone who is assigned tickets should understand the ticket handling process and their specific responsibilities when it comes to queue management.

    #5 Establish clear ownership & accountability over all queues

    If everyone is accountable, then no one is accountable. Ownership for each queue and all queues must be clearly designated.

    You may have multiple queue manager roles: one for each queue, and one who has visibility over all the queues. Typically, these roles make up only part of an individual’s job. Clearly define the responsibilities of the Queue Manager role; sample responsibilities are on the right.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Lack of authority over queues – especially those outside Tier 1 of the service desk – is one of the biggest pitfalls we see causing aging tickets and missed SLAs. Every queue needs clear ownership and accountability with everyone committed to meeting the same SLOs.

    The Queue Manager or Coordinator is accountable for ensuring tickets are routed to the correct resources service level objectives or agreements are met.

    Specific responsibilities may include:

    • Monitors queues daily
    • Ensures new tickets are assigned to appropriate resources for resolution
    • Verifies tickets have been routed and assigned correctly and reroutes if necessary
    • Reallocates tickets if assigned resource is suddenly unavailable or away
    • Ensures ticket handling process is met, ticket status is up to date and correct, and ticket documentation is complete
    • Escalates tickets that are aging or about to breach
    • Ensures service level objectives or agreements are met
    • Facilitates resource allocation based on workload
    • Coordinates tickets that require collaboration across workgroups to ensure resolution is achieved within SLA
    • Associates child and parent tickets
    • Prepares reports on ticket status and volume by queues
    • Regularly reviews reports to identify and act on issues and make improvements or changes where needed
    • Identifies opportunities for improvement

    #6 Always keep ticket status and documentation up to date

    Anyone should be able to quickly understand the status and progress on a ticket without needing to ask the technician working on it. This means both the ticket status and documentation must be continually and accurately updated.

    Ticket Documentation
    Ticket descriptions and documentation must be kept accurate and up to date. This ensures that if the ticket is escalated or assigned to a new person, or the Queue Manager or Service Desk Manager needs to know what progress has been made on a ticket, that person doesn’t need to waste time with back-and-forth communication with the technician or end user.

    Ticket Status
    The ticket status field should change as the ticket moves toward resolution, and must be updated every time the status changes. This ensures that anyone looking at the ticket queue can quickly learn and communicate the status of a ticket, tickets don’t get lost or neglected, metrics are accurate (such as time to resolve), and SLAs are not impacted if a ticket is on hold.

    Common ticket statuses include:

    • New/open
    • Assigned
    • In progress
    • Declined
    • Canceled
    • Pending/on hold
    • Resolved
    • Closed
    • Reopened

    For more guidance on ticket handling and documentation, download Info-Tech’s blueprint: Standardize the Service Desk.

    • For ticket handling and documentation, see Step 1.4
    • For ticket status fields, see Step 2.2.

    #7 Shift left to reduce queue volume

    Enable processes such as knowledge management, self-service, and problem management to prevent tickets from even coming into the queue.

    Shift left means enabling fulfilment of repeatable tasks and requests via faster, lower-cost delivery channels, self-help tools, and automation.

    This image contains a graph, where the Y axis is labeled Cost, and the X axis is labeled Time to Resolve.  On the graph are depicted service desk levels 0, 1, 2, and 3.

    Shift to Level 1

    • Identify tickets that are often escalated beyond Tier 1 but could be resolved by Level 1 if they were given the tools, training, resources, or access they need to do so.
    • Provide tools to succeed at resolving those defined tasks (e.g. knowledge article, documentation, remote tools).
    • Embed knowledge management in resolution workflows.

    Shift to End User

    • Build a centralized, easily accessible self-service portal where users can search for solutions to resolve their issues without having to submit a ticket.
    • Communicate and train users on how to use the portal regularly update and improve it.

    Automate & Eliminate

    • Identify processes or tasks that could be automated to eliminate work.
    • Invest in problem management and event management to fix the root problem of recurring issues and prevent a problem from occurring in the first place, thereby preventing future tickets.

    #8 Build in automation to improve efficiency

    Manually routing every ticket can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Once you’ve established the process, automate wherever possible.

    Automation rules can be used to ensure tickets are assigned to the right person or queue, to alert necessary parties when a ticket is about to breach or has breached SLA, or to remind technicians when a ticket has sat in a queue or at a particular status for too long.

    This can improve efficiency, reduce error, and bring greater visibility to both high-priority tickets and aging tickets in the backlog.

    However, your processes, queues, and responsibilities must be clearly defined before you can build in automation.

    For more guidance on implementing automation and AI within your service desk, see these blueprints:

    https://tymansgrpup.com/research/ss/accelerate-your-automation-processes https://tymansgrpup.com/research/ss/improve-it-operations-with-ai-and-ml

    For examples of rules, triggers, and fields you can automate to improve the efficiency of your queue management processes, see the next slide.

    Sample automation rules

    Criteria or triggers you can automate actions based on:

    • Ticket type
    • Specific field in a ticket web form
    • Ticket form that was used (e.g. specific service request form from the portal)
    • Ticket category
    • Ticket priority
    • Keyword in an email subject line
    • Keywords or string in a chat
    • Requester name or email
    • Requester location
    • Requester/ticket language
    • Requester VIP status
    • Channel ticket was received through
    • SLAs or time-based automations
    • Agent skill
    • Agent status or capacity

    Fields or actions those triggers can automate

    • Priority
    • Category
    • Ticket routing
    • Assigned agent
    • Assigned queue
    • SLA/due date
    • Notifications/communication

    Sample Automation Rules

    • When ticket is about to breach, send alert to Queue Manager and Service Desk Manager.
    • When ticket comes from VIP user, set urgency to high.
    • When ticket status has been set to “open” for ten hours, send an alert to Queue Manager.
    • When ticket status has been set to “on hold” for five days, send a reminder to assignee.
    • When ticket is categorized as “Software-ERP,” send to ERP queue.
    • When ticket is prioritized as P1/critical, send alert to emergency response team.
    • When ticket is prioritized as P1 and hasn’t been updated for one hour, send an alert to Incident Manager.
    • When an in-progress ticket is reassigned to a new queue, alert Queue Manager.
    • When ticket has not been resolved within seven days, flag as aging ticket.

    #9 Configure your ITSM tool to support and optimize queue management processes

    Configure your tool to support your needs; don’t adjust your processes to match the tool.

    • Most ITSM tools have default queues out of the box and the option to create as many custom queues, filters, and views as you need. Custom queues should allow you to name the queue, decide which tickets will be sent to the queue, and what columns or information are displayed in the queue.
    • Before you configure your queues and dashboards, sit down with your team to decide what you need and what will best enable each agent to manage their workload.
    • Decide which queues each role should have access to – most should only need to see their own queue and their team’s queue.
    • Configure which queues or views new tickets will be sent to.
    • Configure automation rules defined earlier (e.g. automate sending certain tickets to specific queues or sending notifications to specific parties when certain conditions are met).
    • Configure dashboards and reports on queue volume and ticket status data relevant to each team to help them manage their workload, increase visibility, and identify issues or actions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It can be overwhelming to support agents when their view is a long and never-ending queue. Set the default dashboard view to show only those tickets assigned to the viewer to make it appear more manageable and easier to organize.

    Configure queues to maximize productivity

    Info-Tech Insight

    The queue should quickly give your team all the information they need to prioritize their work, including ticket status, priority, category, due date, and updated timestamps. Configuration is important - if it’s confusing, clunky, or difficult to filter or sort, it will impact response and resolution times and can lead to missed tickets. Give your team input into configuration and use visuals such as color coding to help agents prioritize their work – for example, VIP tickets may be clearly flagged, critical or high priority tickets may be highlighted, tickets about to breach may be red.

    this image contains a sample queue organization which demonstrates how to maximize productivity

    #10 Don’t lose visibility of the backlog

    Be careful not to focus so much on assigning new tickets that you forget to update aging tickets, leading to an overwhelming backlog and dissatisfied users.

    Track metrics that give visibility into how quickly tickets are being resolved and how many aging tickets you have. Metrics may include:

    • Ticket resolution time by priority, by workgroup
    • Ticket volume by status (i.e. open, in progress, on hold, resolved)
    • Ticket volume by age
    • Ticket volume by queue and assignee

    Regularly review reports on these metrics with the team.

    Make it an agenda item to review aging tickets, on hold tickets, and tickets about to breach or past breach with the team.

    Take action on aging tickets to ensure progress is being made.

    Set rules to close tickets after a certain number of attempts to reach unresponsive users (and change ticket status appropriately).

    Schedule times for your team to tackle aged tickets or tickets in the backlog.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It can be easy for high priority work to constantly push down low priority work, leaving the lower priority tickets to constantly be ignored and users to be frustrated. If you’re struggling with aging tickets, backlog, and tickets breaching SLA, experiment with your team and queue structure to figure out the best resource distribution to handle your workload. This could mean rotating people through the triage role to allow them time to work through the backlog, reducing the number of people doing triage during slower volume periods, or giving technicians dedicated time to work through tickets. For help with forecasting demand and optimizing resources, see Staff the Service Desk to Meet Demand.

    Activity 1.1: Define ticket queues

    1 hour

    Map out your optimal ticket queue structure using the Service Desk Queue Structure Template. Follow the instructions in the template to complete it as a team.

    The template includes several examples of service desk queue structures followed by space to build your own model of an optimal service desk queue structure and to document who is assigned to each queue and responsible for managing each queue.

    Note:

    The template is not meant to map out your entire service desk structure (e.g. tiers, escalation paths) or ticket resolution process, but simply the ticket queues and how a ticket moves between queues. For help documenting more detailed process workflows or service desk structure, see the blueprint Standardize the Service Desk.

    this image contains screenshot from Info-Tech's blueprint: Service Desk Queue structure Template

    Input

    • Current queue structure and roles

    Output

    • Defined service desk ticket queues and assigned responsibilities

    Materials

    • Org chart
    • ITSM tool for reference, if needed

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • IT Director
    • Queue Managers

    Document in the Service Desk Queue Structure Template.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Standardize the Service Desk

    This project will help you build and improve essential service desk processes including incident management, request fulfillment, and knowledge management to create a sustainable service desk.

    Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

    This project will help you build a strategy to shift service support left to optimize your service desk operations and increase end-user satisfaction.

    Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake

    This project will help you streamline your ticket intake process and identify improvements to your intake channels.

    Staff the Service Desk to Meet Demand

    This project will help you determine your optimal service desk structure and staffing levels based on your unique environment, workload, and trends.

    Works Cited

    “What your Customers Really Want.” Freshdesk, 31 May 2021. Accessed May 2022.

    Select an ERP Implementation Partner

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    • Parent Category Name: Enterprise Resource Planning
    • Parent Category Link: /enterprise-resource-planning
    • Enterprise application implementations are complex, and their success is critical to business operations.
    • Selecting the right software implementation partner is as important for the success of the ERP initiative as selecting the right software.
    • System implementation often thrusts the product into the spotlight, with the implementation partner being an afterthought, and all too often organizational needs are ignored altogether.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • ERP implementation is not a one-and-done exercise. Most often it is the start of a multi-year working relationship between the software vendor or systems integrator and your organization. Take the time to find the right fit to ensure success.
    • The conventional approach to ERP implementation partner selection puts the ERP vendor and systems integrators in the driver's seat with little regard to your specific needs as an organization. You need to take an eyes-wide-open approach to your organization’s strengths and weaknesses to properly select and manage the implementation partner relationship.
    • Self-assessment is the critical first step in a successful implementation. Every organization has a unique combination of critical success factors (CSFs) that will be required to unlock the potential of their ERP. You must find the right partner or partners whose strengths complement your weaknesses to ensure your success.
    • Before you start knocking on vendors’ doors, ensure you have a holistic request that encompasses the strategic, tactical, operational, and commodity factors required for the success of your ERP implementation.

    Impact and Result

    • Use Info-Tech’s implementation partner selection process to find the right fit for your organization.
    • Understand the enterprise application CSFs and determine the unique requirements of your organization through this lens.
    • Define your implementation partner requirements separately from your software requirements and allow vendors to respond to those specifically.
    • Use our assessment tools to score and assess the CSFs required to select the right software implementation partners.

    Select an ERP Implementation Partner Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should focus on selecting the right implementation partner, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Identify your strategic needs

    Review the CSFs that are of strategic importance. Evaluating the gaps in your organization's capabilities enables you to choose a partner that can properly support you in your project.

    • Select an ERP Implementation Partner Workbook

    2. Review your tactical, commodity, and operational needs

    Review the CSFs that are of tactical, commodity, and operational importance. Evaluating the gaps in your organization's capabilities enables you to choose a partner that can properly support you in your project.

    3. Build your RFx and evaluate the responses

    Review your RFx and build an initial list of vendor/implementors to reach out to. Finally, build your evaluation checklist to rate the incoming responses.

    • Short-Form RFP Template
    • Long-Form RFP Template
    • Lean RFP Template
    • Supplementary RFx Material
    • RFx Vendor Evaluation Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select an ERP Implementation Partner

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

    1 Identify Organizational Strategic Needs

    The Purpose

    Review the critical success factors that are of strategic importance. Evaluating the gaps in your organization's capabilities enables you to choose a partner that can properly support you in your project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    ERP strategy model defined

    Strategic needs identified

    Activities

    1.1 Review the business context.

    1.2 Build your ERP strategy model.

    1.3 Assess your strategic needs.

    Outputs

    ERP strategy model

    ERP strategy model

    Strategic needs analysis

    2 Review Your Tactical, Commodity, and Operational Needs

    The Purpose

    Review the critical success factors that are of tactical, commodity, and operational importance. Evaluating the gaps in your organization's capabilities enables you to choose a partner that can properly support you in your project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Tactical, commodity, and operational needs identified

    Activities

    2.1 Assess your tactical needs.

    2.2 Assess your commodity needs.

    2.3 Assess your operational needs.

    Outputs

    Tactical needs analysis

    Commodity needs analysis

    Operational needs analysis

    3 Build Your RFx

    The Purpose

    Review your RFx and build an initial list of vendor/implementors to reach out to. Finally, build your evaluation checklist to rate the incoming responses.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Draft RFI or RFP

    Target vendor list

    Activities

    3.1 Decide on an RFI or RFP.

    3.2 Complete the RFx with the needs analysis.

    3.3 Build a list of targeted vendors

    Outputs

    Draft RFI or RFP

    Draft RFI or RFP

    Target vendor list

    4 Evaluate Vendors

    The Purpose

    Build a scoring template for use in vendor evaluation to ensure consistent comparison criteria are used.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A consistent and efficient evaluation process

    Activities

    4.1 Assign weightings to the evaluation criteria.

    4.2 Run a vendor evaluation simulation to validate the process.

    Outputs

    Completed partner evaluation tool

    Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan

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    • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
    • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
    • Many organizations do not have developed plans for how to turn on-premises employees into remote workers in an emergency.
    • In an emergency situation, such as a pandemic, sending employees home to work remotely without time to prepare presents daunting challenges, such as trying to comprehend and prioritize the myriad of tasks that need accomplishing for human resources, the business, and IT in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world.
    • Security issues may arise from employees not used to working remotely. Indeed, employees sent home to work remotely in an emergency may not have been eligible otherwise. This creates security risks, including the proliferation of shadow IT.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The emergency will restructure the business: make sure it’s done right. While your organization may need quick fixes for day one of an emergency remote work plan, these are not viable long-term solutions. The emergency will vividly reinforce to the business side that more resources need to be directed to IT to enable strong business continuity and employee safety. Make sure the right plan is put in place during the crucial first weeks. The next emergency is just around the corner.
    • Prioritize key business processes. Before getting into the details of a work from home policy, identify which crucial business processes need to continue for the company to survive. Build the remote work policy around supporting those workflows.
    • Where the “carrot” is not possible, emergencies may require the “stick.” To ensure secure endpoints and prevent proliferation of shadow IT, you may need to enforce certain rules through policy. However, disenfranchising employees is not a long-term solution: once the emergency subsides, use this basis to explore end-user requirements properly and ensure employee-driven adoption plans. Where possible, for this latter scenario, always use the carrot.

    Impact and Result

    • A prioritized plan for IT processes through Info-Tech’s cascading responsibility checklists for emergency remote work.
    • A codified emergency remote work policy document to better prepare for future emergencies.

    Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan Research & Tools

    Start here

    Read our concise Executive Brief for why you need prioritized emergency remote work checklists and an accompanying policy document and review Info-Tech’s methodology.

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

    • Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan Storyboard

    1. Day one preparations

    Prioritize key action items on day one of sending your employees home to remotely work during an emergency.

    • Emergency Remote Work Plan Checklists
    • Home Office Survey
    • Checklist for Securing Remote Workers
    • None
    • Remote Access Policy
    • Equipment Loan Policy
    • None
    • Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users – Phases 1-2
    • Remote Work Assignment Log
    • Wiki Collection for Collaboration Tools
    • Pandemic Preparation: The People Playbook

    2. One-to-two weeks preparations

    Address key action items in the one-to-two weeks following an emergency that forced your employees to work remotely.

    • None

    3. Codify an emergency remote work policy

    Turn your emergency remote work checklists into policy.

    • Emergency Remote Work Policy
    • Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan Executive Presentation
    [infographic]

    Create a Service Management Roadmap

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
    • Parent Category Link: /service-management
    • Inconsistent adoption of holistic practices has led to a chaotic service delivery model that results in poor customer satisfaction.
    • There is little structure, formalization, or standardization in the way IT services are designed and managed, leading to diminishing service quality and low business satisfaction.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Having effective service management practices in place will allow you to pursue activities, such as innovation, and drive the business forward.
    • Addressing foundational elements like business alignment and management practices will enable you to build effective core practices that deliver business value.
    • Providing consistent leadership support and engagement is essential to allow practitioners to focus on delivering expected outcomes.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand the foundational and core elements that allow you to build a successful service management practice focused on outcomes.
    • Use Info-Tech’s advice and tools to perform an assessment of your organization’s current state, identify the gaps, and create a roadmap for success.
    • Increase business and customer satisfaction by delivering services focused on creating business value.

    Create a Service Management Roadmap Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why many service management maturity projects fail to address foundational and core elements, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Launch the project

    Kick-off the project and complete the project charter.

    • Create a Service Management Roadmap – Phase 1: Launch Project
    • Service Management Roadmap Project Charter

    2. Assess the current state

    Determine the current state for service management practices.

    • Create a Service Management Roadmap – Phase 2: Assess the Current State
    • Service Management Maturity Assessment Tool
    • Organizational Change Management Capability Assessment Tool
    • Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    3. Build the roadmap

    Build your roadmap with identified initiatives.

    • Create a Service Management Roadmap – Phase 3: Identify the Target State

    4. Build the communication slide

    Create the communication slide that demonstrates how things will change, both short and long term.

    • Create a Service Management Roadmap – Phase 4: Build the Roadmap
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    Workshop: Create a Service Management Roadmap

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

    1 Understand Service Management

    The Purpose

    Understand service management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain a common understanding of service management, the forces that impact your roadmap, and the Info-Tech Service Management Maturity Model.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand service management.

    1.2 Build a compelling vision and mission.

    Outputs

    Constraints and enablers chart

    Service management vision, mission, and values

    2 Assess the Current State of Service Management

    The Purpose

    Assess the organization’s current service management capabilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand attitudes, behaviors, and culture.

    Understand governance and process ownership needs.

    Understand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

    Defined desired state.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess cultural ABCs.

    2.2 Assess governance needs.

    2.3 Perform SWOT analysis.

    2.4 Define desired state.

    Outputs

    Cultural improvements action items

    Governance action items

    SWOT analysis action items

    Defined desired state

    3 Continue Current-State Assessment

    The Purpose

    Assess the organization’s current service management capabilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the current maturity of service management processes.

    Understand organizational change management capabilities.

    Activities

    3.1 Perform service management process maturity assessment.

    3.2 Complete OCM capability assessment.

    3.3 Identify roadmap themes.

    Outputs

    Service management process maturity activities

    OCM action items

    Roadmap themes

    4 Build Roadmap and Communication Tool

    The Purpose

    Use outputs from previous steps to build your roadmap and communication one-pagers.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Easy-to-understand roadmap one-pager

    Communication one-pager

    Activities

    4.1 Build roadmap one-pager.

    4.2 Build communication one-pager.

    Outputs

    Service management roadmap

    Service management roadmap – Brought to Life communication slide

    Further reading

    Create a Service Management Roadmap

    Implement service management in an order that makes sense.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    "More than 80% of the larger enterprises we’ve worked with start out wanting to develop advanced service management practices without having the cultural and organizational basics or foundational practices fully in place. Although you wouldn’t think this would be the case in large enterprises, again and again IT leaders are underestimating the importance of cultural and foundational aspects such as governance, management practices, and understanding business value. You must have these fundamentals right before moving on."

    Tony Denford,

    Research Director – CIO

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • CIO
    • Senior IT Management

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Create or maintain service management (SM) practices to ensure user-facing services are delivered seamlessly to business users with minimum interruption.
    • Increase the level of reliability and availability of the services provided to the business and improve the relationship and communication between IT and the business.

    This Research Will Also Assist

    • Service Management Process Owners

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Formalize, standardize, and improve the maturity of service management practices.
    • Identify new service management initiatives to move IT to the next level of service management maturity.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Inconsistent adoption of holistic practices has led to a chaotic service delivery model that results in poor customer satisfaction.
    • There is little structure, formalization, or standardization in the way IT services are designed and managed, leading to diminishing service quality and low business satisfaction.

    Complication

    • IT organizations want to be seen as strategic partners, but they fail to address the cultural and organizational constraints.
    • Without alignment with the business goals, services often fail to provide the expected value.
    • Traditional service management approaches are not adaptable for new ways of working.

    Resolution

    • Follow Info-Tech’s methodology to create a service management roadmap that will help guide the optimization of your IT services and improve IT’s value to the business.
    • The blueprint will help you right-size your roadmap to best suit your specific needs and goals and will provide structure, ownership, and direction for service management.
    • This blueprint allows you to accurately identify the current state of service management at your organization. Customize the roadmap and create a plan to achieve your target service management state.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Having effective service management practices in place will allow you to pursue activities such as innovation and drive the business forward. Addressing foundational elements like business alignment and management practices will enable you to build effective core practices that deliver business value. Consistent leadership support and engagement is essential to allow practitioners to focus on delivering expected outcomes.

    Poor service management manifests in many different pains across the organization

    Immaturity in service management will not result in one pain – rather, it will create a chaotic environment for the entire organization, crippling IT’s ability to deliver and perform.

    Low Service Management Maturity

    These are some of the pains that can be attributed to poor service management practices.

    • Frequent service-impacting incidents
    • Low satisfaction with the service desk
    • High % of failed deployments
    • Frequent change-related incidents
    • Frequent recurring incidents
    • Inability to find root cause
    • No communication with the business
    • Frequent capacity-related incidents

    And there are many more…

    Mature service management practices are a necessity, not a nice-to-have

    Immature service management practices are one of the biggest hurdles preventing IT from reaching its true potential.

    In 2004, PwC published a report titled “IT Moves from Cost Center to Business Contributor.” However, the 2014-2015 CSC Global CIO Survey showed that a high percentage of IT is still considered a cost center.

    And low maturity of service management practices is inhibiting activities such as agility, DevOps, digitalization, and innovation.

    A pie chart is shown that is titled: Where does IT sit? The chart has 3 sections. One section represents IT and the business have a collaborative partnership 28%. The next section represents at 33% where IT has a formal client/service provider relationship with the business. The last section has 39% where IT is considered as a cost center.
    Source: CSC Global CIO Survey: 2014-2015 “CIOs Emerge as Disruptive Innovators”

    39%: Resources are primarily focused on managing existing IT workloads and keeping the lights on.

    31%: Too much time and too many resources are used to handle urgent incidents and problems.

    There are many misconceptions about what service management is

    Misconception #1: “Service management is a process”

    Effective service management is a journey that encompasses a series of initiatives that improves the value of services delivered.

    Misconception #2: “Service Management = Service Desk”

    Service desk is the foundation, since it is the main end-user touch point, but service management is a set of people and processes required to deliver business-facing services.

    Misconception #3: “Service management is about the ITSM tool”

    The tool is part of the overall service management program, but the people and processes must be in place before implementing.

    Misconception #4: “Service management development is one big initiative”

    Service management development is a series of initiatives that takes into account an organization’s current state, maturity, capacities, and objectives.

    Misconception #5: “Service management processes can be deployed in any order, assuming good planning and design”

    A successful service management program takes into account the dependencies of processes.

    Misconception #6: “Service management is resolving incidents and deploying changes”

    Service management is about delivering high-value and high-quality services.

    Misconception #7: “Service management is not the key determinant of success”

    As an organization progresses on the service management journey, its ability to deliver high-value and high-quality services increases.

    Misconception #8: “Resolving Incidents = Success”

    Preventing incidents is the name of the game.

    Misconception #9: “Service Management = Good Firefighter”

    Service management is about understanding what’s going on with user-facing services and proactively improving service quality.

    Misconception #10: “Service management is about IT and technical services (e.g. servers, network, database)”

    Service management is about business/user-facing services and the value the services provide to the business.

    Service management projects often don’t succeed because they are focused on process rather than outcomes

    Service management projects tend to focus on implementing process without ensuring foundational elements of culture and management practices are strong enough to support the change.

    1. Aligning your service management goals with your organizational objectives leads to better understanding of the expected outcomes.
    2. Understand your customers and what they value, and design your practices to deliver this value.

    3. IT does not know what order is best when implementing new practices or process improvements.
    4. Don't run before you can walk. Fundamental practices must reach the maturity threshold before developing advanced practices. Implement continuous improvement on your existing processes so they continue to support new practices.

    5. IT does not follow best practices when implementing a practice.
    6. Our best-practice research is based on extensive experience working with clients through advisory calls and workshops.

    Info-Tech can help you create a customized, low-effort, and high-value service management roadmap that will shore up any gaps, prove IT’s value, and achieve business satisfaction.

    Info-Tech’s methodology will help you customize your roadmap so the journey is right for you

    With Info-Tech, you will find out where you are, where you want to go, and how you will get there.

    With our methodology, you can expect the following:

    • Eliminate or reduce rework due to poor execution.
    • Identify dependencies/prerequisites and ensure practices are deployed in the correct order, at the correct time, and by the right people.
    • Engage all necessary resources to design and implement required processes.
    • Assess current maturity and capabilities and design the roadmap with these factors in mind.

    Doing it right the first time around

    You will see these benefits at the end

      ✓ Increase the quality of services IT provides to the business.

      ✓ Increase business satisfaction through higher alignment of IT services.

      ✓ Lower cost to design, implement, and manage services.

      ✓ Better resource utilization, including staff, tools, and budget.

    Focus on a strong foundation to build higher value service management practices

    Info-Tech Insight

    Focus on behaviors and expected outcomes before processes.

    Foundational elements

    • Operating model facilitates service management goals
    • Culture of service delivery
    • Governance discipline to evaluate, direct, and monitor
    • Management discipline to deliver

    Stabilize

    • Deliver stable, reliable IT services to the business
    • Respond to user requests quickly and efficiently
    • Resolve user issues in a timely manner
    • Deploy changes smoothly and successfully

    Proactive

    • Avoid/prevent service disruptions
    • Improve quality of service (performance, availability, reliability)

    Service Provider

    • Understand business needs
    • Ensure services are available
    • Measure service performance, based on business-oriented metrics

    Strategic Partner

    • Fully aligned with business
    • Drive innovation
    • Drive measurable value

    Info-Tech Insight

    Continued leadership support of the foundational elements will allow delivery teams to provide value to the business. Set the expectation of the desired maturity level and allow teams to innovate.

    Follow our model and get to your target state

    A model is depicted that shows the various target states. There are 6 levels showing in the example, and the example is made to look like a tree with a character watering it. In the roots, the level is labelled foundational. The trunk is labelled the core. The lowest hanging branches of the tree is the stabilize section. Above it is the proactive section. Nearing the top of the tree is the service provider. The canopy of the tree are labelled strategic partner.

    Before moving to advanced service management practices, you must ensure that the foundational and core elements are robust enough to support them. Leadership must nurture these practices to ensure they are sustainable and can support higher value, more mature practices.

    Each step along the way, Info-Tech has the tools to help you

    Phase 1: Launch the Project

    Assemble a team with the right talent and vision to increase the chances of project success.

    Phase 2: Assess Current State

    Understand where you are currently on the service management journey using the maturity assessment tool.

    Phase 3: Build Roadmap

    Based on the assessments, build a roadmap to address areas for improvement.

    Phase 4: Build Communication slide

    Based on the roadmap, define the current state, short- and long-term visions for each major improvement area.

    Info-Tech Deliverables:

    • Project Charter
    • Assessment Tools
    • Roadmap Template
    • Communication Template

    CIO call to action

    Improving the maturity of the organization’s service management practice is a big commitment, and the project can only succeed with active support from senior leadership.

    Ideally, the CIO should be the project sponsor, even the project leader. At a minimum, the CIO needs to perform the following activities:

    1. Walk the talk – demonstrate personal commitment to the project and communicate the benefits of the service management journey to IT and the steering committee.
    2. Improving or adopting any new practice is difficult, especially for a project of this size. Thus, the CIO needs to show visible support for this project through internal communication and dedicated resources to help complete this project.

    3. Select a senior, capable, and results-driven project leader.
    4. Most likely, the implementation of this project will be lengthy and technical in some nature. Therefore, the project leader must have a good understanding of the current IT structure, senior standing within the organization, and the relationship and power in place to propel people into action.

    5. Help to define the target future state of IT’s service management.
    6. Determine a realistic target state for the organization based on current capability and resource/budget restraints.

    7. Conduct periodic follow-up meetings to keep track of progress.
    8. Reinforce or re-emphasize the importance of this project to the organization through various communication channels if needed.

    Stabilizing your environment is a must before establishing any more-mature processes

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Manufacturing

    Source: Engagement

    Challenge

    • The business landscape was rapidly changing for this manufacturer and they wanted to leverage potential cost savings from cloud-first initiatives and consolidate multiple, self-run service delivery teams that were geographically dispersed.

    Solution

    Original Plan

    • Consolidate multiple service delivery teams worldwide and implement service portfolio management.

    Revised Plan with Service Management Roadmap:

    • Markets around the world had very different needs and there was little understanding of what customers value.
    • There was also no understanding of what services were currently being offered within each geography.

    Results

    • Plan was adjusted to understand customer value and services offered.
    • Services were then stabilized and standardized before consolidation.
    • Team also focused on problem maturity and drove a continuous improvement culture and increasing transparency.

    MORAL OF THE STORY:

    Understanding the value of each service allowed the organization to focus effort on high-return activities rather than continuous fire fighting.

    Understand the processes involved in the proactive phase

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Manufacturing

    Source: Engagement

    Challenge

    • Services were fairly stable, but there were significant recurring issues for certain services.
    • The business was not satisfied with the service quality for certain services, due to periodic availability and reliability issues.
    • Customer feedback for the service desk was generally good.

    Solution

    Original Plan

    • Review all service desk and incident management processes to ensure that service issues were handled in an effective manner.

    Revised Plan with Service Management Roadmap:

    • Design and deploy a rigorous problem management process to determine the root cause of recurring issues.
    • Monitor key services for events that may lead to a service outage.

    Results

    • Root cause of recurring issues was determined and fixes were deployed to resolve the underlying cause of the issues.
    • Service quality improved dramatically, resulting in high customer satisfaction.

    MORAL OF THE STORY:

    Make sure that you understand which processes need to be reviewed in order to determine the cause for service instability. Focusing on the proactive processes was the right answer for this company.

    Have the right culture and structure in place before you become a service provider

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Healthcare

    Source:Journal of American Medical Informatics Association

    Challenge

    • The IT organization wanted to build a service catalog to demonstrate the value of IT to the business.
    • IT was organized in technology silos and focused on applications, not business services.
    • IT services were not aligned with business activities.
    • Relationships with the business were not well established.

    Solution

    Original Plan

    • Create and publish a service catalog.

    Revised Plan: with Service Management Roadmap:

    • Establish relationships with key stakeholders in the business units.
    • Understand how business activities interface with IT services.
    • Lay the groundwork for the service catalog by defining services from the business perspective.

    Results

    • Strong relationships with the business units.
    • Deep understanding of how business activities map to IT services.
    • Service definitions that reflect how the business uses IT services.

    MORAL OF THE STORY:

    Before you build and publish a service catalog, make sure that you understand how the business is using the IT services that you provide.

    Calculate the benefits of using Info-Tech’s methodology

    To measure the value of developing your roadmap using the Info-Tech tools and methodology, you must calculate the effort saved by not having to develop the methods.

    A. How much time will it take to develop an industry-best roadmap using Info-Tech methodology and tools?

    Using Info-Tech’s tools and methodology you can accurately estimate the effort to develop a roadmap using industry-leading research into best practice.

    B. What would be the effort to develop the insight, assess your team, and develop the roadmap?

    This metric represents the time your team would take to be able to effectively assess themselves and develop a roadmap that will lead to service management excellence.

    C. Cost & time saving through Info-Tech’s methodology

    Measured Value

    Step 1: Assess current state

    Cost to assess current state:

    • 5 Directors + 10 Managers x 10 hours at $X an hour = $A

    Step 2: Build the roadmap

    Cost to create service management roadmap:

    • 5 Directors + 10 Managers x 8 hours at $X an hour = $B

    Step 3: Develop the communication slide

    Cost to create roadmaps for phases:

    • 5 Directors + 10 Managers x 6 hours at $X an hour = $C

    Potential financial savings from using Info-Tech resources:

    Estimated cost to do “B” – (Step 1 ($A) + Step 2 ($B) + Step 3 ($C)) = $Total Saving

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Create a Service Management Roadmap – project overview


    Launch the project

    Assess the current state

    Build the roadmap

    Build communication slide

    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Create a powerful, succinct mission statement

    1.2 Assemble a project team with representatives from all major IT teams

    1.3 Determine project stakeholders and create a communication plan

    1.4 Establish metrics to track the success of the project

    2.1 Assess impacting forces

    2.2 Build service management vision, mission, and values

    2.3 Assess attitudes, behaviors, and culture

    2.4 Assess governance

    2.5 Perform SWOT analysis

    2.6 Identify desired state

    2.7 Assess SM maturity

    2.8 Assess OCM capabilities

    3.1 Document overall themes

    3.2 List individual initiatives

    4.1 Document current state

    4.2 List future vision

    Guided Implementations

    • Kick-off the project
    • Build the project team
    • Complete the charter
    • Understand current state
    • Determine target state
    • Build the roadmap based on current and target state
    • Build short- and long-term visions and initiative list

    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1: Launch the project

    Module 2: Assess current service management maturity

    Module 3: Complete the roadmap

    Module 4: Complete the communication slide

    Workshop overview

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

    Workshop Day 1

    Workshop Day 2

    Workshop Day 3

    Workshop Day 4

    Activities

    Understand Service Management

    1.1 Understand the concepts and benefits of service management.

    1.2 Understand the changing impacting forces that affect your ability to deliver services.

    1.3 Build a compelling vision and mission for your service management program.

    Assess the Current State of Your Service Management Practice

    2.1 Understand attitudes, behaviors, and culture.

    2.2 Assess governance and process ownership needs.

    2.3 Perform SWOT analysis.

    2.4 Define the desired state.

    Complete Current-State Assessment

    3.1 Conduct service management process maturity assessment.

    3.2 Identify organizational change management capabilities.

    3.3 Identify themes for roadmap.

    Build Roadmap and Communication Tool

    4.1 Build roadmap one-pager.

    4.2 Build roadmap communication one-pager.

    Deliverables

    1. Constraints and enablers chart
    2. Service management vision, mission, and values
    1. Action items for cultural improvements
    2. Action items for governance
    3. Identified improvements from SWOT
    4. Defined desired state
    1. Service Management Process Maturity Assessment
    2. Organizational Change Management Assessment
    1. Service management roadmap
    2. Roadmap Communication Tool in the Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    PHASE 1

    Launch the Project

    Launch the project

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Create a powerful, succinct mission statement based on your organization’s goals and objectives.
    • Assemble a project team with representatives from all major IT teams.
    • Determine project stakeholders and create a plan to convey the benefits of this project.
    • Establish metrics to track the success of the project.

    Step Insights

    • The project leader should have a strong relationship with IT and business leaders to maximize the benefit of each initiative in the service management journey.
    • The service management roadmap initiative will touch almost every part of the organization; therefore, it is important to have representation from all impacted stakeholders.
    • The communication slide needs to include the organizational change impact of the roadmap initiatives.

    Phase 1 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 1: Launch the Project

    Step 1.1 – Kick-off the Project

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Identify current organization pain points relating to poor service management practices
    • Determine high-level objectives
    • Create a mission statement

    Then complete these activities…

    • Identify potential team members who could actively contribute to the project
    • Identify stakeholders who have a vested interest in the completion of this project

    With these tools & templates:

    • Service Management Roadmap Project Charter

    Step 1.2 – Complete the Charter

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Create the project team; ensure all major IT teams are represented
    • Review stakeholder list and identify communication messages

    Then complete these activities…

    • Establish metrics to complete project planning
    • Complete the project charter

    With these tools & templates:

    • Service Management Roadmap Project Charter

    Use Info-Tech’s project charter to begin your initiative

    1.1 Service Management Roadmap Project Charter

    The Service Management Roadmap Project Charter is used to govern the initiative throughout the project. It provides the foundation for project communication and monitoring.

    The template has been pre-populated with sample information appropriate for this project. Please review this sample text and change, add, or delete information as required.

    The charter includes the following sections:

    • Mission Statement
    • Goals & Objectives
    • Project Team
    • Project Stakeholders
    • Current State (from phases 2 & 3)
    • Target State (from phases 2 & 3)
    • Target State
    • Metrics
    • Sponsorship Signature
    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Service Management Roadmap Project Charter is shown.

    Use Info-Tech’s ready-to-use deliverable to customize your mission statement

    Adapt and personalize Info-Tech’s Service Management Roadmap Mission Statement and Goals & Objectives below to suit your organization’s needs.

    Goals & Objectives

    • Create a plan for implementing service management initiatives that align with the overall goals/objectives for service management.
    • Identify service management initiatives that must be implemented/improved in the short term before deploying more advanced initiatives.
    • Determine the target state for each initiative based on current maturity and level of investment available.
    • Identify service management initiatives and understand dependencies, prerequisites, and level of effort required to implement.
    • Determine the sequence in which initiatives should be deployed.
    • Create a detailed rollout plan that specifies initiatives, time frames, and owners.
    • Engage the right teams and obtain their commitment throughout both the planning and assessment of roadmap initiatives.
    • both the planning and assessment of roadmap initiatives. Obtain support for the completed roadmap from executive stakeholders.

    Example Mission Statement

    To help [Organization Name] develop a set of service management practices that will better address the overarching goals of the IT department.

    To create a roadmap that sequences initiatives in a way that incorporates best practices and takes into consideration dependencies and prerequisites between service management practices.

    To garner support from the right people and obtain executive buy-in for the roadmap.

    Create a well-balanced project team

    The project leader should be a member of your IT department’s senior executive team with goals and objectives that will be impacted by service management implementation. The project leader should possess the following characteristics:

    Leader

    • Influence and impact
    • Comprehensive knowledge of IT and the organization
    • Relationship with senior IT management
    • Ability to get things done

    Team Members

    Identify

    The project team members are the IT managers and directors whose day-to-day lives will be impacted by the service management roadmap and its implementation. The service management initiative will touch almost every IT staff member in the organization; therefore, it is important to have representatives from every single group, including those that are not mentioned. Some examples of individuals you should consider for your team:

    • Service Delivery Managers
    • Director/Manager of Applications
    • Director/Manager of Infrastructure
    • Director/Manager of Service Desk
    • Business Relationship Managers
    • Project Management Office

    Engage & Communicate

    You want to engage your project participants in the planning process as much as possible. They should be involved in the current-state assessment, the establishment of goals and objectives, and the development of your target state.

    To sell this project, identify and articulate how this project and/or process will improve the quality of their job. For example, a formal incident management process will benefit people working at the service desk or on the applications or infrastructure teams. Helping them understand the gains will help to secure their support throughout the long implementation process by giving them a sense of ownership.

    The project stakeholders should also be project team members

    When managing stakeholders, it is important to help them understand their stake in the project as well as their own personal gain that will come out of this project.

    For many of the stakeholders, they also play a critical role in the development of this project.

    Role & Benefits

    • CIO
    • The CIO should be actively involved in the planning stage to help determine current and target stage.

      The CIO also needs to promote and sell the project to the IT team so they can understand that higher maturity of service management practices will allow IT to be seen as a partner to the business, giving IT a seat at the table during decision making.

    • Service Delivery Managers/Process Owners
    • Service Delivery Managers are directly responsible for the quality and value of services provided to the business owners. Thus, the Service Delivery Managers have a very high stake in the project and should be considered for the role of project leader.

      Service Delivery Managers need to work closely with the process owners of each service management process to ensure clear objectives are established and there is a common understanding of what needs to be achieved.

    • IT Steering Committee
    • The Committee should be informed and periodically updated about the progress of the project.

    • Manager/Director – Service Desk
    • The Manager of the Service Desk should participate closely in the development of fundamental service management processes, such as service desk, incident management, and problem management.

      Having a more established process in place will create structure, governance, and reduce service desk staff headaches so they can handle requests or incidents more efficiently.

    • Manager/Director –Applications & Infrastructure
    • The Manager of Applications and Infrastructure should be heavily relied on for their knowledge of how technology ties into the organization. They should be consulted regularly for each of the processes.

      This project will also benefit them directly, such as improving the process to deploy a fix into the environment or manage the capacity of the infrastructure.

    • Business Relationship Manager
    • As the IT organization moves up the maturity ladder, the Business Relationship Manager will play a fundamental role in the more advanced processes, such as business relationship management, demand management, and portfolio management.

      This project will be an great opportunity for the Business Relationship Manager to demonstrate their value and their knowledge of how to align IT objectives with business vision.

    Ensure you get the entire IT organization on board for the project with a well-practiced change message

    Getting the IT team on board will greatly maximize the project’s chance of success.

    One of the top challenges for organizations embarking on a service management journey is to manage the magnitude of the project. To ensure the message is not lost, communicate this roadmap in two steps.

    1. Communicate the roadmap initiative

    The most important message to send to the IT organization is that this project will benefit them directly. Articulate the pains that IT is currently experiencing and explain that through more mature service management, these pains can be greatly reduced and IT can start to earn a place at the table with the business.

    2. Communicate the implementation of each process separately

    The communication of process implementation should be done separately and at the beginning of each implementation. This is to ensure that IT staff do not feel overwhelmed or overloaded. It also helps to keep the project more manageable for the project team.

    Continuously monitor feedback and address concerns throughout the entire process

    • Host lunch and learns to provide updates on the service management initiative to the entire IT team.
    • Understand if there are any major roadblocks and facilitate discussions on how to overcome them.

    Articulate the service management initiative to the IT organization

    Spread the word and bring attention to your change message through effective mediums and organizational changes.

    Key aspects of a communication plan

    The methods of communication (e.g. newsletters, email broadcast, news of the day, automated messages) notify users of implementation.

    In addition, it is important to know who will deliver the message (delivery strategy). You need IT executives to deliver the message – work hard on obtaining their support as they are the ones communicating to their staff and should be your project champions.

    Anticipate organizational changes

    The implementation of the service management roadmap will most likely lead to organizational changes in terms of structure, roles, and responsibilities. Therefore, the team should be prepared to communicate the value that these changes will bring.

    Communicating Change

    • What is the change?
    • Why are we doing it?
    • How are we going to go about it?
    • What are we trying to achieve?
    • How often will we be updated?

    The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change

    Create a project communication plan for your stakeholders

    This project cannot be successfully completed without the support of senior IT management.

    1. After the CIO has introduced this project through management meetings or informal conversation, find out how each IT leader feels about this project. You need to make sure the directors and managers of each IT team, especially the directors of application and infrastructure, are on board.
    2. After the meeting, the project leader should seek out the major stakeholders (particularly the heads of applications and infrastructure) and validate their level of support through formal or informal meetings. Create a list documenting the major stakeholders, their level of support, and how the project team will work to gain their approval.
    3. For each identified stakeholder, create a custom communication plan based on their role. For example, if the director of infrastructure is not a supporter, demonstrate how this project will enable them to better understand how to improve service quality. Provide periodic reporting or meetings to update the director on project progress.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion between team members

    OUTPUT

    • Thorough briefing for project launch
    • A committed team

    Materials

    • Communication message and plan
    • Metric tracking

    Participants

    • Project leader
    • Core project team

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst is shown.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1

    A screenshot of activity 1.1 is shown.

    Create a powerful, succinct mission statement

    Using Info-Tech’s sample mission statement as a guide, build your mission statement based on the objectives of this project and the benefits that this project will achieve. Keep the mission statement short and clear.

    1.2

    A screenshot of activity 1.2 is shown.

    Assemble the project team

    Create a project team with representatives from all major IT teams. Engage and communicate to the project team early and proactively.

    1.3

    A screenshot of activity 1.3 is shown.

    Identify project stakeholders and create a communication plan

    Info-Tech will help you identify key stakeholders who have a vested interest in the success of the project. Determine the communication message that will best gain their support.

    1.4

    A screenshot of activity 1.4 is shown.

    Use metrics to track the success of the project

    The onsite analyst will help the project team determine the appropriate metrics to measure the success of this project.

    PHASE 2

    Assess Your Current Service Management State

    Assess your current state

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Use Info-Tech’s Service Management Maturity Assessment Tool to determine your overall practice maturity level.
    • Understand your level of completeness for each individual practice.
    • Understand the three major phases involved in the service management journey; know the symptoms of each phase and how they affect your target state selection.

    Step Insights

    • To determine the real maturity of your service management practices, you should focus on the results and output of the practice, rather than the activities performed for each process.
    • Focus on phase-level maturity as opposed to the level of completeness for each individual process.

    Phase 2 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 2: Determine Your Service Management Current State

    Step 2.1 – Assess Impacting Forces

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Discuss the impacting forces that can affect the success of your service management program
    • Identify internal and external constraints and enablers
    • Review and interpret how to leverage or mitigate these elements

    Then complete these activities…

    • Present the findings of the organizational context
    • Facilitate a discussion and create consensus amongst the project team members on where the organization should start

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 2.2 – Build Vision, Mission, and Values

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review your service management vision and mission statement and discuss the values

    Then complete these activities…

    • Socialize the vision, mission, and values to ensure they are aligned with overall organizational vision. Then, set the expectations for behavior aligned with the vision, mission, and values

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 2.3 – Assess Attitudes, Behaviors, and Culture

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Discuss tactics for addressing negative attitudes, behaviors, or culture identified

    Then complete these activities…

    • Add items to be addressed to roadmap

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 2.4 – Assess Governance Needs

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Understand the typical types of governance structure and the differences between management and governance
    • Choose the management structure required for your organization

    Then complete these activities…

    • Determine actions required to establish an effective governance structure and add items to be addressed to roadmap

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 2.5 – Perform SWOT Analysis

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Discuss SWOT analysis results and tactics for addressing within the roadmap

    Then complete these activities…

    • Add items to be addressed to roadmap

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 2.6 – Identify Desired State

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Discuss desired state and commitment needed to achieve aspects of the desired state

    Then complete these activities…

    • Use the desired state to critically assess the current state of your service management practices and whether they are achieving the desired outcomes
    • Prep for the SM maturity assessment

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 2.7 – Perform SM Maturity Assessment

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review and interpret the output from your service management maturity assessment

    Then complete these activities…

    • Add items to be addressed to roadmap

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Service Management Maturity Assessment

    Step 2.8 – Review OCM Capabilities

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review and interpret the output from your organizational change management maturity assessment

    Then complete these activities…

    • Add items to be addressed to roadmap

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Organizational Change Management Assessment

    Understand and assess impacting forces – constraints and enablers

    Constraints and enablers are organizational and behavioral triggers that directly impact your ability and approach to establishing Service Management practices.

    A model is shown to demonstrate the possibe constraints and enablers on your service management program. It incorporates available resources, the environment, management practices, and available technologies.

    Effective service management requires a mix of different approaches and practices that best fit your organization. There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Consider the resources, environment, emerging technologies, and management practices facing your organization. What items can you leverage or use to mitigate to move your service management program forward?

    Use Info-Tech’s “Organizational Context” template to list the constraints and enablers affecting your service management

    The Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template will help you understand the business environment you need to consider as you build out your roadmap.

    Discuss and document constraints and enablers related to the business environment, available resources, management practices, and emerging technologies. Any constraints will need to be addressed within your roadmap and enablers should be leveraged to maximize your results.


    Screenshot of Info-Tech's Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template is shown.

    Document constraints and enablers

    1. Discuss and document the constrains and enablers for each aspect of the management mesh: environment, resources, management practices, or technology.
    2. Use this as a thought provoker in later exercises.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion

    OUTPUT

    • Organizational context constraints and enablers

    Materials

    • Whiteboards or flip charts

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

    Build compelling vision and mission statements to set the direction of your service management program

    While you are articulating the vision and mission, think about the values you want the team to display. Being explicit can be a powerful tool to create alignment.

    A vision statement describes the intended state of your service management organization, expressed in the present tense.

    A mission statement describes why your service management organization exists.

    Your organizational values state how you will deliver services.

    Use Info-Tech’s “Vision, Mission, and Values” template to set the aspiration & purpose of your service management practice

    The Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template will help you document your vision for service management, the purpose of the program, and the values you want to see demonstrated.

    If the team cannot gain agreement on their reason for being, it will be difficult to make traction on the roadmap items. A concise and compelling statement can set the direction for desired behavior and help team members align with the vision when trying to make ground-level decisions. It can also be used to hold each other accountable when undesirable behavior emerges. It should be revised from time to time, when the environment changes, but a well-written statement should stand the test of time.

    A screenshot of the Service Management Roadmap Presentation Temaplate is shown. Specifically it is showing the section on the vision, mission, and values results.

    Document your organization’s vision, mission , and values

    1. Vision: Identify your desired target state, consider the details of that target state, and create a vision statement.
    2. Mission: Consider the fundamental purpose of your SM program and craft a statement of purpose.
    3. Values: As you work through the vision and mission, identify values that your organization prides itself in or has the aspiration for.
    4. Discuss common themes and then develop a concise vision statement and mission statement that incorporates the group’s ideas.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion

    OUTPUT

    • Vision statement
    • Mission statement
    • Organizational values

    Materials

    • Whiteboards or flip charts
    • Sample vision and mission statements

    Participants

    • All stakeholders
    • Senior leadership

    Understanding attitude, behavior, and culture

    Attitude

    • What people think and feel. It can be seen in their demeanor and how they react to change initiatives, colleagues, and users.

    Any form of organizational change involves adjusting people’s attitudes, creating buy-in and commitment. You need to identify and address attitudes that can lead to negative behaviors and actions or that are counter-productive. It must be made visible and related to your desired behavior.

    Behaviour

    • What people do. This is influenced by attitude and the culture of the organization.

    To implement change within IT, especially at a tactical level, both IT and organizational behavior needs to change. This is relevant because people don’t like to change and will resist in an active or passive way unless you can sell the need, value, and benefit of changing their behavior.

    Culture

    • The accepted and understood ways of working in an organization. The values and standards that people find normal and what would be tacitly identified to new resources.

    The organizational or corporate “attitude,” the impact on employee behavior and attitude is often not fully understood. Culture is an invisible element, which makes it difficult to identify, but it has a strong impact and must be addressed to successfully embed any organizational change or strategy.

    Culture is a critical and under-addressed success factor

    43% of CIOs cited resistance to change as the top impediment to a successful digital strategy.

    CIO.com

    75% of organizations cannot identify or articulate their culture or its impact.

    Info-Tech

    “Shortcomings in organizational culture are one of the main barriers to company success in the digital age.”

    McKinsey – “Culture for a digital age”

    Examples of how they apply

    Attitude

    • “I’ll believe that when I see it”
    • Positive outlook on new ideas and changes

    Behaviour

    • Saying you’ll follow a new process but not doing so
    • Choosing not to document a resolution approach or updating a knowledge article, despite being asked

    Culture

    • Hero culture (knowledge is power)
    • Blame culture (finger pointing)
    • Collaborative culture (people rally and work together)

    Why have we failed to address attitude, behavior, and culture?

      ✓ While there is attention and better understanding of these areas, very little effort is made to actually solve these challenges.

      ✓ The impact is not well understood.

      ✓ The lack of tangible and visible factors makes it difficult to identify.

      ✓ There is a lack of proper guidance, leadership skills, and governance to address these in the right places.

      ✓ Addressing these issues has to be done proactively, with intent, rigor, and discipline, in order to be successful.

      ✓ We ignore it (head in the sand and hoping it will fix itself).

    Avoidance has been a common strategy for addressing behavior and culture in organizations.

    Use Info-Tech’s “Culture and Environment” template to identify cultural constraints that should be addressed in roadmap

    The Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template will help you document attitude, behavior, and culture constraints.

    Discuss as a team attitudes, behaviors, and cultural aspects that can either hinder or be leveraged to support your vision for the service management program. Capture all items that need to be addressed in the roadmap.

    A screenshot of the Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template is shown. Specifically showing the culture and environment slide.

    Document your organization’s attitudes, behaviors, and culture

    1. Discuss and document positive and negative aspects of attitude, behavior, or culture within your organization.
    2. Identify the items that need to be addressed as part of your roadmap.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion

    OUTPUT

    • Culture and environment worksheet

    Materials

    • Whiteboards or flip charts

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

    The relationship to governance

    Attitude, behavior, and culture are still underestimated as core success factors in governance and management.

    Behavior is a key enabler of good governance. Leading by example and modeling behavior has a cascading impact on shifting culture, reinforcing the importance of change through adherence.

    Executive leadership and governing bodies must lead and support cultural change.

    Key Points

    • Less than 25% of organizations have formal IT governance in place (ITSM Tools).
    • Governance tends to focus on risk and compliance (controls), but forgets the impact of value and performance.

    Lack of oversight often limits the value of service management implementations

    Organizations often fail to move beyond risk mitigation, losing focus of the goals of their service management practices and the capabilities required to produce value.

    Risk Mitigation

    • Stabilize IT
    • Service Desk
    • Incident Management
    • Change Management

    Gap

    • Organizational alignment through governance
    • Disciplined focus on goals of SM

    Value Production

    • Value that meets business and consumer needs

    This creates a situation where service management activities and roadmaps focus on adjusting and tweaking process areas that no longer support how the organization needs to work.

    How does establishing governance for service management provide value?

    Governance of service management is a gap in most organizations, which leads to much of the failure and lack of value from service management processes and activities.

    Once in place, effective governance enables success for organizations by:

    1. Ensuring service management processes improve business value
    2. Measuring and confirming the value of the service management investment
    3. Driving a focus on outcome and impact instead of simply process adherence
    4. Looking at the integrated impact of service management in order to ensure focused prioritization of work
    5. Driving customer-experience focus within organizations
    6. Ensuring quality is achieved and addressing quality impacts and dependencies between processes

    Four common service management process ownership models

    Your ownership structure largely defines how processes will need to be implemented, maintained, and improved. It has a strong impact on their ability to integrate and how other teams perceive their involvement.

    An organizational structure is shown. In the image is an arrow, with the tip facing in the right direction. The left side of the arrow is labelled: Traditional, and the right side is labelled: Complex. The four models are noted along the arrow. Starting on the left side and going to the right are: Distributed Process Ownership, Centralized Process Ownership, Federated Process Ownership, and Service Management Office.

    Most organizations are somewhere within this spectrum of four core ownership models, usually having some combination of shared traits between the two models that are closest to them on the scale.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The organizational structure that is best for you depends on your needs, and one is not necessarily better than another. The next four slides describe when each ownership level is most appropriate.

    Distributed process ownership

    Distributed process ownership is usually evident when organizations initially establish their service management practices. The processes are assigned to a specific group, who assumes some level of ownership over its execution.

    The distributed process ownership model is shown. CIO is listed at the top with four branches leading out from below it. The four branches are labelled: Service Desk, Operations, Applications, and Security.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This model is often a suitable approach for initial implementations or where it may be difficult to move out of siloes within the organization’s structure or culture.

    Centralized process ownership

    Centralized process ownership usually becomes necessary for organizations as they move into a more functional structure. It starts to drive management of processes horizontally across the organization while still retaining functional management control.

    A centralized process ownership model is shown. The CIO is at the top and the following are branches below it: Service Manager, Support, Middleware, Development, and Infrastructure.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This model is often suitable for maturing organizations that are starting to look at process integration and shared service outcomes and accountability.

    Federated process ownership

    Federated process ownership allows for global control and regional variation, and it supports product orientation and Agile/DevOps principles

    A federated process ownership model is shown. The Sponsor/CIO is at the top, with the ITSM Executive below it. Below that level is the: Process Owner, Process Manager, and Process Manager.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Federated process ownership is usually evident in organizations that have an international or multi-regional presence.

    Service management office (SMO)

    SMO structures tend to occur in highly mature organizations, where service management responsibility is seen as an enterprise accountability.

    A service management office model is shown. The CIO is at the top with the following branches below it: SMO, End-User Services, Infra., Apps., and Architecture.

    Info-Tech Insight

    SMOs are suitable for organizations with a defined IT and organizational strategy. A SMO supports integration with other enterprise practices like enterprise architecture and the PMO.

    Determine which process ownership and governance model works best for your organization

    The Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template will help you document process ownership and governance model

    Example:

    Key Goals:

      ☐ Own accountability for changes to core processes

      ☐ Understand systemic nature and dependencies related to processes and services

      ☐ Approve and prioritize improvement and CSI initiatives related to processes and services

      ☐ Evaluate success of initiative outcomes based on defined benefits and expectations

      ☐ Own Service Management and Governance processes and policies

      ☐ Report into ITSM executive or equivalent body

    Membership:

      ☐ Process Owners, SM Owner, Tool Owner/Liaison, Audit

    Discuss as a team which process ownership model works for your organization. Determine who will govern the service management practice. Determine items that should be identified in your roadmap to address governance and process ownership gaps.

    Use Info-Tech’s “SWOT” template to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats that should be addressed

    The Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template will help you document items from your SWOT analysis.

    A screenshot of the Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template is shown. Specifically the SWOT section is shown.

    Brainstorm the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to resources, environment, technology, and management practices. Add items that need to be addressed to your roadmap.

    Perform a SWOT analysis

    1. Brainstorm each aspect of the SWOT with an emphasis on:
    • Resources
    • Environment
    • Technologies
    • Management Practices
  • Record your ideas on a flip chart or whiteboard.
  • Add items to be addressed to the roadmap.
  • INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion

    OUTPUT

    • SWOT analysis
    • Priority items identified

    Materials

    • Whiteboards or flip charts

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

    Indicate desired maturity level for your service management program to be successful

    Discuss the various maturity levels and choose a desired level that would meet business needs.

    The desired maturity model is depicted.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion

    OUTPUT

    • Desired state of service management maturity

    Materials

    • None

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

    Use Info-Tech’s Service Management Process Maturity Assessment Tool to understand your current state

    The Service Management Process Maturity Assessment Tool will help you understand the true state of your service management.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Service Management Process Assessment Tool is shown.

    Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 tabs

    These three worksheets contain questions that will determine the overall maturity of your service management processes. There are multiple sections of questions focused on different processes. It is very important that you start from Part 1 and continue the questions sequentially.

    Results tab

    The Results tab will display the current state of your service management processes as well as the percentage of completion for each individual process.

    Complete the service management process maturity assessment

    The current-state assessment will be the foundation of building your roadmap, so pay close attention to the questions and answer them truthfully.

    1. Start with tab 1 in the Service Management Process Maturity Assessment Tool. Remember to read the questions carefully and always use the feedback obtained through the end-user survey to help you determine the answer.
    2. In the “Degree of Process Completeness” column, use the drop-down menu to input the results solicited from the goals and objectives meeting you held with your project participants.
    3. A screenshot of Info-Tech's Service Management Process Assessment Tool is shown. Tab 1 is shown.
    4. Host a meeting with all participants following completion of the survey and have them bring their results. Discuss in a round-table setting, keeping a master sheet of agreed upon results.

    INPUT

    • Service Management Process Maturity Assessment Tool questions

    OUTPUT

    • Determination of current state

    Materials

    • Service Management Process Maturity Assessment Tool

    Participants

    • Project team members

    Review the results of your current-state assessment

    At the end of the assessment, the Results tab will have action items you could perform to close the gaps identified by the process assessment tool.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Service Management Process Maturity Assessment Results is shown.

    INPUT

    • Maturity assessment results

    OUTPUT

    • Determination of overall and individual practice maturity

    Materials

    • Service Management Maturity Assessment Tool

    Participants

    • Project team members

    Use Info-Tech’s OCM Capability Assessment tool to understand your current state

    The Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment tool will help you understand the true state of your organizational change management capabilities.

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment

    Complete the Capabilities tab to capture the current state for organizational change management. Review the Results tab for interpretation of the capabilities. Review the Recommendations tab for actions to address low areas of maturity.

    Complete the OCM capability assessment

    1. Open Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment tool.
    2. Come to consensus on the most appropriate answer for each question. Use the 80/20 rule.
    3. Review result charts and discuss findings.
    4. Identify roadmap items based on maturity assessment.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion

    OUTPUT

    • OCM Assessment tool
    • OCM assessment results

    Materials

    • OCM Capabilities Assessment tool

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst is shown.

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1

    A screenshot of activity 2.1 is shown.

    Create a powerful, succinct mission statement

    Using Info-Tech’s sample mission statement as a guide, build your mission statement based on the objectives of this project and the benefits that this project will achieve. Keep the mission statement short and clear.

    2.2

    A screenshot of activity 2.2 is shown.

    Complete the assessment

    With the project team in the room, go through all three parts of the assessment with consideration of the feedback received from the business.

    2.3

    A screenshot of activity 2.3 is shown.

    Interpret the results of the assessment

    The Info-Tech onsite analyst will facilitate a discussion on the overall maturity of your service management practices and individual process maturity. Are there any surprises? Are the results reflective of current service delivery maturity?

    PHASE 3

    Build Your Service Management Roadmap

    Build Roadmap

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Document your vision and mission on the roadmap one-pager.
    • Using the inputs from the current-state assessments, identify the key themes required by your organization.
    • Identify individual initiatives needed to address key themes.

    Step Insights

    • Using the Info-Tech thought model, address foundational gaps early in your roadmap and establish the management methods to continuously make them more robust.
    • If any of the core practices are not meeting the vision for your service management program, be sure to address these items before moving on to more advanced service management practices or processes.
    • Make sure the story you are telling with your roadmap is aligned to the overall organizational goals.

    Phase 3 outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 3: Determine Your Service Management Target State

    Step 3.1 – Document the Overall Themes

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review the outputs from your current-state assessments to identify themes for areas that need to be included in your roadmap

    Then complete these activities…

    • Ensure foundational elements are solid by adding any gaps to the roadmap
    • Identify any changes needed to management practices to ensure continuous improvement

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 3.2 – Determine Individual Initiatives

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Determine the individual initiatives needed to close the gaps between the current state and the vision

    Then complete these activities…

    • Finalize and document roadmap for executive socialization

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Focus on a strong foundation to build higher value service management practices

    Info-Tech Insight

    Focus on behaviors and expected outcomes before processes.

    Foundational elements

    • Operating model facilitates service management goals
    • Culture of service delivery
    • Governance discipline to evaluate, direct, and monitor
    • Management discipline to deliver

    Stabilize

    • Deliver stable, reliable IT services to the business
    • Respond to user requests quickly and efficiently
    • Resolve user issues in a timely manner
    • Deploy changes smoothly and successfully

    Proactive

    • Avoid/prevent service disruptions
    • Improve quality of service (performance, availability, reliability)

    Service Provider

    • Understand business needs
    • Ensure services are available
    • Measure service performance, based on business-oriented metrics

    Strategic Partner

    • Fully aligned with business
    • Drive innovation
    • Drive measurable value

    Info-Tech Insight

    Continued leadership support of the foundational elements will allow delivery teams to provide value to the business. Set the expectation of the desired maturity level and allow teams to innovate.

    Identify themes that can help you build a strong foundation before moving to higher level practices

    A model is depicted that shows the various target states. There are 6 levels showing in the example, and the example is made to look like a tree with a character watering it. In the roots, the level is labelled foundational. The trunk is labelled the core. The lowest hanging branches of the tree is the stabilize section. Above it is the proactive section. Nearing the top of the tree is the service provider. The top most branches of the tree is labelled strategic partner.

    Before moving to advanced service management practices, you must ensure that the foundational and core elements are robust enough to support them. Leadership must nurture these practices to ensure they are sustainable and can support higher value, more mature practices.

    Use Info-Tech’s “Service Management Roadmap” template to document your vision, themes and initiatives

    The Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template contains a roadmap template to help communicate your vision, themes to be addressed, and initiatives

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Service Management Roadmap template is shown.

    Working from the lower maturity items to the higher value practices, identify logical groupings of initiatives into themes. This will aid in communicating the reasons for the needed changes. List the individual initiatives below the themes. Adding the service management vision and mission statements can help readers understand the roadmap.

    Document your service management roadmap

    1. Document the service management vision and mission on the roadmap template.
    2. Identify, from the assessments, areas that need to be improved or implemented.
    3. Group the individual initiatives into logical themes that can ease communication of what needs to happen.
    4. Document the individual initiatives.
    5. Document in terms that business partners and executive sponsors can understand.

    INPUT

    • Current-state assessment outputs
    • Maturity model

    OUTPUT

    • Service management roadmap

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Roadmap template

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst is shown.

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1

    A screenshot of activity 3.1 is shown.

    Identify themes to address items from the foundational level up to higher value service management practices

    Identify easily understood themes that will help others understand the expected outcomes within your organization.

    A screenshot of activity 3.2 is shown.

    Document individual initiatives that contribute to the themes

    Identify specific activities that will close gaps identified in the assessments.

    PHASE 2

    Build Communication Slide

    Complete your service management roadmap

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Use the current-state assessment exercises to document the state of your service management practices. Document examples of the behaviors that are currently seen.
    • Document the expected short-term gains. Describe how you want the behaviors to change.
    • Document the long-term vision for each item and describe the benefits you expect to see from addressing each theme.

    Step Insights

    • Use the communication template to acknowledge the areas that need to be improved and paint the short- and long-term vision for the improvements to be made through executing the roadmap.
    • Write it in business terms so that it can be used widely to gain acceptance of the upcoming changes that need to occur.
    • Include specific areas that need to be fixed to make it more tangible.
    • Adding the values from the vision, mission, and values exercise can also help you set expectations about how the team will behave as they move towards the longer-term vision.

    Phase 4 Outline

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

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

    Guided Implementation 4: Build the Service Management Roadmap

    Step 4.1: Document the Current State

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review the pain points identified from the current state analysis
    • Discuss tactics to address specific pain points

    Then complete these activities…

    • Socialize the pain points within the service delivery teams to ensure nothing is being misrepresented
    • Gather ideas for the future state

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Step 4.2: List the Future Vision

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review short- and long-term vision for improvements for the pain points identified in the current state analysis

    Then complete these activities…

    • Prepare to socialize the roadmap
    • Ensure long-term vision is aligned with organizational objectives

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Use Info-Tech’s “Service Management Roadmap – Brought to Life” template to paint a picture of the future state

    The Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template contains a communication template to help communicate your vision of the future state

    A screenshot of Info-Tech's Service Management Roadmap - Brought to Life template

    Use this template to demonstrate how existing pain points to delivering services will improve over time by painting a near- and long-term picture of how things will change. Also list specific initiatives that will be launched to affect the changes. Listing the values identified in the vision, mission, and values exercise will also demonstrate the team’s commitment to changing behavior to create better outcomes.

    Document your current state and list initiatives to address them

    1. Use the previous assessments and feedback from business or customers to identify current behaviors that need addressing.
    2. Focus on high-impact items for this document, not an extensive list.
    3. An example of step 1 and 2 are shown.
    4. List the initiatives or actions that will be used to address the specific pain points.

    An example of areas for improvement.

    INPUT

    • Current-state assessment outputs
    • Feedback from business

    OUTPUT

    • Service Management Roadmap Communication Tool, in the Service Management Roadmap Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Roadmap template

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

    Document your future state

    An example of document your furture state is shown.

    1. For each pain point document the expected behaviors, both short term and longer term.
    2. Write in terms that allow readers to understand what to expect from your service management practice.

    INPUT

    • Current-state assessment outputs
    • Feedback from business

    OUTPUT

    • Service Management Roadmap Communication Tool, in the Service Management Roadmap Presentation Template

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Roadmap template

    Participants

    • All stakeholders

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

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst is shown.

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    4.1

    A screenshot of activity 4.1 is shown.

    Identify the pain points and initiatives to address them

    Identify items that the business can relate to and initiatives or actions to address them.

    4.2

    A screenshot of activity 4.2 is shown.

    Identify short- and long-term expectations for service management

    Communicate the benefits of executing the roadmap both short- and long-term gains.

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Valence Howden

    Valence Howden, Principal Research Director, CIO Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Valence helps organizations be successful through optimizing how they govern, design, and execute strategies, and how they drive service excellence in all work. With 30 years of IT experience in the public and private sectors, he has developed experience in many information management and technology domains, with focus in service management, enterprise and IT governance, development and execution of strategy, risk management, metrics design and process design, and implementation and improvement.

    Photo of Graham Price

    Graham Price, Research Director, CIO Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Graham has an extensive background in IT service management across various industries with over 25 years of experience. He was a principal consultant for 17 years, partnering with Fortune 500 clients throughout North America, leveraging and integrating industry best practices in IT service management, service catalog, business relationship management, IT strategy, governance, and Lean IT and Agile.

    Photo of Sharon Foltz

    Sharon Foltz, Senior Workshop Director

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Sharon is a Senior Workshop Director at Info-Tech Research Group. She focuses on bringing high value to members via leveraging Info-Tech’s blueprints and other resources enhanced with her breadth and depth of skills and expertise. Sharon has spent over 15 years in various IT roles in leading companies within the United States. She has strong experience in organizational change management, program and project management, service management, product management, team leadership, strategic planning, and CRM across various global organizations.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility

    Extend the Service Desk to the Enterprise

    Bibliography

    • “CIOs Emerge as Disruptive Innovators.” CSC Global CIO Survey: 2014-2015. Web.
    • “Digital Transformation: How Is Your Organization Adapting?” CIO.com, 2018. Web.
    • Goran, Julie, Laura LaBerge, and Ramesh Srinivasan. “Culture for a digital age.” McKinsey, July 2017. Web.
    • The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change. Cornelius & Associates, 14 April 2012.
    • Wilkinson, Paul. “Culture, Ethics, and Behavior – Why Are We Still Struggling?” ITSM Tools, 5 July 2018. Web.

    Organizational Change Management

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    • member rating overall impact: 9.6/10
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    • member rating average days saved: 24
    • Parent Category Name: Project Portfolio Management and Projects
    • Parent Category Link: /ppm-and-projects
    If you don't know who is responsible for organizational change, it's you.

    Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • The business is rarely satisfied with IT service levels, yet there is no clear definition of what is acceptable.
    • Dissatisfaction with service levels is often based on perception. Your uptime might be four 9s, but the business only remembers the outages.
    • IT is left trying to hit a moving target with a limited budget and no agreement on where services levels need to improve.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Business leaders have service level expectations regardless of whether there is a formal agreement. The SLA process enables IT to manage those expectations.
    • Track current service levels and report them in plain language (e.g. hours and minutes of downtime, not “how many 9s” which then need to be translated) to gain a clearer mutual understanding of current versus desired service levels.
    • Use past incidents to provide context (how much that hour of downtime actually impacted the business) in addition to a business impact analysis to define appropriate target service levels based on actual business need.

    Impact and Result

    Create an effective internal SLA by following a structured process to report current service levels and set realistic expectations with the business. This includes:

    • Defining the current achievable service level by establishing a metrics tracking and monitoring process.
    • Determining appropriate (not ideal) business needs.
    • Creating an SLA that clarifies expectations to reduce IT-business friction.

    Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create an internal SLA, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Scope the pilot project

    Establish the SLA pilot project and clearly document the problems and challenges that it will address.

    • Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA – Phase 1: Scope the Pilot Project
    • Internal SLA Process Flowcharts (PDF)
    • Internal SLA Process Flowcharts (Visio)
    • Build an Internal SLA Project Charter Template
    • Internal SLA Maturity Scorecard Tool

    2. Establish current service levels

    Expedite the SLA process by thoroughly, carefully, and clearly defining the current achievable service levels.

    • Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA – Phase 2: Determine Current Service Levels
    • Availability and Reliability SLA Metrics Tracking Template
    • Service Desk SLA Metrics Tracking Template
    • Service Catalog SLA Metrics Tracking Template

    3. Identify target service levels and create the SLA

    Create a living document that aligns business needs with IT targets by discovering the impact of your current service level offerings through a conversation with business peers.

    • Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA – Phase 3: Set Target Service Levels and Create the SLA
    • SLA Project Roadmap Tool
    • Availability Internal Service Level Agreement Template
    • Service Catalog Internal Service Level Agreement Template
    • Service Desk Internal Service Level Agreement Template
    • Internal SLA Executive Summary Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting

    CISOs pushing for zero trust as their security strategy face several challenges including:

    • Understanding and clarifying the benefits of zero trust for the organization.
    • The inability to verify all business operations are maintaining security best practices.
    • Convincing business units to add more security controls that go against the grain of reducing friction in workflows while still demonstrating these controls support the business.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Zero trust must benefit the business and security. Because the road to zero trust is an iterative process, IT security will need to constantly determine how different areas of zero trust will affect core business processes.
    • Zero trust reduces reliance on perimeter security. Zero trust is a strategy that solves how to move beyond the reliance on perimeter security and move controls to where the user accesses resources.
    • Not everyone can achieve zero trust, but everyone can adopt it. Zero trust will be different for every organization and may not be applicable in every control area. This means that zero trust is not a one-size-fits-all approach to IT security. Zero trust is the goal, but some organizations can only get so close to the ideal.

    Impact and Result

    Zero trust is a journey that uses multiple capabilities and requires multiple parties to contribute to an organization’s security. Use Info-Tech’s approach to:

    • Understand zero trust as a strategic platform for building your security roadmap.
    • Assess your current state and determine the benefits of adopting zero trust to help plan your roadmap.
    • Separate vendors from the hype surrounding zero trust to adopt a vendor-agnostic approach to your zero trust planning.

    Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should determine your zero trust readiness, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Understand zero trust

    Recognize the zero trust ideal and understand the different zero trust schools of thought.

    2. Assess your zero trust readiness

    Assess and determine the benefits of zero trust and identify and evaluate vendors in the zero trust market.

    • Zero Trust Security Benefit Assessment Tool
    [infographic]

    Develop Necessary Documentation for GDPR Compliance

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    • member rating overall impact: 10.0/10 Overall Impact
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    • member rating average days saved: Read what our members are saying
    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • It can be an overwhelming challenge to understand what documentation is required under the GDPR.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Hiring the right data protection officer (DPO) isn’t always easy. The person you think might be best may result in a conflict of interest. Be aware of all requirements and be objective when hiring for this role.
    • Keep retention to the bare minimum. Limiting the amount of data you are responsible for limits your liability for protecting it.
    • Under the GDPR, cookies constitute personal data. They require a standalone policy, separate from the privacy policy. Ensure pop-up cookie notification banners require active consent and give users the clear opportunity to reject them.

    Impact and Result

    • Save time developing documents by leveraging ready-to-go templates for the DPO job description, retention documents, privacy notice, and cookie policy.
    • Establishing GDPR-compliance documentation will set the foundation for an overall compliant program.

    Develop Necessary Documentation for GDPR Compliance Research & Tools

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

    1. Hire a data protection officer

    Understand the need for a DPO and what qualities to look for in a strong candidate.

    • Develop Necessary Documentation for GDPR Compliance Storyboard
    • Data Protection Officer Job Description Template

    2. Define retention requirements

    Understand your data retention requirements under the GDPR. Develop the necessary documentation.

    • Data Retention Policy Template
    • Data Retention Schedule Tool – GDPR

    3. Develop privacy and cookie policies

    Understand your website or application’s GDPR requirements to inform users on how you process their personal data and how cookies are used. Develop the necessary documentation.

    • Privacy Notice Template – External Facing
    • Cookie Policy Template – External Facing
    [infographic]

    Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • Internal stakeholders usually have different – and often conflicting – needs and expectations that require careful facilitation and management.
    • SaaS solutions bring forth a unique form of “switching costs” that can make a decision to migrate solutions financially, technically, and politically painful.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Conservatively, it’s possible to save 5% of the overall IT budget through comprehensive software and SaaS contract review.
    • Focus on the terms and conditions, not just the price.
    • Learning to negotiate is crucial.

    Impact and Result

    • Take control of your SaaS contract negotiations from the beginning.
    • Look at your contract holistically to find cost savings.
    • Guide communication between vendors and your organization for the duration of contract negotiations.
    • Redline the terms and conditions of your SaaS contract.
    • Prioritize crucial terms and conditions to negotiate.

    Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to redline and negotiate a SaaS agreement, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the different ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Gather requirements

    Build and manage the stakeholder team, and then document the business use case.

    • Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last – Phase 1: Gather Requirements
    • RASCI Chart
    • Vendor Communication Management Plan
    • Software Business Use Case Template
    • SaaS TCO Calculator

    2. Redline contract

    Redline the proposed SaaS contract.

    • Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last – Phase 2: Redline Contract
    • SaaS Terms and Conditions Evaluation Tool

    3. Negotiate contract

    Create a thorough negotiation plan.

    • Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last – Phase 3: Negotiate Contract
    • SaaS Contract Negotiation Terms Prioritization Checklist
    • Controlled Vendor Communications Letter
    • Key Vendor Fiscal Year End Calendar
    • Contract Negotiation Tactics Playbook
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last

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

    1 Collect and Review Data

    The Purpose

    Assemble documentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand current position before going forward.

    Activities

    1.1 Assemble existing contracts.

    1.2 Document their strategic and tactical objectives.

    1.3 Identify current status of the vendor relationship and any historical context.

    1.4 Clarify goals for ideal future state.

    Outputs

    Business Use Case.

    2 Define the Business Use Case and Build a Stakeholder Team

    The Purpose

    Define the business use case and build a stakeholder team.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create a business use case to document functional and non-functional requirements.

    Build an internal cross-functional stakeholder team to negotiate the contract.

    Activities

    2.1 Establish a negotiation team and define roles.

    2.2 Write a communication plan.

    2.3 Complete a business use case.

    Outputs

    RASCI Matrix

    Communications Plan

    SaaS TCO Calculator

    Business Use Case

    3 Redline the Contract

    The Purpose

    Examine terms and conditions and prioritize for negotiation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Discover cost savings.

    Improve agreement terms.

    Prioritize terms for negotiation.

    Activities

    3.1 Review general terms and conditions.

    3.2 Review license and application specific terms and conditions.

    3.3 Match to business and technical requirements.

    3.4 Redline the agreement.

    Outputs

    SaaS Terms and Conditions Evaluation Tool

    SaaS Contract Negotiation Terms Prioritization Checklist

    4 Build a Negotiation Strategy

    The Purpose

    Create a negotiation strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Controlled communication established.

    Negotiation tactics chosen.

    Negotiation timeline plotted.

    Activities

    4.1 Review vendor and application specific negotiation tactics.

    4.2 Build negotiation strategy.

    Outputs

    Contract Negotiation Tactics Playbook

    Controlled Vendor Communications Letter

    Key Vendor Fiscal Year End Calendar

    Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service

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    • Parent Category Name: Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
    • Parent Category Link: /threat-intelligence-incident-response
    • Vendor security risk management is a growing concern for many organizations. Whether suppliers or business partners, we often trust them with our most sensitive data and processes.
    • More and more regulations require vendor security risk management, and regulator expectations in this area are growing.
    • However, traditional approaches to vendor security assessments are seen by business partners and vendors as too onerous and are unsustainable for information security departments.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • An efficient and effective assessment process can only be achieved when all stakeholders are participating.
    • Security assessments are time-consuming for both you and your vendors. Maximize the returns on your effort with a risk-based approach.
    • Effective vendor security risk management is an end-to-end process that includes assessment, risk mitigation, and periodic re-assessments.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop an end-to-end security risk management process that includes assessments, risk treatment through contracts and monitoring, and periodic re-assessments.
    • Base your vendor assessments on the actual risks to your organization to ensure that your vendors are committed to the process and you have the internal resources to fully evaluate assessment results.
    • Understand your stakeholder needs and goals to foster support for vendor security risk management efforts.

    Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a vendor security assessment service, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the three ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Define governance and process

    Determine your business requirements and build your process to meet them.

    • Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service – Phase 1: Define Governance and Process
    • Vendor Security Policy Template
    • Vendor Security Process Template
    • Vendor Security Process Diagram (Visio)
    • Vendor Security Process Diagram (PDF)

    2. Develop assessment methodology

    Develop the specific procedures and tools required to assess vendor risk.

    • Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service – Phase 2: Develop Assessment Methodology
    • Service Risk Assessment Questionnaire
    • Vendor Security Questionnaire
    • Vendor Security Assessment Inventory

    3. Deploy and monitor process

    Implement the process and develop metrics to measure effectiveness.

    • Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service – Phase 3: Deploy and Monitor Process
    • Vendor Security Requirements Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service

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

    1 Define Governance and Process

    The Purpose

    Understand business and compliance requirements.

    Identify roles and responsibilities.

    Define the process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of key goals for process outcomes.

    Documented service that leverages existing processes.

    Activities

    1.1 Review current processes and pain points.

    1.2 Identify key stakeholders.

    1.3 Define policy.

    1.4 Develop process.

    Outputs

    RACI Matrix

    Vendor Security Policy

    Defined process

    2 Define Methodology

    The Purpose

    Determine methodology for assessing procurement risk.

    Develop procedures for performing vendor security assessments.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardized, repeatable methodologies for supply chain security risk assessment.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify organizational security risk tolerance.

    2.2 Develop risk treatment action plans.

    2.3 Define schedule for re-assessments.

    2.4 Develop methodology for assessing service risk.

    Outputs

    Security risk tolerance statement

    Risk treatment matrix

    Service Risk Questionnaire

    3 Continue Methodology

    The Purpose

    Develop procedures for performing vendor security assessments.

    Establish vendor inventory.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardized, repeatable methodologies for supply chain security risk assessment.

    Activities

    3.1 Develop vendor security questionnaire.

    3.2 Define procedures for vendor security assessments.

    3.3 Customize the vendor security inventory.

    Outputs

    Vendor security questionnaire

    Vendor security inventory

    4 Deploy Process

    The Purpose

    Define risk treatment actions.

    Deploy the process.

    Monitor the process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of how to treat different risks according to the risk tolerance.

    Defined implementation strategy.

    Activities

    4.1 Define risk treatment action plans.

    4.2 Develop implementation strategy.

    4.3 Identify process metrics.

    Outputs

    Vendor security requirements

    Understanding of required implementation plans

    Metrics inventory

    Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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    • Parent Category Name: Engage
    • Parent Category Link: /engage
    • The uncertainty of the pandemic means that employee engagement is at higher risk.
    • Organizations need to think beyond targeting traditional audiences by considering engagement of onsite, remote, and laid-off employees.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The changing way of work triggered by this pandemic means engagement efforts must be easy to implement and targeted for relevant audiences.

    Impact and Result

    • Identify key drivers to leverage during the pandemic to boost engagement as well as at-risk drivers to focus efforts on.
    • Select quick-win tactics to sustain and boost engagement for relevant target audiences.

    Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic Research & Tools

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

    1. Determine the scope

    Evaluate the current state, stakeholder capacity, and target audience of engagement actions.

    • Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic Storyboard
    • Pandemic Engagement Workbook

    2. Identify engagement drivers

    Review impact to engagement drivers in order to prioritize and select tactics for addressing each.

    • Tactics Catalog: Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic
    • Employee Engagement During COVID-19: Manager Tactics

    3. Determine ownership and communicate engagement actions

    Designate owners of tactics, select measurement tools and cadence, and communicate engagement actions.

    • Crisis Communication Guide for HR
    • Crisis Communication Guide for Leaders
    • Leadership Crisis Communication Guide Template
    • HR Action and Communication Plan
    [infographic]

    Integrate Physical Security and Information Security

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Processes & Operations
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    Physical security is often managed by facilities, not by IT security, resulting in segmented security systems. Integrating physical and information security introduces challenges in:

    • Understanding the value proposition of investment in governing and managing integrated systems, including migration costs, compared to separated security systems.
    • Addressing complex risks and vulnerabilities of an integrated security system.
    • Operationalizing enhanced capabilities created by adoption of emerging and disruptive technologies.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Integrate security in people, process, and technology to improve your overall security posture. Having siloed systems running security is not beneficial. Many organizations are realizing the benefits of consolidating into a single platform across physical security, cybersecurity, HR, legal, and compliance.
    • Plan and engage stakeholders. Assemble the right team to ensure the success of your integrated security ecosystem, decide the governance model, and clearly define the roles and responsibilities.
    • Enhance strategy and risk management. Strategically, we want a physical security system that is interoperable with most technologies, flexible with minimal customization, functional, and integrated, despite the challenges of proprietary configurations, complex customization, and silos.

    Impact and Result

    Info-Tech's approach is a modular, incremental, and repeatable process to integrate physical and information security to:

    • Ensure the integration will meet the business' needs and determine effort and technical requirements.
    • Establish GRC processes that include integrated risk management and compliance.
    • Design and deploy an integrated security architecture.
    • Establish security metrics of effectiveness and efficiency for senior management and leadership.

    Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Research & Tools

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

    1. Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Storyboard – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to integrate physical security and information security.

    Info-Tech provides a three-phased framework for integrating physical security and information security: Plan, Enhance, and Monitor & Optimize.

    • Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Storyboard

    2. Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool – A tool to map organizational goals to IT goals, facilities goals, OT goals (if applicable), and integrated security goals.

    This tool serves as a repository for information about security integration elements, compliance, and other factors that will influence your integration of physical security and information security.

    • Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    3. Integrate Physical Security and Information Security RACI Chart Tool – A tool to identify and understand the owners of various security integration stakeholders across the organization.

    Populating a RACI chart (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) is a critical step that will assist you in organizing roles for carrying out integration steps. Complete this tool to assign tasks to suitable roles.

    • Integrate Physical Security and Information Security RACI Chart Tool

    4. Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Communication Deck – A tool to present your findings in a prepopulated document that summarizes the work you have completed.

    Complete this template to effectively communicate your integrated security plan to stakeholders.

    • Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Communication Deck
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Integrate Physical Security and Information Security

    Securing information security, physical security, or personnel security in silos may not secure much

    Analyst Perspective

    Ensure integrated security success with close and continual collaboration

    From physical access control systems (PACS) such as electronic locks and fingerprint biometrics to video surveillance systems (VSS) such as IP cameras to perimeter intrusion detection and prevention to fire and life safety and beyond: physical security systems pose unique challenges to overall security. Additionally, digital transformation of physical security to the cloud and the convergence of operational technology (OT), internet of things (IoT), and industrial IoT (IIoT) increase both the volume and frequency of security threats.

    These threats can be safety, such as the health impact when a gunfire attack downed wastewater pumps at Duke Energy Substation, North Carolina, US, in 2022. The threats can also be economic, such as theft of copper wire, or they can be reliability, such as when a sniper attack on Pacific Gas & Electric’s Metcalf Substation in California, US, damaged 17 out of 21 power transformers in 2013.

    Considering the security risks organizations face, many are unifying physical, cyber, and information security systems to gain the long-term overall benefits a consolidated security strategy provides.

    Ida Siahaan
    Ida Siahaan

    Research Director, Security and Privacy Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Physical security is often managed by facilities, not by IT security, resulting in segmented security systems. Meanwhile, integrating physical and information security introduces challenges in:

    • Value proposition of investment in governing and managing integrated systems including the migration costs compared to separated security systems.
    • Addressing complex risks and vulnerabilities of an integrated security system.
    • Operationalizing on enhanced capabilities created by adoption of emerging and disruptive technologies.

    Common Obstacles

    Physical security systems integration is complex due to various components such as proprietary devices and protocols and hybrid systems of analog and digital technology. Thus, open architecture with comprehensive planning and design is important.

    However, territorial protection by existing IT and physical security managers may limit security visibility and hinder security integration.

    Additionally, integration poses challenges in staffing, training and awareness programs, and dependency on third-party technologies and their migration plans.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Info-Tech’s approach is a modular, incremental, and repeatable process to integrate physical and information security that enables organizations to:

    • Determine effort and technical requirements to ensure the integration will meet the business needs.
    • Establish GRC processes including integrated risk management and compliance.
    • Design and deploy integrated security architecture.
    • Establish metrics to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the security program.

    Info-Tech Insight

    An integrated security architecture, including people, process, and technology, will improve your overall security posture. These benefits are leading many organizations to consolidate their siloed systems into a single platform across physical security, cybersecurity, HR, legal, and compliance.

    Existing information security models are not comprehensive

    Current security models do not cover all areas of security, especially if physical systems and personnel are involved and safety is also an important property required.

    • The CIA triad (confidentiality, integrity, availability) is a well-known information security model that focuses on technical policies related to technology for protecting information assets.
    • The US Government’s Five Pillars of Information Assurance includes CIA, authentication, and non-repudiation, but it does not cover people and processes comprehensively.
    • The AAA model, created by the American Accounting Association, has properties of authentication, authorization, and accounting but focuses only on access control.
    • Donn Parker expanded the CIA model with three more properties: possession, authenticity, and utility. This model, which includes people and processes, is known as the Parkerian hexad. However, it does not cover physical and personnel security.

    CIA Triad

    The CIA Triad for Information Security: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability


    Parkerian Hexad

    The Parkerian Hexad for Security: Confidentiality, Possession, Utility, Availability, Authenticity and Integrity

    Sources: Parker, 1998; Pender-Bey, 2012; Cherdantseva and Hilton, 2015

    Adopt an integrated security model

    Adopt an integrated security model which consists of information security, physical security, personnel security, and organizational security.

    The security ecosystem is shifting from segregation to integration

    Security ecosystem is shifting from the past proprietary model to open interfaces and future open architecture

    Sources: Cisco, n.d.; Preparing for Technology Convergence in Manufacturing, Info-Tech Research Group, 2018

    Physical security includes:

    • Securing physical access,
      e.g. facility access control, alarms, surveillance cameras
    • Securing physical operations
      (operational technology – OT), e.g. programmable logic controllers (PLCs), SCADA

    Info-Tech Insight

    Why is integrating physical and information security gaining more and more traction? Because the supporting technologies are becoming more matured. This includes, for example, migration of physical security devices to IP-based network and open architecture.

    Reactive responses to physical security incidents

    April 1995

    Target: Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma, US. Method: Bombing. Impact: Destroyed structure of 17 federal agencies, 168 casualties, over 800 injuries. Result: Creation of Interagency Security Committee (ISC) in Executive Order 12977 and “Vulnerability Assessment of Federal Facilities” standard.
    (Source: Office of Research Services, 2017)

    April 2013

    Target: Pacific Gas & Electric’s Metcalf Substation, California, US. Method: Sniper attack. Impact: Out of 21 power transformers, 17 were damaged. Result: Creation of Senate Bill No. 699 and NERC- CIP-014 standard.
    (Source: T&D World, 2023)

    Sep. 2022

    Target: Nord Stream gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, Baltic sea. Method: Detonations. Impact: Methane leaks (~300,000 tons) at four exclusive economic zones (two in Denmark and two in Sweden). Result: Sweden’s Security Service investigation.
    (Source: CNBC News, 2022)

    Dec. 2022

    Target: Duke Energy Substation, North Carolina, US. Method: Gunfire. Impact: Power outages of ~40,000 customers and wastewater pumps in sewer lift stations down. Result: State of emergency was declared.
    (Source: CBS News, 2022)

    Info-Tech Insight

    When it comes to physical security, we have been mostly reactive. Typically the pattern starts with physical attacks. Next, the impacted organization mitigates the incidents. Finally, new government regulatory measures or private sector or professional association standards are put in place. We must strive to change our pattern to become more proactive.

    Physical security market forecast and top physical security challenges

    Physical security market forecast
    (in billions USD)

    A forecast by MarketsandMarkets projected growth in the physical security market, using historical data from 2015 until 2019, with a CAGR of 6.4% globally and 5.2% in North America.

    A forecast by MarketsandMarkets projected growth in the physical security market, using historical data from 2015 until 2019, with a CAGR of 6.4% globally and 5.2% in North America.

    Source: MarketsandMarkets, 2022

    Top physical security challenges

    An Ontic survey (N=359) found that threat data management (40%) was the top physical security challenge in 2022, up from 33% in 2021, followed by physical security threats to the C-suite and company leadership (35%), which was a slight increase from 2021. An interesting decrease is data protection and privacy (32%), which dropped from 36% in 2021.

    An Ontic survey (N=359) found that threat data management (40%) was the top physical security challenge in 2022, up from 33% in 2021, followed by physical security threats to the C-suite and company leadership (35%), which was a slight increase from 2021. An interesting decrease is data protection and privacy (32%), which dropped from 36% in 2021.

    Source: Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence, 2022

    Info-Tech Insight

    The physical security market is growing in systems and services, especially the integration of threat data management with cybersecurity.

    Top physical security initiatives and operations integration investments

    We know the physical security challenges and how the physical security market is growing, but what initiatives are driving this growth? These are the top physical security initiatives and top investments for physical security operations integration:

    Top physical security initiatives

    The number one physical security initiative is integrating physical security systems. Other initiatives with similar concerns included data and cross-functional integration

    A survey by Brivo asked 700 security professionals about their top physical security initiatives. The number one initiative is integrating physical security systems. Other initiatives with similar concerns included data and cross-functional integration.

    Source: Brivo, 2022

    Top investments for physical security operations integration

    The number one investment is on access control systems with software to identify physical threat actors. Another area with similar concern is integration of digital physical security with cybersecurity.

    An Ontic survey (N=359) on areas of investment for physical security operations integration shows the number one investment is on access control systems with software to identify physical threat actors. Another area with similar concern is integration of digital physical security with cybersecurity.

    Source: Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence, 2022

    Evaluate security integration opportunities with these guiding principles

    Opportunity focus

    • Identify the security integration problems to solve with visible improvement possibilities
    • Don’t choose technology for technology’s sake
    • Keep an eye to the future
    • Use strategic foresight

    Piece by piece

    • Avoid taking a big bang approach
    • Test technologies in multiple conditions
    • Run inexpensive pilots
    • Increase flexibility
    • Build a technology ecosystem

    Buy-in

    • Collaborate with stakeholders
    • Gain and sustain support
    • Maintain transparency
    • Increase uptake of open architecture

    Key Recommendations:

    Focus on your master plan

    Build a technology ecosystem

    Engage stakeholders

    Info-Tech Insight

    When looking for a quick win, consider learning the best internal or external practice. For example, in 1994 IBM reorganized its security operation by bringing security professionals and non-security professionals in one single structure, which reduced costs by approximately 30% in two years.

    Sources: Create and Implement an IoT Strategy, Info-Tech Research Group, 2022; Baker and Benny, 2013; Erich Krueger, Omaha Public Power District (contributor); Doery Abdou, March Networks Corporate (contributor)

    Case Study

    4Wall Entertainment – Asset Owner

    Industry: Architecture & Engineering
    Source: Interview

    4Wall Entertainment is quite mature in integrating its physical and information security; physical security has always been under IT as a core competency.

    4Wall Entertainment is a provider of entertainment lighting and equipment to event venues, production companies, lighting designers, and others, with a presence in 18 US and UK locations.

    After many acquisitions, 4Wall Entertainment needed to standardize its various acquired systems, including physical security systems such as access control. In its integrated security approach, IT owns the integrated security, but they interface with related entities such as HR, finance, and facilities management in every location. This allows them to obtain information such as holidays, office hours, and what doors need to be accessed as inputs to the security system and to get sponsorship in budgeting.

    In the past, 4Wall Entertainment tried delegating specific physical security to other divisions, such as facilities management and HR. This approach was unsuccessful, so IT took back the responsibility and accountability.

    Currently, 4Wall Entertainment works with local vendors, and its biggest challenge is finding third-party vendors that can provide nationwide support.

    In the future, 4Wall Entertainment envisions physical security modernization such as camera systems that allow more network accessibility, with one central system to manage and IoT device integration with SIEM and MDR.

    Results

    Lessons learned in integrating security from 4Wall Entertainment include:

    • Start with forming relationships with related divisions such as HR, finance, and facilities management to build trust and encourage sponsorship across management.
    • Create policies, procedures, and standards to deploy in various systems, especially when acquiring companies with low maturity in security.
    • Select third-party providers that offer the required functionalities, good customer support, and standard systems interoperability.
    • Close skill gaps by developing training and awareness programs for users, especially for newly acquired systems and legacy systems, or by acquiring expertise from consulting services.
    • Complete cost-benefit analysis for solutions on legacy systems to determine whether to keep them and create interfacing with other systems, upgrade them, or replace them entirely with newer systems.
    • Delegate maintenance of specific highly regulated systems, such as fire alarms and water sprinklers, to facilities management.
    Integration of Physical and Information Security Framework. Inputs: Integrated Items, Stakeholders, and Security Components. Phases, Outcomes and Benefits: Plan, Enhance and Monitor & Optimize.

    Tracking progress of physical and information security integration

    Physical security is often part of facilities management. As a result, there are interdependencies with both internal departments (such as IT, information security, and facilities) and external parties (such as third-party vendors). IT leaders, security leaders, and operational leaders should keep the big picture in mind when designing and implementing integration of physical and information security. Use this checklist as a tool to track your security integration journey.

    Plan

    • Engage stakeholders and justify value for the business.
    • Define roles and responsibilities.
    • Establish/update governance for integrated security.
    • Identify integrated elements and compliance obligations.

    Enhance

    • Determine the level of security maturity and update security strategy for integrated security.
    • Assess and treat risks of integrated security.
    • Establish/update integrated physical and information security policies and procedures.
    • Update incident response, disaster recovery, and business continuity plan.

    Monitor & Optimize

    • Identify skill requirements and close skill gaps for integrating physical and information security.
    • Design and deploy integrated security architecture and controls.
    • Establish, monitor, and report integrated security metrics on effectiveness and efficiency.

    Benefits of the security integration framework

    Today’s matured technology makes security integration possible. However, the governance and management of single integrated security presents challenges. These can be overcome using a multi-phased framework that enables a modular, incremental, and repeatable integration process, starting with planning to justify the value of investment, then enhancing the integrated security based on risks and open architecture. This is followed by using metrics for monitoring and optimization.

    1. Modular

      • Implementing a consolidated security strategy is complex and involves the integration of process, software, data, hardware, and network and infrastructure.
      • A modular framework will help to drive value while putting in appropriate guardrails.
    2. Incremental

      • Integration of physical security and information security involves many components such as security strategy, risk management, and security policies.
      • An incremental framework will help track, manage, and maintain each step while providing appropriate structure.
    3. Repeatable

      • Integration of physical security and information security is a journey that can be approached with a pilot program to evaluate effectiveness.
      • A repeatable framework will help to ensure quick time to value and enable immediate implementation of controls to meet operational and security requirements.

    Potential risks of the security integration framework

    Just as medicine often comes with side effects, our Integration of Physical and Information Security Framework may introduce risks too. However, as John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth president of the United States, once said, "There are risks and costs to a program of action — but they are far less than the long-range cost of comfortable inaction."

    Plan Phase

    • Lack of transparency in the integration process can lead to lack of trust among stakeholders.
    • Lack of support from leadership results in unclear governance or lack of budget or human resources.
    • Key stakeholders leave the organization during the engagement and their replacements do not understand the organization’s operation yet.

    Enhance Phase

    • The risk assessment conducted focuses too much on IT risk, which may not always be applicable to physical security systems nor OT systems.
    • The integrated security does not comply with policies and regulations.

    Monitor and Optimize Phase

    • Lack of knowledge, training, and awareness.
    • Different testing versus production environments.
    • Lack of collected or shared security metrics.

    Data

    • Data quality issues and inadequate data from physical security, information security, and other systems, e.g. OT, IoT.
    • Too much data from too many tools are complex and time consuming to process.

    Develop an integration of information security, physical security, and personnel security that meets your organization’s needs

    Integrate security in people, process, and technology to improve your overall security posture

    Having siloed systems running security is not beneficial. Many organizations are realizing the benefits of consolidating into a single platform across physical security, cybersecurity, HR, legal, and compliance.

    Plan and engage stakeholders

    Assemble the right team to ensure the success of your integrated security ecosystem, decide the governance model, and clearly define the roles and responsibilities.

    Enhance strategy and risk management

    Strategically, we want a physical security system that is interoperable with most technologies, flexible with minimal customization, functional, and integrated, despite the challenges of proprietary configurations, complex customization, and silos.

    Monitor and optimize

    Find the most optimized architecture that is strategic, realistic, and based on risk. Next, perform an evaluation of the security systems and program by understanding what, where, when, and how to measure and to report the relevant metrics.

    Focus on master plan

    Identify the security integration problems to solve with visible improvement possibilities, and don’t choose technology for technology’s sake. Design first, then conduct market research by comparing products or services from vendors or manufacturers.

    Build a technology ecosystem

    Avoid a big bang approach and test technologies in multiple conditions. Run inexpensive pilots and increase flexibility to build a technology ecosystem.

    Deliverables

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

    Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    Map organizational goals to IT goals, facilities goals, OT goals (if applicable), and integrated security goals. Identify your security integration elements and compliance.

    Integrate Physical Security and Information Security RACI Chart Tool

    Identify various security integration stakeholders across the organization and assign tasks to suitable roles.

    Key deliverable:

    Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Communication Deck

    Present your findings in a prepopulated document that summarizes the work you have completed.

    Plan

    Planning is foundational to engage stakeholders. Start with justifying the value of investment, then define roles and responsibilities, update governance, and finally identify integrated elements and compliance obligations.

    Plan

    Engage stakeholders

    • To initiate communication between the physical and information security teams and other related divisions, it is important to identify the entities that would be affected by the security integration and involve them in the process to gain support from planning to delivery and maintenance.
    • Possible stakeholders:
      • Executive leadership, Facilities Management leader and team, IT leader, Security & Privacy leader, compliance officer, Legal, Risk Management, HR, Finance, OT leader (if applicable)
    • A successful security integration depends on aligning your security integration initiatives and migration plan to the organization’s objectives by engaging the right people to communicate and collaborate.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It is important to speak the same language. Physical security concerns safety and availability, while information security concerns confidentiality and integrity. Thus, the two systems have different goals and require alignment.

    Similarly, taxonomy of terminologies needs to be managed,1 e.g. facility management with an emergency management background may have a different understanding from a CISO with an information security background when discussing the same term. For example:

    In emergency management prevention means “actions taken to eliminate the impact of disasters in order to protect lives, property and the environment, and to avoid economic disruption.”2

    In information security prevention is “preventing the threats by understanding the threat environment and the attack surfaces, the risks, the assets, and by maintaining a secure system.”3

    Sources: 1 Owen Yardley, Omaha Public Power District (contributor); 2 Translation Bureau, Government of Canada, n.d.; 3 Security Intelligence, 2020


    Map organizational goals to integrated security goals

    Input

    • Corporate, IT, and Facilities strategies

    Output

    • Your goals for the integrated security strategy

    Materials

    • Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    Participants

    • Executive leadership
    • Facilities Management leader and team
    • IT leader
    • Security & Privacy leader
    • Compliance officer
    • Legal
    • Risk Management
    • HR & Finance
    • OT leader (if applicable)
    1. As a group, brainstorm organization goals.
      • Review relevant corporate, IT, and facilities strategies.
    2. Record the most important business goals in the “Goals Cascade” tab of the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool. Try to limit the number of business goals to no more than ten goals. This limitation will be critical to helping focus on your integrated security goals.
    3. For each goal, identify one to two security alignment goals. These should be objectives for the security strategy that will support the identified organization goals.

    Download the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.

    Record organizational goals

    A table to identify Organization, IT, OT(if applicable), Facilities, and Security Goals Definitions.

    Refer to the Integration of Physical and Information Security Framework when filling in the table.

    1. Record your identified organizational goals in the “Goals Cascade” tab of the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.
    2. For each organizational goal, identify IT alignment goals.
    3. For each organizational goal, identify OT alignment goals (if applicable).
    4. For each organizational goal, identify Facilities alignment goals.
    5. For each organizational goal, select an integrated security goal from the drop-down menu.

    Justify value for the business

    Facilities in most cases have a team that is responsible for physical security installations such as access key controllers. Whenever there is an issue, they contact the provider to fix the error. However, with smart buildings and smart devices, the threat surface grows to include information security threats, and Facilities may not possess the knowledge and skills required to deal with them. At the same time, delegating physical security to IT may add more tasks to their already-too-long list of responsibilities. Consolidating security to a focused security team that covers both physical and information security can help.1 We need to develop the security integration business case beyond physical security "gates, guns, and guards" mentality.2

    An example of a cost-benefit analysis for security integration:

    Benefits

    Metrics

    Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings

    • Reduction in deployment, maintenance, and staff time in manual operations of physical security devices such as logs collection from analog cameras to be automated into digital.
    • Reduction in staffing costs by bringing physical security SOC and information security SOC in one single structure.

    Reliability Improvements

    • Reduction in field crew time by identifying hardware that can be virtualized to have a centralized remote control.
    • Improvement of operating reliability through continuous and real-time monitoring of equipment such as door access control systems and camera surveillance systems.

    Customers & Users Benefits

    • Improvement of customer safety for essential services such as access to critical locations only by authorized personnel.
    • Improvement of reliability of services and address human factor in adoption of change by introducing change as a friendly activity.

    Cost

    Metrics

    Equipment and Infrastructure

    • Upgrade of existing physical security equipment, e.g. replacement of separated access control, video management system (VMS), and physical access control system (PACS) with a unified security platform.
    • Implementation of communication network equipment and labor to install, configure, and maintain the new network component.

    Software and Commission

    • The software and maintenance fee as well as upgrade implementation project cost.
    • Labor cost of field commissioning and troubleshooting.
    • Integration with security systems, e.g. event and log management, continuous monitoring, and investigation.

    Support and Resources

    • Cost to hire/outsource security FTEs for ongoing management and operation of security devices, e.g. SOC, MSSP.
    • Cost to hire/outsource FTEs to analyze, design, and deploy the integrated security architecture, e.g. consulting fee.

    Sources: 1 Andrew Amaro, KLAVAN Security Services (contributor); 2 Baker and Benny, 2013;
    Industrial Control System Modernization, Info-Tech Research Group, 2023; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2021

    Plan

    Define roles and responsibilities

    Input

    • List of relevant stakeholders

    Output

    • Roles and responsibilities for the integration of physical and information security program

    Materials

    • Integrate Physical Security and Information Security RACI Chart Tool

    Participants

    • Executive leadership
    • Facilities Management leader and team
    • HR & Finance
    • IT leader and team
    • OT leader and team
    • Security & Privacy leader and team

    Many factors impact an organization’s level of effectiveness as it relates to integration of physical and information security. How the team interacts, what skill sets exist, the level of clarity around roles and responsibilities, and the degree of executive support and alignment are only a few. Thus, we need to identify stakeholders that are:

    • Responsible: The person(s) who does the work to accomplish the activity; they have been tasked with completing the activity and/or getting a decision made.
    • Accountable: The person(s) who is accountable for the completion of the activity. Ideally, this is a single person and is often an executive or program sponsor.
    • Consulted: The person(s) who provides information. This is usually several people, typically called subject matter experts (SMEs).
    • Informed: The person(s) who is updated on progress. These are resources that are affected by the outcome of the activities and need to be kept up to date.

    Download the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security RACI Chart Tool

    Define RACI chart

    Define Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed (RACI) stakeholders.

    1. Customize the Work Units to best reflect your operation with applicable stakeholders.
    2. Customize the Action rows as required.

    Integrate Physical Security and Information Security RACI Chart

    Sources: ISC, 2015; ISC, 2021

    Info-Tech Insight

    The roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined. For example, IT Security should be responsible for the installation and configuration of all physical access controllers and devices, and facility managers should be responsible for the physical maintenance including malfunctioning such as access device jammed or physically broken.

    Plan

    Establish/update governance for integrated security

    HR & Finance

    HR provides information such as new hires and office hours as input to the security system. Finance assists in budgeting.

    Security & Privacy

    The security and privacy team will need to evaluate solutions and enforce standards on various physical and information security systems and to protect data privacy.

    Business Leaders

    Business stakeholders will provide clarity for their strategy and provide input into how they envision security furthering those goals.

    IT Executives

    IT stakeholders will be a driving force, ensuring all necessary resources are available and funded.

    Facilities/ Operations

    Operational plans will include asset management, monitoring, and support to meet functional goals and manage throughout the asset lifecycle.

    Infrastructure & Enterprise Architects

    Each solution added to the environment will need to be chosen and architected to meet business goals and security functions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Assemble the right team to ensure the success of your integrated security ecosystem and decide the governance model, e.g. security steering committee (SSC) or a centralized single structure.

    Adapted from Create and Implement an IoT Strategy, Info-Tech Research Group, 2022

    What does the SSC do?

    Ensuring proper governance over your security program is a complex task that requires ongoing care and feeding from executive management to succeed.

    Your SSC should aim to provide the following core governance functions for your security program:

    1. Define Clarity of Intent and Direction

      How does the organization’s security strategy support the attainment of the business, IT, facilities management, and physical and information security strategies? The SSC should clearly define and communicate strategic linkage and provide direction for aligning security initiatives with desired outcomes.
    2. Establish Clear Lines of Authority

      Security programs contain many important elements that need to be coordinated. There must be clear and unambiguous authority, accountability, and responsibility defined for each element so lines of reporting/escalation are clear and conflicting objectives can be mediated.
    3. Provide Unbiased Oversight

      The SSC should vet the organization’s systematic monitoring processes to ensure there is adherence to defined risk tolerance levels and that monitoring is appropriately independent from the personnel responsible for implementing and managing the security program.
    4. Optimize Security Value Delivery

      Optimized value delivery occurs when strategic objectives for security are achieved and the organization’s acceptable risk posture is attained at the lowest possible cost. This requires constant attention to ensure controls are commensurate with any changes in risk level or appetite.

    Adapted from Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee , Info-Tech Research Group, 2018

    Plan

    Identify integrated elements and compliance obligations

    To determine what elements need to be integrated, it’s important to scope the security integration program and to identify the consequences of integration for compliance obligations.

    INTEGRATED ELEMENTS

    What are my concerns?

    Process integrations

    Determine which processes need to be integrated and how

    • Examples: Security prevention, detection, and response; risk assessment

    Software and data integration

    Determine which software and data need to be integrated and how

    • Examples: Threat management tools, SIEM, IDPS, security event logs

    Hardware integration

    Determine which hardware needs to be integrated and how

    • Examples: Sensors, alarms, cameras, keys, locks, combinations, and card readers

    Network and infrastructure

    Determine which network and infrastructure components need to be integrated and how

    • Example: Network segmentation for physical access controllers.

    COMPLIANCE

    How can I address my concerns?

    Regulations

    Adhere to mandatory laws, directives, industry standards, specific contractual obligations, etc.

    • Examples: NERC CIP (North American Utilities), Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive (EU), Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (UK), Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1970 (US), Emergency Management Act, 2007 (Canada)

    Standards

    Adhere to voluntary standards and obligations

    • Examples: NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), The Risk Management Process for Federal Facilities: An Interagency Security Committee Standard (US), Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), Service Organization Control (SOC 1 and 2)

    Guidelines

    Adopt guidelines that can improve the integrated security program

    • Examples: Best Practices for Planning and Managing Physical Security Resources (US Interagency Security Committee), Information Security Manual - Guidelines for Physical Security (Australian Cyber Security Centre), 1402-2021-Guide for Physical Security of Electric Power Substations (IEEE)

    Record integrated elements

    Scope and Boundaries from the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.

    Refer to the “Scope” tab of the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool when filling in the following elements.

    1. Record your integrated elements, i.e. process integration, software and data integration, hardware integration, network and infrastructure, and physical scope of your security integration, in the “Scope” tab of the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.
    2. For each of your scoping give the rationale for including them in the Comments column. Careful attention should be paid to any elements that are not in scope.

    Record your compliance obligations

    Refer to the “Compliance Obligations” tab of the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.

    1. Identify your compliance obligations. These can include both mandatory and voluntary obligations. Mandatory obligations include:
      • Laws
      • Government regulations
      • Industry standards
      • Contractual agreements
      Voluntary obligations include standards that the organization has chosen to follow for best practices and any obligations that are required to maintain certifications. Organizations will have many different compliance obligations. For the purposes of your integrated security, include those that include physical security requirements.
    2. Record your compliance obligations, along with any notes, in your copy of the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.
    3. Refer to the “Compliance DB” tab for lists of standards/regulations/ guidelines.
    The “Compliance Obligations” tab of the Integrate Physical Security and Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.

    Remediate third-party compliance gaps

    If you have third-party compliance gaps, there are four primary ways to eliminate them:

    1. Find a New, Compliant Partner

      Terminate existing contract and find another organization to partner with.
    2. Bring the Capability In-House

      Expense permitting, this may be the best way to protect yourself.
    3. Demand Compliance

      Tell the third party they must become compliant. Make sure you set a deadline.
    4. Accept Noncompliance and Assume the Risk

      Sometimes remediation just isn’t cost effective and you have no choice.

    Follow Contracting Best Practices to Mitigate the Risk of Future Third-Party Compliance Gaps

    1. Perform Initial Due Diligence: Request proof of third-party compliance prior to entering into a contract.
    2. Perform Ongoing Due Diligence: Request proof of third-party contractor compliance annually.
    3. Contract Negotiation: Insert clauses requesting periodic assertions of compliance.

    View a sample contract provided by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

    Source: Take Control of Compliance Improvement to Conquer Every Audit, Info-Tech Research Group, 2015

    Pitfalls to avoid when planning security integration

    • No Resources Lineups

      Integration of security needs support from leadership, proper planning, and clear and consistent communication across the organization.
    • Not Addressing Holistic Security

      Create policies and procedures and follow standards that are holistic and based on threats and risks, e.g. consolidated access control policies.
    • Lack of Governance

      While the IT department is a critical partner in cybersecurity, the ownership of such a role sits squarely in the organizational C-suite, with regular reporting to the board of directors (if applicable).
    • Overlooking Business Continuity Effort

      IT and physical security are integral to business continuity and disaster recovery strategies.
    • Not Having Relevant Training and Awareness

      Provide a training and awareness program based on relevant attack vectors. Trained employees are key assets to the development of a safe and secure environment. They must form the base of your security culture.
    • Overbuilding or Underbuilding

      Select third-party providers that offer systems interoperability with other security tools. The intent is to promote a unified approach to security to avoid a cumbersome tooling zoo.

    Sources: Real Time Networks, 2022; Andrew Amaro, KLAVAN Security Services (contributor)

    Enhance

    Enhancing is the development of an integrated security strategy, policies, procedures, BCP, DR, and IR based on the organization’s risks.

    Enhance

    Determine the level of security maturity and update the security strategy

    • Before updating your security strategies, you need to understand the organization’s business strategies, IT strategies, facilities strategies, and physical and information security strategies. The goal is to align your integrated security strategies to contribute to your organization’s success.
    • The integrated security leaders need to understand the direction of the organization. For example:
      • Growth expectation
      • Expansions or mergers anticipation
      • Product or service changes
      • Regulatory requirements
    • Wise security investments depend on aligning your security initiatives to the organization’s objectives by supporting operational performance and ensuring brand protection and shareholder values.
    Integrated security strategies. Consists of an organization’s business strategies, IT strategies, facilities strategies, and physical and information security strategies.

    Sources: Amy L. Meger, Platte River Power Authority (contributor); Baker and Benny, 2013; IFSEC Global, 2023; Security Priorities 2023, Info-Tech Research Group, 2023; Build an Information Security Strategy, Info-Tech Research Group, 2020; ISC, n.d.

    Understanding security maturity

    Maturity models are very effective for determining security states. This table provides examples of general descriptions for physical and information security maturity levels.

    Determine which framework is suitable and select the description that most accurately reflects the ideal state for security in your organization.

    Level 1

    Level 2

    Level 3

    Level 4

    Level 5

    Minimum security with simple physical barriers. Low-level security to prevent and detect some unauthorized external activity. Medium security to prevent, detect, and assess most unauthorized external activity and some unauthorized internal activity. High-level security to prevent, detect, and assess most unauthorized external and internal activity. Maximum security to prevent, detect, assess, and neutralize all unauthorized external and internal activity.

    Physical security maturity level1

    Initial/Ad hoc security programs are reactive. Developing security programs can be effective at what they do but are not holistic. A defined security program is holistic, documented, and proactive. Managed security programs have robust governance and metrics processes. An optimized security program is based on strong risk management practices, including the production of key risk indicators (KRIs).

    Information security maturity level2

    Sources: 1 Fennelly, 2013; 2 Build an Information Security Strategy, Info-Tech Research Group, 2020

    Enhance

    Assess and treat integrated security risks

    The risk assessment conducted consists of analyzing existing inherent risks, existing pressure to the risks such as health and safety laws and codes of practice, new risks from the integration process, risk tolerance, and countermeasures.

    • Some organizations already integrate security into corporate security that consists of risk management, compliance, governance, information security, personnel security, and physical security. However, some organizations are still separating security components, especially physical security and information security, which limits security visibility and the organization’s ability to complete a comprehensive risks assessment.
    • Many vendors are also segregating physical security and information security solutions because their tools do well only on certain aspects. This forces organizations to combine multiple tools, creating a complex environment.
    • Additionally, risks related to people such as mental health issues must be addressed properly. The prevalence of hybrid work post-pandemic makes this aspect especially important.
    • Assess and treat risks based on the organization’s requirements, including its environments. For example, the US federal facility security organization is required to conduct risk assessments at least every five years for Level I (lowest risk) and Level II facilities and at least every three years for Level III, IV, and V (highest risk) facilities.

    Sources: EPA, n.d.; America's Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA), 2018; ISC, 2021

    “In 2022, 95% of US companies are consolidating into a single platform across physical security, cybersecurity, HR, legal and compliance.”

    Source: Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence, 2022; N=359

    Example risk levels

    The risk assessment conducted is based on a combination of physical and information security factors such as certain facilities factors. The risk level can be used to determine the baseline level of protection (LOP). Next, the baseline LOP is customized to the achievable LOP. The following is an example for federal facilities determined by Interagency Security Committee (ISC).

    Risk factor, points and score. Facility security level (FSL), level of risk, and baseline level of protection.

    Source: ISC, 2021

    Example assets

    It is important to identify the organization’s requirements, including its environments (IT, IoT, OT, facilities, etc.), and to measure and evaluate its risks and threats using an appropriate risk framework and tools with the critical step of identifying assets prior to acquiring solutions.

    Organizational requirements including its environments(IT, loT, OT, facilities, etc.)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Certain exceptions must be identified in risk assessment. Usually physical barriers such as gates and intrusion detection sensors are considered as countermeasures,1 however, under certain assessment, e.g. America's Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA),2 physical barriers are also considered assets and as such must also be assessed.

    Compromising a fingerprint scanner

    An anecdotal example of why physical security alone is not sufficient.

    Biometrics: secure access and data security.

    Image by Rawpixel.com on Freepik

    Lessons learned from using fingerprints for authentication:

    • Fingerprint scanners can be physically circumvented by making a copy an authorized user’s fingerprint with 3D printing or even by forcefully amputating an authorized user’s finger.
    • Authorized users may not be given access when the fingerprint cannot be recognized, e.g. if the finger is covered by bandage due to injury.
    • Integration with information security may help detect unauthorized access, e.g. a fingerprint being scanned in a Canadian office when the same user was scanned at a close time interval from an IP in Europe will trigger an alert of a possible incident.

    Info-Tech Insight

    In an ideal world, we want a physical security system that is interoperable with all technologies, flexible with minimal customization, functional, and integrated. In the real world, we may have physical systems with proprietary configurations that are not easily customized and siloed.

    Source: Robert Dang, Info-Tech Research Group

    Use case: Microchip implant

    Microchip implants can be used instead of physical devices such as key cards for digital identity and access management. Risks can be assessed using quantitative or qualitative approaches. In this use case a qualitative approach is applied to impact and likelihood, and a quantitative approach is applied to revenue and cost.

    Asset: Microchip implant

    Benefits

    Impact

    • Improve user satisfaction by removing the need to carry key cards, IDs, etc.
    • Improve operating reliability by reducing the likelihood of losing physical devices such as key cards.
    • Improve reliability of services through continuous and real-time connection with other systems such as payment system.

    Likelihood

    • Improve user satisfaction: High
    • Improve operating reliability: High
    • Improve reliability of services: High

    Revenue

    • Acquire new customers or retain existing customers by making daily lives easier with no need to carry key cards, IDs, etc.
    • Cost reduction in staffing of security personnel, e.g. reducing the staffing of building guards or receptionist.

    Risks

    Impact

    • Security: issues such as biohacking of wearable technology and interconnected devices.
    • Safety: issues such as infections or reactions in the body's immune system.
    • Privacy: issues such as unauthorized surveillance and tracking of activities.

    Likelihood

    • Biohacking: Medium
    • Infections: Low
    • Surveillance: High

    Cost

    • Installation costs and hardware costs.
    • Overall lifecycle cost including estimated software and maintenance costs.
    • Estimated cost of training and estimated increase in productivity.

    Sources: Business Insider, 2018; BBC News, 2022; ISC, 2015

    Enhance

    Update integrated security policies and procedures

    Global policies with local implementation

    This model works for corporate groups with a parent company. In this model, global security policies are developed by a parent company and local policies are applied to the unique business that is not supported by the parent company.

    Update of existing security policies

    This model works for organizations with sufficient resources. In this model, integrated security policies are derived from various policies. For example, physical security in smart buildings/devices (sensors, automated meters, HVAC, etc.) and OT systems (SCADA, PLCs, RTUs, etc.) introduce unique risk exposures, necessitating updates to security policies.

    Customization of information security policies

    This model works for smaller organizations with limited resources. In this model, integrated security policies are derived from information security policies. The issue is when these policies are not applicable to physical security systems or other environments, e.g. OT systems.

    Sources: Kris Krishan, Waymo (contributor); Isabelle Hertanto, Info-Tech Research Group (contributor); Physical and Environmental Security Policy Template, Info-Tech Research Group, 2022.

    Enhance

    Update BCP, DR, IR

    • Physical threats such as theft of material, vandalism, loitering, and the like are also part of business continuity threats.
    • These threats can be carried out by various means such as vehicles breaching perimeter security, bolt cutters used for cutting wire and cable, and ballistic attack.
    • Issues may occur when security operations are owned separately by physical security or information security, thus lacking consistent application of best practices.
    • To overcome this issue, organizations need to update BCP, DR, and IR holistically based on a cost-benefit analysis and the level of security maturity, which can be defined based on the suitable framework.

    Sources: IEEE, 2021; ISC, 2021

    “The best way to get management excited about a disaster plan is to burn down the building across the street.”

    Source: Dan Erwin, Security Officer, Dow Chemical Co., in Computerworld, 2022

    Optimize

    Optimizing means working to make the most effective and efficient use of resources, starting with identifying skill requirements and closing skill gaps, followed by designing and deploying integrated security architecture and controls, and finally monitoring and reporting integrated security metrics.

    Optimize

    Identify skill requirements and close skill gaps

    • The pandemic changed how people work and where they choose to work, and most people still want a hybrid work model. Our survey in July 2022 (N=516) found that 55.8% of employees have the option to work offsite 2-3 days per week, 21.0% can work offsite 1 day per week, and 17.8% can work offsite 4 days per week.
    • The investment (e.g. on infrastructure and networks) to initiate remote work was huge, and the costs didn’t end there; organizations needed to maintain the secure remote work infrastructure to facilitate the hybrid work model.
    • Moreover, roles are evolving due to convergence and modernization. These new roles require an integrative skill set. For example, the grid security and ops team might consist of an IT security specialist, a SCADA technician/engineer, and an OT/IIOT security specialist, where OT/IIOT security specialist is a new role.
    Identify skill gaps that hinder the successful execution of the hybrid work security strategy. Use the identified skill gaps to define the technical skill requirements for current and future work roles. Conduct a skills assessment on your current workforce to identify employee skill gaps. Decide whether to train (including certification), hire, contract, or outsource to close each skill gap.

    Strategic investment in internal security team

    Internal security governance and management using in-house developed tools or off-the-shelf solutions, e.g. security information and event management (SIEM).

    Security management using third parties

    Internal security management using third-party security services, e.g. managed security service providers (MSSPs).

    Outsourcing security management

    Outsourcing the entire security functions, e.g. using managed detection and response (MDR).

    Sources: Info-Tech Research Group’s Security Priorities 2023, Close the InfoSec Skills Gap, Build an IT Employee Engagement Program, and Grid Modernization

    Select the right certifications

    What are the options?

    • One issue in security certification is the complexity of relevancy in topics with respect to roles and levels.
    • The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) takes the approach of analyzing existing certifications of ICS/SCADA professionals' cybersecurity skills by orientation, scope, and supporting bodies that are grouped into specific certifications, relevant certifications, and safety certifications (ENISA, 2015).
    • This approach can also be applied to integrated security certifications.

    Physical security certification

    • Examples: Industrial Security Professional Certification (NCMS-ISP); Physical Security Professional (ASIS-PSP); Physical Security Certification (CDSE-PSC); ISC I-100, I-200, I-300, and I-400

    Cyber physical system security certification

    • Examples: Certified SCADA Security Architect (CSSA), EC-Council ICS/SCADA Cybersecurity Training Course

    Information security certification

    • Examples: Network and Information Security (NIS) Driving License, ISA/IEC 62443 Cybersecurity Certificate Program, GIAC Global Industrial Cyber Security Professional (GICSP)

    Safety Certifications

    • Examples: Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP), European Network of Safety and Health Professional Organizations (ENSHPO)
    Table showing options for Certification orientation, scope and supporting bodies.

    Optimize

    Design and deploy integrated security architecture and controls

    • A survey by Brivo found that 38% of respondents have partly centralized security platforms, 25% have decentralized platforms, and 36% have centralized platforms (Brivo, 2022; N=700).
    • If your organization’s security program is still decentralized or partly centralized and your organization is planning to establish an integrated security program, then the recommendation is to perform a holistic risk assessment based on probability and impact assessments on threats and vulnerabilities.
    • The impacted factors, for example, are customers served, criticality of services, equipment present inside the building, personnel response time for operational recovery and the mitigation of hazards, and costs.
    • Frameworks such as Sherwood Applied Business Security Architecture (SABSA), Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT), and The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) can be used to build security architecture that aligns security goals with business goals.
    • Finally, analyze the security design against the design criteria.

    Sources: ISA and Honeywell Integrated Security Technology Lab, n.d.; IEEE, 2021

    “As long as organizations treat their physical and cyber domains as separate, there is little hope of securing either one.”

    Source: FedTech magazine, 2009

    Analyze architecture design

    Cloud, on-premises, or hybrid? During the pandemic, many enterprises were under tight deadlines to migrate to the cloud. Many did not refactor data and applications correctly for cloud platforms during migration, with the consequence of high cloud bills. This happened because the migrated applications cannot take advantage of on-premises capabilities such as autoscaling. Thus, in 2023, it is plausible that enterprises will bring applications and data back on-premises.

    Below is an example of a security design analysis of platform architecture. Design can be assessed using quantitative or qualitative approaches. In this example, a qualitative approach is applied using high-level advantages and disadvantages.

    Design criteria

    Cloud

    Hybrid

    On-premises

    Effort

    Consumer effort is within a range, e.g. < 60%

    Consumer effort is within a range e.g. < 80%

    100% organization

    Reliability

    High reliability

    High reliability

    Medium reliability that depends on data centers

    Cost

    High cost when data and applications are not correctly designed for cloud

    Optimized cost when data and applications are correctly designed either for cloud or native

    Medium cost when data and applications take advantage of on-prem capabilities

    Info-Tech Insight

    It is important for organizations to find the most optimized architecture to support them, for example, a hybrid architecture of cloud and on-premises based on operations and cost-effectiveness. To help design a security architecture that is strategic, realistic, and based on risk, see Info-Tech’s Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture research.

    Sources: InfoWorld, 2023; Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture , Info-Tech Research Group, 2021

    Analyze equipment design

    Below is an example case of a security design analysis of electronic security systems. Design can be assessed using quantitative or qualitative approaches. In this example a qualitative approach is applied using advantages and disadvantages.

    Surveillance design criteria

    Video camera

    Motion detector

    Theft of security system equipment

    Higher economic loss Lower economic loss

    Reliability

    Positive detection of intrusion Spurious indication and lower reliability

    Energy savings and bandwidth

    Only record when motion is detected Detect and process all movement

    Info-Tech Insight

    Once the design has been analyzed, the next step is to conduct market research to analyze the solutions landscape, e.g. to compare products or services from vendors or manufacturers.

    Sources: IEEE, 202; IEC, n.d.; IEC, 2013

    Analyze off-the-shelf solutions

    Criteria to consider when comparing solutions:

    Criteria to consider when comparing solutions: 1 - Visibility and asset management. 2 - Threat detection, mitigation and response. 3 - Risk assessment and vulnerability management. 4 - Usability, architecture, Cost.

    Visibility and Asset Management

    Passively monitoring data using various protocol layers, actively sending queries to devices, or parsing configuration files of physical security devices, OT, IoT, and IT environments on assets, processes, and connectivity paths.

    Threat Detection, Mitigation, and Response (+ Hunting)

    Automation of threat analysis (signature-based, specification-based, anomaly-based, flow-based, content-based, sandboxing) not only in IT but also in relevant environments, e.g. physical, IoT, IIoT, and OT on assets, data, network, and orchestration with threat intelligence sharing and analytics.

    Risk Assessment and Vulnerability Management

    Risk scoring approach (qualitative, quantitative) based on variables such as behavioral patterns and geolocation. Patching and vulnerability management.

    Usability, Architecture, Cost

    The user and administrative experience, multiple deployment options, extensive integration capabilities, and affordability.

    Source: Secure IT/OT Convergence, Info-Tech Research Group, 2022

    Optimize

    Establish, monitor, and report integrated security metrics

    Security metrics serve various functions in a security program.1 For example:

    • As audit requirements. For integrated security, the requirements are derived from mandatory or voluntary compliance, e.g. NERC CIP.
    • As an indicator of maturity level. For integrated security, maturity level is used to measure the state of security, e.g. C2M2, CMMC.
    • As a measurement of effectiveness and efficiency. Security metrics consist of operational metrics, financial metrics, etc.

    Safety

    Physical security interfaces with the physical world. Thus, metrics based on risks related to safety are crucial. These metrics motivate personnel by making clear why they should care about security.
    Source: EPRI, 2017

    Business Performance

    The impact of security on the business can be measured with various metrics such as operational metrics, service level agreements (SLAs), and financial metrics.
    Source: BMC, 2022

    Technology Performance

    Early detection leads to faster remediation and less damage. Metrics such as maximum tolerable downtime (MTD) and mean time to recovery (MTR) indicate system reliability.
    Source: Dark Reading, 2022

    Security Culture

    Measure the overall quality of security culture with indicators such as compliance and audit, vulnerability management, and training and awareness.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Security failure can be avoided by evaluating the security systems and program. Security evaluation requires understanding what, where, when, and how to measure and to report the relevant metrics.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Secure IT/OT Convergence

    The previously entirely separate OT ecosystem is migrating into the IT ecosystem, primarily to improve access via connectivity and to leverage other standard IT capabilities for economic benefit.

    Hence, IT and OT need to collaborate, starting with communication to build trust and to overcome their differences and followed by negotiation on components such as governance and management, security controls on OT environments, compliance with regulations and standards, and establishing metrics for OT security.

    Preparing for Technology Convergence in Manufacturing

    Information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) teams have a long history of misalignment and poor communication.

    Stakeholder expectations and technology convergence create the need to leave the past behind and build a culture of collaboration.

    Build an Information Security Strategy

    Info-Tech has developed a highly effective approach to building an information security strategy – an approach that has been successfully tested and refined for over seven years with hundreds of organizations.

    This unique approach includes tools for ensuring alignment with business objectives, assessing organizational risk and stakeholder expectations, enabling a comprehensive current-state assessment, prioritizing initiatives, and building a security roadmap.

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    Research Contributors and Experts

    Amy L. Meger, IGP

    Information and Cyber Governance Manager
    Platte River Power Authority

    Andrew Amaro

    Chief Security Officer (CSO) & Founder
    KLAVAN Security

    Bilson Perez

    IT Security Manager
    4Wall Entertainment

    Dan Adams

    VP of Information Technology
    4Wall Entertainment

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    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
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    • Prospective buyer traffic into digital marketing platforms has exploded.
    • Many freemium/low-cost digital marketing platforms lack lead scoring and nurturing functionality.
    • As a result, the volume of unqualified leads being delivered to outbound sellers has increased dramatically.
    • This has reduced sales productivity, frustrated prospective buyers, and raised the costs of lead generation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers.
    • Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead generation and decreased SQL-to-opportunity conversion rates.
    • Lead scoring increases sales productivity and shortens sales cycles.

    Impact and Result

    • Align Marketing, Sales, and Inside Sales on your ideal customer profile.
    • Re-evaluate the assets and activities that compose your current lead generation engine.
    • Develop a documented methodology to ignore, nurture, or contact right away the leads in your marketing pipeline.
    • Deliver more qualified leads to sellers, raising sales productivity and marketing/lead-gen ROI.

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize lead generation with lead scoring, review SoftwareReviews Advisory’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

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

    1. Drive aligned vision for lead scoring

    Outline your plan, form your team, and plan marketing tech stack support.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 1: Drive an Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    2. Build and test your lead scoring model

    Set lead flow thresholds, define your ideal customer profile and lead generation engine components, and weight, score, test, and refine them.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 2: Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model
    • Lead Scoring Workbook

    3. Apply your model to marketing apps and go live with better qualified leads

    Apply your lead scoring model to your lead management app, test it, validate the results with sellers, apply advanced methods, and refine.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 3: Apply Your Model to Marketing Apps and Go Live With Better Qualified Leads
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

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

    1 Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    The Purpose

    Drive an aligned vision for lead scoring.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Attain an aligned vision for lead scoring.

    Identify the steering committee and project team and clarify their roles and responsibilities.

    Provide your team with an understanding of how leads score through the marketing funnel.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for lead scoring.

    1.2 Identify steering committee and project team members.

    1.3 Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.

    1.4 Align on marketing pipeline terminology.

    Outputs

    Steering committee and project team make-up

    Direction on tech stack to support lead generation

    Marketing pipeline definitions alignment

    2 Buyer Journey and Lead Generation Engine Mapping

    The Purpose

    Define the buyer journey and map the lead generation engine.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align the vision for your target buyer and their buying journey.

    Identify the assets and activities that need to compose your lead generation engine.

    Activities

    2.1 Establish a buyer persona.

    2.2 Map your buyer journey.

    2.3 Document the activities and assets of your lead generation engine.

    Outputs

    Buyer persona

    Buyer journey map

    Lead gen engine assets and activities documented

    3 Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    The Purpose

    Build and test your lead scoring model.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain team alignment on how leads score and, most importantly, what constitutes a sales-accepted lead.

    Develop a scoring model from which future iterations can be tested.

    Activities

    3.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and set your thresholds.

    3.2 Identify your ideal customer profile, attributes, and subattribute weightings – run tests.

    Outputs

    Lead scoring thresholds

    Ideal customer profile, weightings, and tested scores

    Test profile scoring

    4 Align on Engagement Attributes

    The Purpose

    Align on engagement attributes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop a scoring model from which future iterations can be tested.

    Activities

    4.1 Weight the attributes of your lead generation engagement model and run tests.

    4.2 Apply weightings to activities and assets.

    4.3 Test engagement and profile scenarios together and make any adjustments to weightings or thresholds.

    Outputs

    Engagement attributes and weightings tested and complete

    Final lead scoring model

    5 Apply Model to Your Tech Platform

    The Purpose

    Apply the model to your tech platform.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Deliver better qualified leads to Sales.

    Activities

    5.1 Apply model to your marketing management/campaign management software and test the quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers.

    5.2 Measure overall lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    5.3 Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    Outputs

    Model applied to software

    Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers

    Further reading

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    In today’s competitive environment, optimizing Sales’ resources by giving them qualified leads is key to B2B marketing success.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Improve B2B seller win rates with a lead scoring methodology as part of your modern lead generation engine.

    The image contains a picture of Jeff Golterman.

    As B2B organizations emerge from the lowered demands brought on by COVID-19, they are eager to convert marketing contacts to sales-qualified leads with even the slightest signal of intent, but many sales cycles are wasted when sellers receive unqualified leads. Delivering highly qualified leads to sellers is still more art than science, and it is especially challenging without a way to score a contact profile and engagement. While most marketers capture some profile data from contacts, many will pass a contact over to Sales without any engagement data or schedule a demo with a contact without any qualifying profile data. Passing unqualified leads to Sales suboptimizes Sales’ resources, raises the costs per lead, and often results in lost opportunities. Marketers need to develop a lead scoring methodology that delivers better qualified leads to Field Sales scored against both the ideal customer profile (ICP) and engagement that signals lower-funnel buyer interest. To be successful in building a compelling lead scoring solution, marketers must work closely with key stakeholders to align the ICP asset/activity with the buyer journey. Additionally, working early in the design process with IT/Marketing Operations to implement lead management and analytical tools in support will drive results to maximize lead conversion rates and sales wins.

    Jeff Golterman

    Managing Director

    SoftwareReviews Advisory

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    The affordability and ease of implementation of digital marketing tools have driven global adoption to record levels. While many marketers are fine-tuning the lead generation engine components of email, social media, and web-based advertising to increase lead volumes, just 32% of companies pass well-qualified leads over to outbound marketers or sales development reps (SDRs). At best, lead gen costs stay high, and marketing-influenced win rates remain suboptimized. At worst, marketing reputation suffers when poorly qualified leads are passed along to sellers.

    Common Obstacles

    Most marketers lack a methodology for lead scoring, and some lack alignment among Marketing, Product, and Sales on what defines a qualified lead. In their rush to drive lead generation, marketers often fail to “define and align” on the ICP with stakeholders, creating confusion and wasted time and resources. In the rush to adopt B2B marketing and sales automation tools, many marketers have also skipped the important steps to 1) define the buyer journey and map content types to support, and 2) invest in a consistent content creation and sourcing strategy. The wrong content can leave prospects unmotivated to engage further and cause them to seek alternatives.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    To employ lead scoring effectively, marketers need to align Sales, Marketing, and Product teams on the definition of the ICP and what constitutes a Sales-accepted lead. The buyer journey needs to be mapped in order to identify the engagement that will move a lead through the marketing lead generation engine. Then the project team can score prospect engagement and the prospect profile attributes against the ICP to arrive at a lead score. The marketing tech stack needs to be validated to support lead scoring, and finally Sales needs to sign off on results.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers. Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead gen, decreased SQL to opportunity conversion rates, decreased sales productivity, and longer sales cycles.

    Who benefits from a lead scoring project?

    This Research Is Designed for:

    • Marketers and especially campaign managers who are:
      • Looking for a more precise way to score leads and deploy outbound marketing resources to optimize contacts-to-MQL conversion rates.
      • Looking for a more effective way to profile contacts raised by your lead gen engine.
      • Looking to use their lead management software to optimize lead scoring.
      • Starting anew to strengthen their lead generation engine and want examples of a typical engine, ways to identify buyer journey, and perform lead nurturing.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Explain why having a lead scoring methodology is important.
    • Identify a methodology that will call for identifying an ICP against which to score prospect profiles behind each contact that engages your lead generation engine.
    • Create a process of applying weightings to score activities during contact engagement with your lead generation engine. Apply both scores to arrive at a contact/lead score.
    • Compare your current lead gen engine to a best-in-class example in order to identify gaps and areas for improvement and exploration.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • CMOs, Marketing Operations leaders, heads of Product Marketing, and regional Marketing leads who are stakeholders in:
      • Finding alternatives to current lead scoring approaches.
        • Altering current or evaluating new marketing technologies to support a refreshed lead scoring approaches.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Align stakeholders on an overall program of identifying target customers, building common understanding of what constitutes a qualified lead, and determining when to use higher-cost outbound marketing resources.
    • Deploy high-value applications that will improve core marketing metrics.

    Insight summary

    Continuous adjustment and improvement of your lead scoring methodology is critical for long-term lead generation engine success.

    • Building a highly functioning lead generation engine is an ongoing process and one that requires continual testing of new asset types, asset design, and copy variations. Buyer profiles change over time as you launch new products and target new markets.
    • Pass better qualified leads to Field Sales and improve sales win rates by taking these crucial steps to implement a better lead generation engine and a lead scoring methodology:
      • Make the case for lead scoring in your organization.
      • Establish trigger points that separate leads to ignore, nurture, qualify, or outreach/contact.
      • Identify your buyer journey and ICP through collaboration among Sales, Marketing, and Product.
      • Assess each asset and activity type across your lead generation engine and apply a weighting for each.
      • Test lead scenarios within our supplied toolkit and with stakeholders. Adjust weightings and triggers that deliver lead scores that make sense.
      • Work with IT/Marketing Operations to emulate your lead scoring methodology within your marketing automation/campaign management application.
      • Explore advanced methods including nurturing.
    • Use the Lead Scoring Workbook collaboratively with other stakeholders to design your own methodology, test lead scenarios, and build alignment across the team.

    Leading marketers who successfully implement a lead scoring methodology develop it collaboratively with stakeholders across Marketing, Sales, and Product Management. Leaders will engage Marketing Operations, Sales Operations, and IT early to gain support for the evaluation and implementation of a supporting campaign management application and for analytics to track lead progress throughout the Marketing and Sales funnels. Leverage the Marketing Lead Scoring Toolkit to build out your version of the model and to test various scenarios. Use the slides contained within this storyboard and the accompanying toolkit as a means to align key stakeholders on the ICP and to weight assets and activities across your marketing lead generation engine.

    What is lead scoring?

    Lead scoring weighs the value of a prospect’s profile against the ICP and renders a profile score. The process then weighs the value of the prospects activities against the ideal call to action (CTA) and renders an activity score. Combining the profile and activity scores delivers an overall score for the value of the lead to drive the next step along the overall buyer journey.

    EXAMPLE: SALES MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

    • For a company that markets sales management software the ideal buyer is the head of Sales Operations. While the ICP is made up of many attributes, we’ll just score one – the buyer’s role.
    • If the prospect/lead that we wish to score has an executive title, the lead’s profile scores “High.” Other roles will score lower based on your ICP. Alongside role, you will also score other profile attributes (e.g. company size, location).
    • With engagement, if the prospect/lead clicked on our ideal CTA, which is “request a proposal,” our engagement would score high. Other CTAs would score lower.
    The image contains a screenshot of two examples of lead scoring. One example demonstrates. Profile Scoring with Lead Profile, and the second image demonstrates Activity Scoring and Lead Engagement.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    A significant obstacle to quality lead production is disagreement on or lack of a documented definition of the ideal customer profile. Marketers successful in lead scoring will align key stakeholders on a documented definition of the ICP as a first step in improving lead scoring.

    Use of lead scoring is in the minority among marketers

    The majority of businesses are not practicing lead scoring!

    Up to 66% of businesses don’t practice any type of lead scoring.

    Source: LeadSquared, 2014

    “ With lead scoring, you don’t waste loads of time on unworthy prospects, and you don’t ignore people on the edge of buying.”

    Source: BigCommerce

    “The benefits of lead scoring number in the dozens. Having a deeper understanding of which leads meet the qualifications of your highest converters and then systematically communicating with them accordingly increases both ongoing engagement and saves your internal team time chasing down inopportune leads.”

    – Joey Strawn, Integrated Marketing Director, in IndustrialMarketer.com

    Key benefit: sales resource optimization

    Many marketing organizations send Sales too many unqualified leads

    • Leads – or, more accurately, contacts – are not all qualified. Some are actually nothing more than time-wasters for sellers.
    • Leading marketers peel apart a contact into at least two dimensions – “who” and “how interested.”
      • The “who” is compared to the ICP and given a score.
      • The “how interested” measures contact activity – or engagement – within our lead gen engine and gives it a score.
    • Scores are combined; a contact with a low score is ignored, medium is nurtured, and high is sent to sellers.
    • A robust ICP, together with engagement scoring and when housed within your lead management software, prioritizes for marketers which contacts to nurture and gets hot leads to sellers more quickly.

    Optimizing Sales Resources Using Lead Scoring

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate optimizing sales resources with lead scoring.

    Lead scoring drives greater sales effectiveness

    When contacts are scored as “qualified leads” and sent to sellers, sales win rates and ROI climb

    • Contacts can be scored properly once marketers align with Sales on the ICP and work closely with colleagues in areas like product marketing and field marketing to assign weightings to lead gen activities.
    • When more qualified leads get into the hands of the salesforce, their win rates improve.
    • As win rates improve, and sellers are producing more wins from the same volume of leads, sales productivity improves and ROI on the marketing investment increases.

    “On average, organizations that currently use lead scoring experience a 77% lift in lead generation ROI, over organizations that do not currently use lead scoring.”

    – MarketingSherpa, 2012

    Average Lead Generation ROI by Use of Lead Scoring

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate the average lead generation ROI by using of lead scoring. 138% are currenting using lead scoring, and 78% are not using lead scoring.
    Source: 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey, MarketingSherpa
    Methodology: Fielded June 2011, N=326 CMOs

    SoftwareReviews’ Lead Scoring Approach

    1. Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    2. Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    3. Apply to Your Tech Platform and Validate, Nurture, and Grow

    Phase
    Steps

    1. Outline a vision for lead scoring and identify stakeholders.
    2. Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.
    3. Align on marketing pipeline terminology, buyer persona and journey, and lead gen engine components.
    1. Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and establish thresholds.
    2. Collaborate with stakeholders on your ICP, apply weightings to profile attributes and values, and test your model.
    3. Identify the key activities and assets of your lead gen engine, weight attributes, and run tests.
    1. Apply model to your marketing management software.
    2. Test quality of sales-accepted leads by sellers and measure conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.
    3. Apply advanced methods such as lead nurturing.

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Steering committee and stakeholder selection
    2. Stakeholder alignment
    3. Team alignment on terminology
    4. Buyer journey map
    5. Lead gen engine components and asset types documented
    1. Initial lead-stage threshold scores
    2. Ideal customer profile, weightings, and tested scores
    3. Documented activities/assets across your lead generation engine
    4. Test results to drive adjusted weightings for profile attributes and engagement
    5. Final model to apply to marketing application
    1. Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers
    2. Advanced methods to nurture leads

    Key Deliverable: Lead Scoring Workbook

    The workbook walks you through a step-by-step process to:

    • Identify your team.
    • Identify the lead scoring thresholds.
    • Define your IPC.
    • Weight the activities within your lead generation engine.
    • Run tests using lead scenarios.

    Tab 1: Team Composition

    Consider core functions and form a cross-functional lead scoring team. Document the team’s details here.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 1.

    Tab 2: Threshold Setting

    Set your initial threshold weightings for profile and engagement scores.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 2.

    Tab 3:

    Establish Your Ideal Customer Profile

    Identify major attributes and attribute values and the weightings of both. You’ll eventually score your leads against this ICP.

    Record and Weight Lead Gen Engine Activities

    Identify the major activities that compose prospect engagement with your lead gen engine. Weight them together as a team.

    Test Lead Profile Scenarios

    Test actual lead profiles to see how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust threshold settings in Tab 2.

    Test Activity Engagement Scores

    Test scenarios of how contacts navigate your lead gen engine. See how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust thresholds on Tab 2 as needed.

    Review Combined Profile and Activity Score

    Review the combined scores to see where on your lead scoring matrix the lead falls. Make any final adjustments to thresholds accordingly.

    The image contains screenshots of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 3.

    Several ways we help you build your lead scoring methodology

    DIY Toolkit Guided Implementation Workshop Consulting

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

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

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

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

    • Begin your project using the step-by-step process outlined in this blueprint.
    • Leverage the accompanying workbook.
    • Launch inquiries with the analyst who wrote the research.
    • Kick off your project with an inquiry with the authoring analyst and your engagement manager.
    • Additional inquiries will guide you through each step.
    • Leverage the blueprint and toolkit.
    • Reach out to your engagement manager.
    • During a half-day workshop the authoring analyst will guide you and your team to complete your lead scoring methodology.
    • Reach out to your engagement manager.
    • We’ll lead the engagement to structure the process, gather data, interview stakeholders, craft outputs, and organize feedback and final review.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Call #1: Collaborate on vision for lead scoring and the overall project.

    Call #2: Identify the steering committee and the rest of the team.

    Call #3: Discuss app/tech stack support for lead scoring. Understand key marketing pipeline terminology and the buyer journey.

    Call #4: Discuss your ICP, apply weightings, and run test scenarios.

    Call #5: Discuss and record lead generation engine components.

    Call #6: Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and set thresholds for your model.

    Call #7: Identify your ICP, apply weightings to attributes, and run tests.

    Call #8: Weight the attributes of engagement activities and run tests. Review the application of the scoring model on lead management software.

    Call #9: Test quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers. Measure lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    Call #10: Review progress and discuss nurturing and other advanced topics.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst. Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    Workshop Overview

    Accelerate your project with our facilitated SoftwareReviews Advisory workshops

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    Buyer Journey and Lead Gen Engine Mapping

    Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    Align on Engagement Attributes

    Apply to Your Tech Platform

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for lead scoring.

    1.2 Identify steering committee and project team members.

    1.3 Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.

    1.4 Align on marketing pipeline terminology.

    2.1 Establish a buyer persona (if not done already).

    2.2 Map your buyer journey.

    2.3 Document the activities and assets of your lead gen engine.

    3.1 Understand Lead Scoring Grid and set your thresholds.

    3.2 Identify ICP attribute and sub-attribute weightings. Run tests.

    4.1 Weight the attributes of your lead gen engagement model and run tests.

    4.2 Apply weightings to activities and assets.

    4.3 Test engagement and profile scenarios together and adjust weightings and thresholds as needed.

    5.1 Apply model to your campaign management software and test quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers.

    5.2. Measure overall lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    5.3 Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    Deliverables

    1. Steering committee & project team composition
    2. Direction on tech stack to support lead gen
    3. Alignment on marketing pipeline definitions
    1. Buyer (persona if needed) journey map
    2. Lead gen engine assets and activities documented
    1. Lead scoring thresholds
    2. ICP, weightings, and tested scores
    3. Test profile scoring
    1. Engagement attributes and weightings tested and complete
    2. Final lead scoring model
    1. Model applied to your marketing management/ campaign management software
    2. Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers

    Phase 1

    Drive an Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Solidify your vision for lead scoring.
    • Achieve stakeholder alignment.
    • Assess your tech stack.

    This phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • CMO
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 1.1

    Establish a Cross-Functional Vision for Lead Scoring

    Activities

    1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

    1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

    1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss the reasons why lead scoring is important.
    • Review program process.
    • Identify stakeholders and team.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on vision of lead scoring
    • Stakeholders described and team members recorded
    • A documented buyer journey and map of your current lead gen engine

    1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

    1 hour

    1. Meet to identify the stakeholders that should be included in the project’s steering committee.
    2. Finalize selection of steering committee members.
    3. Contact members to ensure their willingness to participate.
    4. Document the steering committee members and the milestone/presentation expectations for reporting project progress and results
    Input Output
    • Stakeholder interviews
    • List of business process owners (lead management, inside sales lead qualification, sales opportunity management, marketing funnel metric measurement/analytics)
    • Lead generation/scoring stakeholders
    • Steering committee members
    Materials Participants
    • N/A
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental Leads – Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    B2B marketers that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and lead management supporting staff of what constitutes a qualified lead will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer acquisition process.

    1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

    1 hour

    1. Convene a meeting of the steering committee and initiative team members who will be involved in the lead scoring project.
    • Using slides from this blueprint, understand the definition of lead scoring, the value of lead scoring to the organization, and the overall lead scoring process.
    • Understand the teams’ roles and responsibilities and help your Marketing Operations/IT colleagues understand some of the technical requirements needed to support lead scoring.
    • This is important because as the business members of the team are developing the lead scoring approach on paper, the technical team can begin to evaluate lead management apps within which your lead scoring model will be brought to life.
    Input Output
    • Slides to explain lead scoring and the lead scoring program
    • An understanding of the project among key stakeholders
    Materials Participants
    • Slides taken from this blueprint. We suggest slides from the Executive Brief (slides 3-16) and any others depending on the team’s level of familiarity.
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental leads from Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    While SMBs can implement some form of lead scoring when volume is very low and leads can be scored by hand, lead scoring and effective lead management cannot be performed without investment in digital platforms and lead management software and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) applications in the hands of inside and field sales staff. Marketers should plan and budget for the right combination of applications and tools to be in place for proper lead management.

    Lead scoring stakeholders

    Developing a common stakeholder understanding of the ICP, the way contact profiles are scored, and the way activities and asset engagement in your lead generation engine are scored will strengthen alignment between Marketing, Sales and Product Management.

    Title

    Key Stakeholders Within a Lead Generation/Scoring Initiative

    Lead Scoring Sponsor

    • Owns the project at the management/C-suite level
    • Responsible for breaking down barriers and ensuring alignment with organizational strategy
    • CMO, VP of Marketing, CEO (in SMB providers)

    Lead Scoring Initiative Manager

    • Typically a senior member of the marketing team
    • Responsible for preparing and managing the project plan and monitoring the project team’s progress
    • Marketing Manager or a field marketing team member who has strong program management skills, has run large-scale B2B generation campaigns, and is familiar with the stakeholder roles and enabling technologies

    Business Leads

    • Works alongside the lead scoring initiative manager to ensure that the strategy is aligned with business needs
    • In this case, likely to be a marketing lead
    • Marketing Director

    Digital, Marketing/Sales Ops/IT Team

    • Composed of individuals whose application and technology tools knowledge and skills are crucial to lead generation success
    • Responsible for understanding the business requirements behind lead generation and the requirements in particular to support lead scoring and the evaluation, selection, and implementation of the supporting tech stack – apps, website, analytics, etc.
    • Project Manager, Business Lead, CRM Manager, Integration Manager, Marketing Application SMEs, Sales Application

    Steering Committee

    • Composed of C-suite/management-level individuals who act as the lead generation process decision makers
    • Responsible for validating goals and priorities, defining the scope, enabling adequate resourcing, and managing change especially among C-level leaders in Sales & Product
    • Executive Sponsor, Project Sponsor, CMO, Business Unit SMEs

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers managing the lead scoring initiative must include Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and Product Management. And given that world-class B2B lead generation engines cannot run without technology enablement, Marketing Operations/IT – those that are charged with enabling marketing and sales – must also be part of the decision making and implementation process of lead scoring and lead generation.

    1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

    30 minutes

    1. The CMO and other key stakeholders should discuss and determine who will be involved in the lead scoring project.
    • Business leaders in key areas – Product Marketing, Field Marketing, Digital Marketing, Inside Sales, Sales, Marketing Ops, Product Management, and IT – should be involved.
  • Document the members of your lead scoring team in tab 1 of the Lead Scoring Workbook.
    • The size of the team will vary depending on your initiative and size of your organization.
    InputOutput
    • Stakeholders
    • List of lead scoring team members
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Lead Scoring Workbook
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental Leads – Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    Download the Lead Scoring Workbook

    Lead scoring team

    Consider the core team functions when composing the lead scoring team. Form a cross-functional team (i.e. across IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations) to create a well-aligned lead management/scoring strategy. Don’t let your core team become too large when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limit the size of the team to enable effective decision making while still including functional business units.

    Required Skills/Knowledge

    Suggested Team Members

    Business

    • Understanding of the customer
    • Understanding of brand
    • Understanding of multichannel marketing: email, events, social
    • Understanding of lead qualification
    • Field Marketing/Campaign Lead
    • Product Marketing
    • Sales Manager
    • Inside Sales Manager
    • Content Marketer/Copywriter

    IT

    • Campaign management application capabilities
    • Digital marketing
    • Marketing and sales funnel Reporting/metrics
    • Marketing Application Owners
    • CRM/Sales Application Owners
    • Marketing Analytics Owners
    • Digital Platform Owners

    Other

    • Branding/creative
    • Social
    • Change management
    • Creative Director
    • Social Media Marketer

    Step 1.2 (Optional)

    Assess Your Tech Stack for Lead Scoring

    Our model assumes you have:

    1.2.1 A marketing application/campaign management application in place that accommodates lead scoring.

    1.2.2 Lead management software integrated with the sales automation/CRM tool in the hands of Field Sales.

    1.2.3 Reporting/analytics that spans the entire lead generation pipeline/funnel.

    Refer to the following three slides if you need guidance in these areas.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Confirm that you have your tech stack in place.
    • Set up an inquiry with an Info-Tech analyst should you require guidance on evaluating lead pipeline reporting, CRM, or analytics applications.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understanding of what new application and technology support is required to support lead scoring.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers that collaborate closely with Marketing Ops/IT early in the process of lead scoring design will be best able to assess whether current marketing applications and tools can support a full lead scoring capability.

    1.2.1 Plan technology support for marketing management apps

    Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate application enablement for lead management, including scoring

    A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

    • Work closely with Marketing Operations (or the team that manages the marketing apps and digital platforms) as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead scoring approach that includes lead tracking and marketing funnel analytics.
    • Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select a Marketing Management Suite, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the Marketing Management Data Quadrant.

    1.2.2 Plan technology support for sales opportunity management

    Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate applications for sales opportunity management

    A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

    • Work closely with Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring and how lead management must integrate with sales opportunity management to manage the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a sales opportunity management application that integrates with your marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead management and scoring approach that support the entire marketing and sales pipeline with analytics.

    Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a CRM Platform, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews CRM Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Customer Relationship Management Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the SoftwareReviews Customer Relationship Management Data Quadrant.

    1.2.3 Plan analytics support for marketing pipeline analysis

    Work with Marketing Ops early to evaluate analytics tools to measure marketing and sales pipeline conversions

    A thorough evaluation takes weeks – start early

    • Work closely with Marketing and Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to measuring the lifecycle of contacts through to wins across the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting tools that can support the measurement of conversion ratios from contact to MQL, SQL, and opportunity to wins. Having this data enables you to measure improvement in component parts to your lead generation engine.
    • Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Best Business intelligence & Analytics Software Data Quadrant as well during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Business Intelligence Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the Software Reviews Business Intelligent Quadrant.

    Step 1.3

    Catalog Your Buyer Journey and Lead Gen Engine Assets

    Activities

    1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

    1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

    1.3.3 Describe your awareness and lead generation engine

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss marketing funnel terminology.
    • Describe your buyer journey.
    • Catalog the elements of your lead generation engine.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on terminology, your buyer journey, and elements of your lead generation engine

    1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

    30 minutes

    1. We assume for this model the following:
      1. Our primary objective is to deliver more, and more-highly qualified, sales-qualified leads (SQLs) to our salesforce. The salesforce will accept SQLs and after further qualification turn them into opportunities. Sellers work opportunities and turn them into wins. Wins that had first/last touch attribution within the lead gen engine are considered marketing-influenced wins.
      2. This model assumes the existence of sales development reps (SDRs) whose mission it is to take marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) from the lead generation engine and further qualify them into SQLs.
      3. The lead generation engine takes contacts – visitors to activities, website, etc. – and scores them based on their profile and engagement. If the contact scores at or above the designated threshold, the lead generation engine rates it as an MQL and passes it along to Inside Sales/SDRs. If the contact scores above a certain threshold and shows promise, it is further nurtured. If the contact score is low, it is ignored.
    2. If an organization does not possess a team of SDRs or Inside Sales, you would adjust your version of the model to, for example, raise the threshold for MQLs, and when the threshold is reached the lead generation engine would pass the lead to Field Sales for further qualification.

    Stage

    Characteristics

    Actions

    Contact

    • Unqualified
    • No/low activity

    Nurture

    SDR Qualify

    Send to Sales

    Close

    MQL

    • Profile scores high
    • Engagement strong

    SQL

    • Profile strengthened
    • Demo/quote/next step confirmed

    Oppt’y

    • Sales acceptance
    • Sales opportunity management

    Win

    • Deal closed

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Score leads in a way that makes it crystal clear whether they should be ignored, further nurtured, further qualified, or go right into a sellers’ hands as a super hot lead.

    1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

    1. Understand the concept of the buyer journey:
      1. Typically Product Marketing is charged with establishing deep understanding of the target buyer for each product or solution through a complete buyer persona and buyer journey map. The details of how to craft both are covered in the upcoming SoftwareReviews Advisory blueprint Craft a More Comprehensive Go-to-Market Strategy. However, we share our Buyer Journey Template here (on the next slide) to illustrate the connection between the buyer journey and the lead generation and scoring processes.
      2. Marketers and campaigners developing the lead scoring methodology will work closely with Product Marketing, asking them to document the buyer journey.
      3. The value of the buyer journey is to guide asset/content creation, nurturing strategy and therefore elements of the lead generation engine such as web experience, email, and social content and other elements of engagement.
      4. The additional value of having a buyer persona is to also inform the ICP, which is an essential element of lead scoring.
      5. For the purposes of lead scoring, use the template on the next slide to create a simple form of the buyer journey. This will guide lead generation engine design and the scoring of activities later in our blueprint.

    2 hours

    On the following slide:

    1. Tailor this template to suit your buyer journey. Text in green is yours to modify. Text in black is instructional.
    2. Your objective is to use the buyer journey to identify asset types and a delivery channel that once constructed/sourced and activated within your lead gen engine will support the buyer journey.
    3. Keep your buyer journey updated based on actual journeys of sales wins.
    4. Complete different buyer journeys for different product areas. Complete these collaboratively with stakeholders for alignment.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Establishing a buyer journey is one of the most valuable tools that, typically, Product Marketing produces. Its use helps campaigners, product managers, and Inside and Field Sales. Leading marketers keep journeys updated based on live deals and characteristics of wins.

    Buyer Journey Template

    Personas: [Title] e.g. “BI Director”

    The image contains a screenshot of the describe persona level as an example.

    [Persona name] ([levels it includes from arrows above]) Buyer’s Journey for [solution type] Vendor Selection

    The image contains a screenshot of the Personas Type example to demonstrate a specific IT role, end use in a relevant department.

    1.3.3 Describe Your Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

    1. Understand the workings of a typical awareness and lead generation engine. Reference the image of a lead gen engine on the following slide when reviewing our guidance below:
      1. In our lead scoring example found in the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we use a software company selling a sales automation solution, and the engagement activities match with the Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine found on the following slide. Our goal is to match a visual representation of a lead gen and awareness engine with the activity scoring portion of lead scoring.
      2. At the top of the Typical Awareness and Lead Generation Engine image, the activities are activated by a team of various roles: digital manager (new web pages), campaign manager (emails and paid media), social media marketer (organic and paid social), and events marketing manager (webinars).
      3. “Awareness” – On the right, the slide shows additional awareness activities driven by the PR/Corporate Comms and Analyst Relations teams.*
      4. The calls to action (CTAs) found in the outreach activities are illustrated below the timeline. The CTAs are grouped and are designed to 1) drive profile capture data via a main sales form fill, and 2) drive engagement that corresponds to the Education, Solution, and Selection buyer journey phases outlined on the prior slide. Ensure you have fast paths to get a hot lead – request a demo – directly to Field Sales when profiles score high.

    * For guidance on best practices in engaging industry analysts, contact your engagement manager to schedule an inquiry with our expert in this area. during that inquiry, we will share best practices and recommended analyst engagement models.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2 hours

    On the following slide:

    1. Tailor the slide to describe your lead generation engine as you will use it when you get to latter steps to describe the activities in your lead gen engine and weight them for lead scoring.
    2. Use the template to see what makes up a typical lead gen and awareness building engine. Record your current engine parts and see what you may be missing.
    3. Note: The “Goal” image in the upper right of the slide is meant as a reminder that marketers should establish a goal for SQLs delivered to Field Sales for each campaign.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketing’s primary mission is to deliver marketing-influenced wins (MIWs) to the company. Building a compelling awareness and lead gen engine must be done with that goal in mind. Leaders are ruthless in testing – copy, email subjects, website navigation, etc. – to fine-tune the engine and staying highly collaborative with sellers to ensure high value lead delivery.

    Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

    Understand how a typical lead generation engine works. Awareness activities are included as a reference. Use as a template for campaigns.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram to demonstrate how a lead generation engine works.

    Phase 2

    Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1. Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and establish thresholds.
    2. Collaborate with stakeholders on your ICP, apply weightings to profile attributes and values, and test.
    3. Identify the key activities and assets of your lead gen engine, weight attributes, and run tests.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • Product Marketing
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 2.1

    Start Building Your Lead Scoring Model

    Activities

    2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

    2.1.2 Identify thresholds

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss the concept of the thresholds for scoring leads in each of the various states – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify,” “send to sales.”
    • Open the Lead Scoring Workbook and validate your own states to suit your organization.
    • Arrive at an initial set of threshold scores.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on stages
    • Stakeholder alignment on initial set of thresholds

    2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

    30 minutes

    1. Understand how lead scoring works and our grid is constructed.
    2. Understand the two important areas of the grid and the concept of how the contact’s scores will increase as follows:
      1. Profile – as the profile attributes of the contact approaches that of the ICP we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: Step 1.3 walks you through creating your ICP.
      2. Engagement – as the contact/prospect engages with the activities (e.g. webinars, videos, events, emails) and assets (e.g. website, whitepapers, blogs, infographics) in our lead generation engine, we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: You will describe your engagement activities in this step.
    3. Understand how thresholds work:
      1. Threshold percentages, when reached, trigger movement of the contact from one state to the next – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify with Inside Sales,” and “send to sales.”
    The image contains a screenshot of an example of the lead scoring grid, as described in the text above.

    2.1.2 Identify thresholds

    30 minutes

    We have set up a model Lead Scoring Grid – see Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.”

    Set your thresholds within the Lead Scoring Workbook:

    • Set your threshold percentages for ”Profile” and “Engagement.”
    • You will run test scenarios for each in later steps.
    • We suggest you start with the example percentages given in the Lead Scoring Workbook and plan to adjust them during testing in later steps.
    • Define the “Send to Sales,” “Qualify With Inside Sales,” “Nurture,” and “Ignore” zones.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Clarify that all-important threshold for when a lead passes to your expensive and time-starved outbound sellers.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 2 demonstrating the Lead Scoring Grid.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 2.2

    Identify and Verify Your Ideal Customer Profile and Weightings

    Activities

    2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

    2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify the attributes that compose the ICP.
    • Identify the values of each attribute and their weightings.
    • Test different contact profile scenarios against what actually makes sense.
    • Adjust weightings if needed.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on ICP
    • Stakeholder alignment on weightings given to attributes
    • Tested results to verify thresholds and cores

    2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

    Collaborate with stakeholders to understand what attributes best describe your ICP. Assign weightings and subratings.

    2 hours

    1. Choose attributes such as job role, organization type, number of employees/potential seat holders, geographical location, interest area, etc., that describe the ideal profile of a target buyer. Best practice sees marketers choosing attributes based on real wins.
    2. Some marketers compare the email domain of the contact to a target list of domains. In the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we provide an example profile for a “Sales Automation Software” ICP.
    3. Use the workbook as a template, remove our example, and create your own ICP attributes. Then weight the attributes to add up to 100%. Add in the attribute values and weight them. In the next step you will test scenarios.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers who align with colleagues in areas such as Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, Sales Training/Enablement, and Product Managers and document the ICP give their organizations a greater probability of lead generation success.

    The image contains a screenshot of tab 3, demonstrating the weight and test with the example profile.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

    Collaborate with stakeholders to run different profile scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

    The image contains a screenshot of tab 3 to demonstrate the next step of running tests to validate profile weightings.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Keep your model simple in the interest of fast implementation and to drive early learnings. The goal is not to be perfect but to start iterating toward success. You will update your scoring model even after going into production.

    2 hours

    1. Choose scenarios of contact/lead profile attributes by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
    2. Place your estimate of how you believe the profile should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Profile State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
    3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the profile attribute differently to match.
    4. If you find estimates and calculated states off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 2.3

    Establish Key Lead Generation Activities and Assets

    Activities

    2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

    2.3.2 Run tests to evaluate activity ratings

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify the activities/asset types in your lead gen engine.
    • Weight each attribute and define values to score for each one.
    • Run tests to ensure your model makes sense.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Final stakeholder alignment on which assets compose your lead generation engine
    • Scoring model tested

    2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

    2 hours

    1. Catalog the assets and activities that compose your lead generation engine outlined in Activity 1.3.3. Identify their attribute values and weight them accordingly.
    2. Consider weighting attributes and values according to how close that asset gets to conveying your ideal call to action. For example, if your ideal CTA is “schedule a demo” and the “click” was submitted in the last seven days, it scores 100%. Take time decay into consideration. If that same click was 60 days ago, it scores less – maybe 60%.
    3. Different assets convey different intent and therefore command different weightings; a video comparing your offering against the competition, considered a down funnel asset, scores higher than the company video, considered a top-of-the-funnel activity and “awareness.”
    The image contains a screenshot of the next step of establishing activities, attribute values, and weights.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2.3.2 Run tests to validate activity weightings

    Collaborate with stakeholders to run different engagement scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

    The image contains a screenshot of activity 2.3.2: run tests to validate activity weightings.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Use data from actual closed deals and the underlying activities to build your model – nothing like using facts to inform your key decisions. Use common sense and keep things simple. Then update further when data from new wins appears.

    2 hours

    1. Test scenarios of contact engagement by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
    2. Place your estimate of how you believe the engagement should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Engagement State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
    3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the activity attribute differently to match.
    4. If you find that the estimates and calculated states are off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Phase 3

    Apply Your Model to Marketing Apps and Go Live With Better Qualified Leads

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1. Apply model to your marketing management/campaign management software.
    2. Get better qualified leads in the hands of sellers.
    3. Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 3.1

    Apply Model to Your Marketing Management Software

    Activities

    3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Apply the details of your scoring model to the lead management software.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Marketing management software or campaign management application is now set up/updated with your lead scoring approach.

    3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

    Now that your model is complete and ready to go into production, input your lead scoring parameters into your lead management software.

    The image contains a screenshot of activity 3.1.1 demonstrating tab 4 of the Lead Scoring Workbook.

    3 hours

    1. Go to the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 4, “Model Summary” for a formatted version of your lead scoring model. Double-check print formatting and print off a copy.
    2. Use the copy of your model to show to prospective technology providers when asking them to demonstrate their lead scoring capabilities.
    3. Once you have finalized your model, use the printed output from this tab to ease your process of transposing the corresponding model elements into your lead management software.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 3.2

    Test the Quality of Sales-Accepted Leads

    Activities

    3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

    3.2.2 Measure and optimize

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Suggest that the Inside Sales and Field Sales teams should assess whether to sign off on quality of leads received.
    • Campaign managers and stakeholders should now be able to track lead status more effectively.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Sales leadership should be able to sign off that leads are better qualified.
    • With marketing pipeline analytics in place, campaigners can start to measure lead flow and conversion rates.

    3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

    Collaborate with sellers to validate your lead scoring approach.

    1 hour

    1. Gather a set of SQLs – leads that have been qualified by Inside Sales and delivered to Field Sales. Have Field Sales team members convey whether these leads were properly qualified.
    2. Where leads are deemed not properly qualified, determine if the issue was a) a lack of proper qualification by the Inside Sales team, or b) the lead generation engine, which should have further nurtured the lead or ignored it outright.
    3. Work collaboratively with Inside Sales to update your lead scoring model and/or Inside Sales practice.

    Stage

    Characteristics

    Actions

    Contact

    • Unqualified
    • No/low activity

    Nurture

    SDR Qualify

    Send to Sales

    Close

    MQL

    • Profile scores high
    • Engagement strong

    SQL

    • Profile strengthened
    • Demo/quote/next step confirmed

    Oppt’y

    • Sales acceptance
    • Sales opportunity management

    Win

    • Deal closed

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers that collaborate with Sales – and in this case, a group of sellers as a sales advisory team – well in advance of sales acceptance to design lead scoring will save time during this stage, build trust with sellers, and make faster decisions related to lead management/scoring.

    3.2.2 Measure and optimize

    Leverage analytics that help you optimize your lead scoring methodology.

    Ongoing

    1. Work with Marketing Ops/IT team to design and implement analytics that enable you to:
    2. Meet frequently with your stakeholder team to review results.
    3. Learn from the wins: see how they actually scored and adjust thresholds and/or asset/activity weightings.
    4. Learn from losses: fix ineffective scoring, activities, assets, form-fill strategies, and engagement paths.
    5. Test from both wins and losses if demographic weightings are delivering accurate scores.
    6. Analyze those high scoring leads that went right to sellers but did not close. This could point to a sales training or enablement challenge.
    The image contains a screenshot of the lead scoring dashboard.

    Analytics will also drive additional key insights across your lead gen engine:

    • Are volumes increasing or decreasing? What percentage of leads are in what status (A1-D4)?
    • What nurturing will re-engage stalled leads that score high in profile but low in engagement (A3, B3)?
    • Will additional profile data capture further qualify leads with high engagement (C1, C2)?
    • And beyond all of the above, what leads move to Inside Sales and convert to SQLs, opportunities, and eventually marketing-influenced wins?

    Step 3.3

    Apply Advanced Methods

    Activities

    3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

    3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Apply lead nurturing to your lead gen engine.
    • Adjust your engine over time with more advanced methods.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Marketers can begin to test lead nurturing strategies and other advanced methods.

    3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

    A robust content marketing competence with compelling assets and the capture of additional profile data for qualification are key elements of your nurturing strategy.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Grid with a focus on Nurture.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Nurturing success combines the art of crafting engaging copy/experiences and the science of knowing just where a prospect is within your lead gen engine. Great B2B marketers demonstrate the discipline of knowing when to drive engagement and/or additional profile attribute capture using intent while not losing the prospect to over-profiling.

    Ongoing

    1. The goal of lead nurturing is to move the collection of contacts/leads that are scoring, for example, in the A3, B3, C1, C2, and C3 cells into A2, B2, and B1 cells.
    2. How is this best done? To nurture leads that are A3 and B3, entice the prospect with engagement that leads to the bottom of funnel – e.g. “schedule a demo” or “schedule a consultation” via a compelling asset. See the example on the following slide.
    3. To nurture C1 and C2, we need to qualify them further, so entice with an asset that leads to deeper profile knowledge.
    4. For C3 leads, we need both profile and activity nurturing.

    Lead nurturing example

    The image contains an example of a lead nurturing example.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    When nurturing, choose/design content as to what “intent” it satisfies. For example, a head-to-head comparison with a key competitor signals “Selection” phase of the buyer journey. Content that helps determine what app-type to buy signals “Solution”. A company video, or a webinar replay, may mean your buyer is “educating themselves.

    3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

    When getting started or within a smaller marketing team, focus on the basics outlined thus far in this blueprint. Larger and/or more experienced teams are able to employ more advanced methods.

    Ongoing

    Advanced Methods

    • Invest in technologies that interpret lead scores and trigger next-step actions, especially outreach by Inside and/or Field Sales.
    • Use the above to route into nurturing environments where additional engagement will raise scores and trigger action.
    • Recognize that lead value decays with time to time additional outreach/activities and to reduce lead scores over time.
    • Always be testing different engagement, copy, and subsequent activities to optimize lead velocity through your lead gen engine.
    • Build intent sensitivity into engagement activities; e.g. test if longer demo video engagement times imply ”contact me for a demo” via a qualification outreach. Update scores manually to drive learnings.
    • Vary engagement paths by demographics to deliver unique digital experiences. Use firmographics/email domain to drive leads through a more tailored account-based marketing (ABM) experience.
    • Reapply learnings from closed opportunities/wins to drive updates to buyer journey mapping and your ICP.

    Frequently used acronyms

    ABM

    Account-Based Marketing

    B2B

    Business to Business

    CMO

    Chief Marketing Officer

    CRM

    Customer Relationship Management

    ICP

    Ideal Customer Profile

    MIW

    Marketing-Influenced Win

    MQL

    Marketing-Qualified Lead

    SDR

    Sales Development Representative

    SQL

    Sales-Qualified Lead

    Works cited

    Arora, Rajat. “Mining the Real Gems from you Data – Lead Scoring and Engagement Scoring.” LeadSquared, 27 Sept. 2014. Web.

    Doyle, Jen. “2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report: Research and insights on attracting and converting the modern B2B buyer.” MarketingSherpa, 2012. Web.

    Doyle, Jen, and Sergio Balegno. “2011 MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey: Research and Insights on Elevating Marketing Effectiveness from Lead Generation to Sales Conversion.” MarketingSherpa, 2011.

    Kirkpatrick, David. “Lead Scoring: CMOs realize a 138% lead gen ROI … and so can you.” marketingsherpa blog, 26 Jan 2012. Web.

    Moser, Jeremy. “Lead Scoring Is Important for Your Business: Here’s How to Create Scoring Model and Hand-Off Strategy.” BigCommerce, 25 Feb. 2019. Web.

    Strawn, Joey. “Why Lead Scoring Is Important for B2Bs (and How You Can Implement It for Your Company.” IndustrialMarketer.com, 17 Aug. 2016. Web.

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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Applications
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-applications
    • Organizations collaboration toolsets are increasingly disordered and overburdened. Not only do organizations waste money by purchasing tools that overlap with their current toolset, but also employees’ productivity is destroyed by having to spend time switching between multiple tools.
    • Shadow IT is easier than ever. Without suitable onboarding and agreed-upon practices, employees will seek out their own solutions for collaboration. No transparency of what tools are being used means that information shared through shadow IT cannot be coordinated, monitored, or regulated effectively.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Best-of-breed approaches create more confusion than productivity. Collaboration toolsets should be as streamlined as possible.
    • Employee-led initiatives to implement new toolsets are more successful. Focus on what is a suitable fit for employees’ needs.
    • Strategizing toolsets enhances security. File transfers and communication through unmonitored, unapproved tools increases phishing and hacking risks.

    Impact and Result

    • Categorize your current collaboration toolset, identifying genuine overlaps and gaps in your collaboration capabilities.
    • Work through our best-practice recommendations to decide which redundant overlapping tools should be phased out.
    • Build business requirements to fill toolset gaps and create an adoption plan for onboarding new tools.
    • Create a collaboration strategy that documents collaboration capabilities, rationalizes them, and states which capability to use when.

    Rationalize Your Collaboration Tools Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to create a collaboration strategy that will improve employee efficiency and save the organization time and money.

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

    1. Evaluate current toolset

    Identify and categorize current collaboration toolset usage to recognize unnecessary overlaps and legitimate gaps.

    • Rationalize Your Collaboration Tools – Phase 1: Evaluate Current Toolset
    • Identifying and Categorizing Shadow Collaboration Tools Survey
    • Overlaps and Gaps in Current Collaboration Toolset Template

    2. Strategize toolset overlaps

    Evaluate overlaps to determine which redundant tools should be phased out and explore best practices for how to do so.

    • Rationalize Your Collaboration Tools – Phase 2: Strategize Toolset Overlaps
    • Phase-Out Plan Gantt Chart Template
    • Phase-Out Plan Marketing Materials

    3. Fill toolset gaps

    Fill your collaboration toolset gaps with best-fit tools, build business requirements for those tools, and create an adoption plan for onboarding.

    • Rationalize Your Collaboration Tools – Phase 3: Fill Toolset Gaps
    • Adoption Plan Gantt Chart Template
    • Adoption Plan Marketing Materials
    • Collaboration Tools Business Requirements Document Template
    • Collaboration Platform Evaluation Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Rationalize Your Collaboration Tools

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

    1 Categorize the Toolset

    The Purpose

    Create a collaboration vision.

    Acknowledge the current state of the collaboration toolset.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear framework to structure the collaboration strategy

    Activities

    1.1 Set the vision for the Collaboration Strategy.

    1.2 Identify your collaboration tools with use cases.

    1.3 Learn what collaboration tools are used and why, including shadow IT.

    1.4 Begin categorizing the toolset.

    Outputs

    Beginnings of the Collaboration Strategy

    At least five archetypical use cases, detailing the collaboration capabilities required for these cases

    Use cases updated with shadow IT currently used within the organization

    Overlaps and Gaps in Current Capabilities Toolset Template

    2 Strategize Overlaps

    The Purpose

    Identify redundant overlapping tools and develop a phase-out plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Communication and phase-out plans for redundant tools, streamlining the collaboration toolset.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify legitimate overlaps and gaps.

    2.2 Explore business and user strategies for identifying redundant tools.

    2.3 Create a Gantt chart and communication plan and outline post-phase-out strategies.

    Outputs

    Overlaps and Gaps in Current Capabilities Toolset Template

    A shortlist of redundant overlapping tools to be phased out

    Phase-out plan

    3 Build Business Requirements

    The Purpose

    Gather business requirements for finding best-fit tools to fill toolset gaps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A business requirements document

    Activities

    3.1 Use SoftwareReviews and the Collaboration Platform Evaluation Tool to shortlist best-fit collaboration tool.

    3.2 Build SMART objectives and goals cascade.

    3.3 Walk through the Collaboration Tools Business Requirements Document Template.

    Outputs

    A shortlist of collaboration tools

    A list of SMART goals and a goals cascade

    Completed Business Requirements Document

    4 Create an Adoption Plan

    The Purpose

    Create an adoption plan for successfully onboarding new collaboration tools.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An adoption plan

    Activities

    4.1 Fill out the Adoption Plan Gantt Chart Template.

    4.2 Create the communication plan.

    4.3 Explore best practices to socialize the new tools.

    Outputs

    Completed Gantt chart

    Adoption plan marketing materials

    Long-term strategy for engaging employees with onboarded tools