Release management
- Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}9|cart{/j2store}
- Up-Sell: {j2store}9|upsells{/j2store}
- Parent Category Name: Infra and Operations
- Parent Category Link: /infra-and-operations
The most successful organizations recognize that learning is critical to adjusting quickly and effectively to their new reality. This requires L&D to reimagine their approach to deliver learning that enables the organization’s immediate and evolving priorities.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Involve key stakeholders, identify immediate priorities, and conduct high-level triage of L&D.
Determine learning needs and ability to realistically deliver learning. Leverage existing or curate learning content that can support learning needs.
Identify technical requirements for the chosen delivery method and draft a four- to six-week action plan.
Business and IT leaders aiming to recruit and select the best talent need to:
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!
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Train your IT department to get involved in the recruitment process to attract and select the best talent.
Use this tool in conjunction with the Improve you IT Recruitment Process to document your action plans
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.
Hiring managers can choose from a comprehensive collection of core, functional, and leadership competency-based behavioral interview questions.
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.
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.
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.
Establish the employee value proposition (EVP) and employer brand.
Have a well-defined EVP that you communicate through your employer brand.
1.1 Gather feedback.
1.2 Build key messages.
1.3 Assess employer brand.
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
Develop job postings and build a strong sourcing program.
Create the framework for an effective job posting and analyze existing sourcing methods.
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.
Updated job ad
Low usage sourcing methods identified for development
Minimize bias present in ads and sourcing methods
Create a high-quality interview process to improve candidate assessment.
Training on being an effective interviewer.
3.1 Create an ideal candidate scorecard.
3.2 Map out your interview process.
3.3 Practice behavioral interviews.
Ideal candidate persona
Finalized interview and assessment process
Practice interviews
Drive employee engagement and retention with a robust program that acclimates, guides, and develops new hires.
Evaluation of current onboarding practice.
4.1 Evaluate and redesign the onboarding program.
Determine new onboarding activities to fill identified gaps.
Follow this blueprint to:
|
|
Effective Interviewing |
Onboarding: Setting up New Hires For Success |
|||||||||
| Awareness | → | Research | → | Application | → | Screening | → | Interview and Assessment | → | Follow Up | → | Onboarding |
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).
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 |
|
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 |
|
|
|
|
Develop a strong employee value proposition
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: |
||
|
|
||
THE FOUR KEY COMPONENTS OF AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION |
|||
Rewards |
Organizational Elements |
Working Conditions |
Day-to-Day Job Elements |
|
|
|
|
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.
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).
Download the Recruitment Workbook
Input |
Output |
|
|
Materials |
Participants |
|
|
Examples below.
Input | Output |
|
|
Materials | Participants |
|
|
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.” |
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. |
Market your EVP to potential candidates: Employer Brand
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 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.
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.
This case study is happening in real time. Please check back to learn more as Goddard continues to recruit for the position.
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.
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.
“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
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.
Interview with Robert Leahy
Chief Information Officer, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA
You can use sites like:
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Create engaging job ads to attract talent to the organization
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.
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.
| Position Title |
|
|---|---|
| Company |
|
| Summary Description |
|
| Responsibilities |
|
| Position Characteristics |
|
| Position Requirements |
|
| Work Conditions |
|
| Process to Apply |
|
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.
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
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. |
| ☑ | 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? |
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Get involved with sourcing to get your job ad seen
Social Media |
Social media has trained candidates to expect:
|
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.
Job ads must be clear, concise, and easily viewed on a mobile device. |
|
Candidate Values |
Job candidate’s values are changing.
Authenticity remains important.
|
Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program
Social Media Program
Employee Referral Program
Alumni Program
Campus Recruiting Program
Other Sourcing Tactics
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:
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. Address rapid change, knowledge drain due to retiring Baby Boomers, and frustration associated with time to hire or time to productivity. Reduce spend on talent acquisition, severance, time to productivity, and onboarding. Increase motivation and productivity by providing increased growth and development opportunities. Align with the organization’s offering and what is important to the employees from a development perspective. Support and develop employees from all levels and job functions. |
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.
(Ku, 2021) | |
Benefits of social media:
| Challenges of social media: With the proliferation of social media and use by most organizations, social media platforms have become overcrowded. As a result:
| |
“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
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:
55% of organizations report that hiring a referral is less expensive that a non-referred candidate (Clutch, 2020). The average recruiting lifecycle for an employee referral is 29 days, compared with 55 days for a non referral (Betterup, 2022). 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). 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.
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:
Benefits of an alumni 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:
|
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.
Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program Social Media Program Employee Referral Program Alumni Program Campus Recruiting Program Other Sourcing Tactics | 1. Professional industry associations
| 5. Not-for-profit intermediaries
| American Expresscreated a boot camp for software engineers in partnership with Year Up and Gateway Community College to increase entry-level IT hires. Results:
(HBR, 2016) |
2. Special interest groups
| 6. Gamification
| ||
3. Customers
| PwC (Hungary) created Multiploy, a two-day game that allows students to virtually experience working in accounting or consulting at the organization. Results:
(Zielinski, 2015) | ||
4. Exit interviews
|
Use knowledge that already exists in the organization to improve talent sourcing capabilities.
Marketing |
HR |
|---|---|
Marketing knows how to:
|
HR knows how to:
|
To successfully partner with other departments in your organization:
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.
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Create a high-quality interview process to improve candidate assessment
If you…
…then stop. Use this research!
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.
Define the attributes of the ideal candidate…
Ideal candidate = Ability to do the job + Motivation to do the job + Fit |
|||
Competencies
|
|
|
|
Experiences
|
Data for these come from:
|
||
Data for these come from:
|
|||
Caution: Evaluating for “organizational or cultural fit” can lead to interviewers falling into the trap of the “like me” bias, and excluding diverse candidates.
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 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
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
The Screening Interview Template will help you develop a screening interview by providing:
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.
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.
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. |
Components of a highly structured interview include:
The more of these components your interview has, the more structured it is, and the more valid it will be.
The purpose of interviewing is to assess, not just listen. Questions are what help you do this.
Use the Interview Question Planning Guide tab in the Candidate Interview Strategy and Planning Guide to prepare your interview questions.
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.
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:
|
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?” |
Consider leveraging behavioral interview questions in your interview to reduce bias.
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.
Attribute you are evaluating Probing questions prepared Area to take notes |
![]() |
Exact question you will ask Place to record score Anchored scale with definitions of a poor, ok and great answer |
The must-haves:
“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:
Record the interview team details in the Candidate Interview Strategy and Planning Guide template.
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?
“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
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.”
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.
Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
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.
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.
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.
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. |
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. |
|
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.
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
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library
Strategic Planning
Professional Development
Onboarding should pick up where candidate experience leaves off
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.
Over the long term, effective onboarding has a positive impact on revenue and decreases costs.
The benefits of onboarding:
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.
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.
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 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
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
![]() |
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. |
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.
![]() | 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. |
![]() | 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. |
![]() | 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.
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:
|
For example:
|
For example:
|
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:
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.
If there is a lack of resources, expertise, or time, outsource digital training to a content provider or through your LMS.
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Align IT’s direction with the business using the Statement of Business Context.
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of current governance using the Current State Assessment.
Build a redesign of the governance framework using the Future State Design template.
Create an implementation plan to jump-start the communication of the redesign and set it up for success.
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.
Identify the need for governance in your organization and engage the leadership team in the redesign process.
Establish an engagement standard for the leadership of your organization in the IT governance redesign.
1.1 Identify stakeholders.
1.2 Make the case for improved IT governance.
1.3 Customize communication plan.
Stakeholder Power Map
Make the Case Presentation
Communication Plan
Create a mutual understanding with the business leaders of the current state of the organization and the state of business it is moving towards.
The understanding of the business context will provide an aligned foundation on which to redesign the IT governance framework.
2.1 Review documents.
2.2 Analyze frameworks.
2.3 Conduct brainstorming.
2.4 Finalize the Statement of Business Context.
PESTLE Analysis
SWOT Analysis
Statement of Business Context
Establish a baseline of the current governance framework.
Develop guidelines based off results from the current state that will guide the future state design.
3.1 Create committee profiles.
3.2 Build governance structure map.
3.3 Establish governance guidelines.
Current State Assessment
Redesign the governance structure and the committees that operate within it.
Build a future state of governance where the relationships and processes that are built drive optimal business results.
4.1 Build governance structure map.
4.2 Create committee profiles.
Future State Design
IT Governance Terms of Reference
Build a roadmap for implementing the governance redesign.
Create a transparent and relationship-oriented implementation strategy that will pave the way for a successful redesign implementation.
5.1 Identify next steps for the redesign.
5.2 Establish communication plan.
5.3 Lead executive presentation.
Implementation Plan
Executive Presentation
"Governance is something that is done externally to IT and well as internally by IT, with the intention of providing oversight to direct the organization to meet goals and keep things on target.
Optimizing IT governance is the most effective way to consistently direct IT spend to areas that provide the most value in producing or supporting business outcomes, yet it is rarely done well.
IT governance is more than just identifying where decisions are made and who has the authority to make them – it must also provide the context and criteria under which decisions are made in order to truly provide business value" (Valence Howden, Director, CIO Practice Info-Tech Research Group)
An enabling framework for decision-making context and accountabilities for related processes.
A means of ensuring business-IT collaboration, leading to increased consistency and transparency in decision making and prioritization of initiatives.
A critical component of ensuring delivery of business value from IT spend and driving high satisfaction with IT.
An annoying, finger-waving roadblock in the way of getting things done.
Limited to making decisions about technology.
Designed tacitly; it is purposeful, with business objectives in mind.
A one-time project; you must review and revalidate the efficiency.
Don’t blur the lines between governance and management; each has a unique role to play. Confusing these results in wasted time and confusion around ownership.
Governance |
![]() |
Management |
IT governance sets direction through prioritization and decision making, and monitors overall IT performance. Governance aligns with the mission and vision of the organization to guide IT. |
Management is responsible for executing on, operating, and monitoring activities as determined by IT governance. Management makes decisions for implementing based on governance direction. |
An IT governance framework is a system that will design structures, processes, authority definitions, and membership assignments that lead IT toward optimal results for the business.
"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)
The business should engage in IT governance and IT should influence the direction of the business.
Enterprise Governance |
IT Governance |
|
Authority for enterprise governance falls to the board and executive management. Responsibilities Include:
|
–› Engage in –› ‹– Influence ‹– |
Governance of IT is a component of enterprise governance. Responsibilities Include:
|
If you notice any of these signals, governance redesign is right for you!
The majority of organizations and their key stakeholders experience highly visible gaps in the alignment of IT investments and organizational goals.
88% of CIOs believe that their governance is not effective. (Info-Tech Diagnostics)
49% of firms are misaligned on current performance expectations for IT.
67% of firms are misaligned on the target role for IT.
Without business-IT fusion, IT will go in a different direction, leading to a divergence of purpose and outcomes. IT can transform into a fused partner of the business by ensuring that they govern toward the same goal.
Firefighter
|
![]() |
Business Partner
|
Info-Tech’s approach to governance redesign is rooted in COBIT, the world-class and open-source IT governance standard.
COBIT begins with governance, EDM – Evaluate, Direct, and Monitor.
We build upon these standards with industry best practices and add a practical approach based on member feedback.
This blueprint will help you optimize your governance framework.
The four phases of Info-Tech’s governance redesign methodology will help you drive greater value for the business.
Common Pitfalls |
Info-Tech Solutions |
||
Phase 1 |
There must be an active understanding of the current and future state of the business for governance to address the changing needs of the business. | –› |
|
Phase 2 |
Take a proactive approach to revising your governance framework. Understand why you are making decisions before actually making them. | –› |
|
Phase 3 |
Keep the current and future goals in sight to build an optimized governance framework that maintains the minimum bar of oversight required. | –› |
|
Phase 4 |
Don’t overlook the politics and culture of your organization in redesigning your governance framework. | –› |
|
These metrics will help you determine the extent to which your governance is supporting your business goals, and whether the governance in place promotes business-IT fusion.
While benefits of governance are often qualitative, the power of effective governance can be demonstrated through quantitative financial gains.
Scenario 1 – Realizing Expected Gains |
Scenario 2 – Mitigating Unexpected Losses |
|
Metric |
Track the percentage of initiatives that provided expected ROI year over year. The optimization of the governance framework should generate an increase in this metric. Monitor this metric for continuous improvement opportunities. | Track the financial losses related to non-compliance with policy or regulation. An optimized governance framework should better protect the organization against policy breach and mitigate the possibility and impact of “rogue” actions. |
Formula |
ROI of all initiatives / number of initiatives in year 2 – ROI of all initiatives / number of initiatives in year 1
The expected result should be positive. |
Cost of non-compliance in year 2 – cost of non-compliance in year 1
The expected result should be negative. |
The IT governance had been structured based on regulations and had not changed much since it was put in place. However, a move to become an integration and service focused organization had moved the organization into the world of web services, Agile development, and service-oriented architecture.
The existing process was well defined and entrenched, but did not enable rapid decision making and Agile service delivery. This was due to the number of committees where initiatives were reviewed, made worse by their lack of approval authority. This led to issues moving initiatives forward in the timeframes required to meet clinician needs and committed governmental deadlines.
In addition, the revised organizational mandate had created confusion regarding the primary purpose and function of the organization and impacted the ability to prioritize spend on a limited budget.
To complicate matters further, there was political sensitivity tied to the membership and authority of different governing committees.
The CEO decided that a project would be initiated by the Enterprise Architecture Group, but managed by an external consultant to optimize and restructure the governance within the organization.
The purpose of using the external consultant was to help remove internal politics from the discussion. This allowed the organization to establish a shared view of the organization’s revised mission and IT’s role in its execution.
The exercise led to the removal of one governing committee and the merger of two others, modification to committee authority and membership, and a refined decision-making context that was agreed to by all parties.
The redesigned governance process led to a 30% reduction in cycle time from intake to decision, and a 15% improvement in alignment of IT spend with strategic priorities.
Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.
This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.
This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.
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." |
Align IT With the Business Context |
Assess the Current State |
Redesign Governance |
Implement Redesign |
|
![]() Best-Practice Toolkit |
1.1 Identify Stakeholders
1.2 Make the Case 1.3 Present to Executives 1.4 Customize Comm. Plan 1.5 Review Documents 1.6 Analyze Frameworks 1.7 Conduct Brainstorming 1.8 Finalize the SoBC |
2.1 Create Committee Profiles
2.2 Build a Governance Structure Map 2.3 Establish Governance Guidelines |
3.1 Build Governance Structure Map
3.2 Create Committee Profiles 3.3 Leverage Process Specific Governance Blueprints |
4.1 Identify Next Steps for the Redesign
4.2 Establish Communication Plan 4.3 Lead Executive Presentation |
Guided Implementations |
|
|
|
|
![]() Onsite Workshop |
Module 1:
Align IT with the business context |
Module 2:
Assess the current governance framework |
Module 3:
Redesign the governance framework |
Module 4:
Implement governance redesign |
Phase 1 Results:
|
Phase 2 Results:
|
Phase 3 Results:
|
Phase 4 Results:
|
Workshop Day 1 |
Workshop Day 2 |
Workshop Day 3 |
Workshop Day 4 |
Workshop Day 5 |
|
| Task – Identify the Need for Governance | Task – Align IT with the Business Context | Task – Assess the Current State | Task – Redesign Governance Framework | Task – Implement Governance Redesign | |
Activities |
|
|
|
|
|
Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
|
Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.
| Step 1.1: Identify the Need for Governance | Step 1.2: Create the Statement of Business Context |
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
|
Review findings with analyst:
|
Then complete these activities…
|
Then complete these activities…
|
With these tools & templates:
|
With these tools & templates:
|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Align IT With the Business Context | Assess the Current Governance Framework | Redesign the Governance Framework | Implement Governance Redesign |
Fuse IT with the business by establishing a common context of what the business is trying to achieve. Align IT with the business by developing an understanding of the business state, creating a platform to build a well-aligned governance framework.
"IT governance philosophies can no longer be a ‘black box’ … IT governance can no longer be ignored by senior executives." (Iskandar and Mohd Salleh, University of Malaya, International Journal of Digital Society)
Get consensus on the changing state of business. There must be an active understanding of the current and future state of the business for governance to address the changing needs of the business.
"Without an awareness of IT governance, there is no chance that it will be followed … The higher the percentage of managers who can describe your governance, the higher the governance performance." (Jeanne Ross, Director, MIT Center for Information Systems Research)
The path you will choose for your governance buy-in tactics will be based on the original directive to redesign governance.
Enterprise Directive.
In the case that the redesign is an enterprise directive, jump directly to building a communication plan.
IT Directive.
In the case that the redesign is an IT directive, make the case to get the business on board.
Use the Make the Case customizable deliverable to lead a boardroom-quality presentation proving the specific need for senior executive involvement in the governance redesign.
It is vital to identify key business and IT stakeholders before the IT governance redesign has begun. Consider whose input and influence will be necessary in order to align with the business context and redesign the governance framework accordingly.
Stakeholders may have competing concerns – that is, concerns that cannot be addressed with one solution. The governance redesigner must prioritize their time to address the concerns of the stakeholders who have the most power and who are most impacted by the IT governance redesign.
Draw a stakeholder power map to visualize the importance of various stakeholders and their concerns, and to help prioritize your time with those stakeholders.
Download Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Power Map Template to help you visualize your key stakeholders.
1.1
It is important to identify who will be impacted and who has power, and the level of involvement they have in the governance redesign. If they have power, will be highly impacted, and are not involved in governance, you have already lost – because they will resist later. You need to get them involved early.

INPUT: Signal Questions, CIO-CXO Alignment Diagnostic
OUTPUT: List of Categorized Pain Points
Materials: Make the Case for an IT Governance Redesign
Participants: Identified Key Business Stakeholders
See the CEO-CIO Alignment Program for more information.
The CEO-CIO Alignment Program helps you understand the gaps between what the CEO wants for IT and what the CIO wants for IT. The program will also evaluate the current state of IT, from a strategic and tactical perspective, based on the CEO’s opinion.
The CEO-CIO Alignment Program helps to:
To conduct the CEO-CIO Alignment Program, follow the steps outlined below.
See the CEO-CIO Alignment Program for more information.
1.3 30 minutes
Use the Make the Case for an IT Governance Redesign template for more information.
1B Create a plan to engage the key stakeholders
Create personal communication plans to provide individualized engagement, instead of assuming that everyone will respond to the same communication style.
Download the IT Governance Stakeholder Communication Planning Tool for more information.
Stakeholder role |
Power map position |
Why inform them |
When to inform them |
What we need from them |
| Chief Executive Officer | ||||
| Chief Financial Officer | ||||
| Chief Operating Officer |
Vehicle |
Audience |
Purpose |
Frequency |
Owner |
Distribution |
Level of detail |
| Status Report | IT Managers | Project progress and deliverable status | Weekly | CIO, John Smith | Details for milestones, deliverables, budget, schedule, issues, next steps | |
| Status Report | Marketing Manager | Project progress | Monthly | CIO, John Smith | High-level detail for major milestone update and impact to the marketing unit |
1C Document the mutual understanding of the business context
Use the Statement of Business Context customizable deliverable as a point of reference that will guide the direction of the governance redesign.
Components of the SoBC
|
![]() |
More Components of the SoBC
|
![]() |
|
![]() |
|
–› |
Work through if your organization’s state is small vs. large, public vs. private, and lean vs. DevOps vs. traditional. |
SmallIT team is 30 people or less. |
LargeIT team is more than 30 people. |
|
PublicWholly or partly funded by the government. |
PrivateNo government funding is provided. |
|
| Lean: The business aims to eliminate any waste of resources (time, effort, or money) by removing steps in the business process that do not create value. | Devops/Agile: Our organization aims to make quick decisions and navigate the fast-paced industry with agility. Uniting the development and operational sides of the business. | Hierarchical: Departments in the organization are siloed by function. The organization is top-down and hierarchical, and takes more time with decision making. |
‹– Multi-State (any combination) –› |
||
INPUT: Strategic Documents, Financial Documents
OUTPUT: Mission, Vision, Strategic Objectives
Materials: Corporate Documents
Participants: IT Governance Redesign Owner
Start assessing the state of the business context by leveraging easily accessible information. Many organization have strategic plans, documents, and presentations that already include a large portion of the information for the SoBC – use these sources first.
Some organizations (and business units) create an authoritative strategy document. These documents contain the organization’s corporate aspirations and outline initiatives, reorganizations, and shifts in strategy. Additionally, some documents contain strategic analysis (Porter’s Five Forces, etc.).
Departmental budgets highlight the new projects that will launch in the next fiscal year. The overwhelming majority of these projects will have IT implications. Additionally, identifying where the department is spending money will allow you to identify business unit initiatives and operational change.
1.6 2-4 hours
INPUT: Industry Research, Organizational Research, Analysis Templates
OUTPUT: PESTLE and SWOT Analysis
Materials: Computer or Whiteboards and Markers
Participants: IT Governance Redesign Owner
If corporate documents denoting the key components of the SoBC are not easily available, or do not provide all information required, refer to business analysis frameworks to discover internal and external trends that impact the mission, vision, strategic objectives, and state of the business.
Political |
Economic |
Social |
Technological |
Legal |
Environmental |
Strengths |
Weaknesses |
Opportunities |
Threats |
Political. Examine political factors such as taxes, environmental regulations, and zoning restrictions.
Economic Examine economic factors such as interest rates, inflation rate, exchange rates, the financial and stock markets, and the job market.
Social. Examine social factors such as gender, race, age, income, disabilities, educational attainment, employment status, and religion.
Technological. Examine technological factors such as servers, computers, networks, software, database technologies, wireless capabilities, and availability of software as a service.
Legal. Examine legal factors such as trade laws, labor laws, environmental laws, and privacy laws.
Environmental. Examine environmental factors such as green initiatives, ethical issues, weather patterns, and pollution.
Download Info-Tech’s PESTLE Analysis Template to help get started.
For each prompt below, always try to answer the question: how does this affect my business?
Break the group into two teams.
Assign team A internal strengths and weaknesses.
Assign team B external opportunities and threats.
| Helpful to achieve the objective |
Harmful to achieve the objective |
|
| Internal Origin attributes of the organization |
Strength | Weaknesses |
| External Origin attributes of the environment |
Opportunities | Threats |
Download Info-Tech’s Business SWOT Analysis Template to help get started.
INPUT: SoBC Template
OUTPUT: Completed SoBC
Materials: Computer, Phone, or Other Mechanism of Connection
Participants: CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, CHRO, and Business Unit Owners
Use the SoBC as the guide to both the interview and the survey. Be clear about the purpose of understanding the business context when connecting with key business stakeholders to participate in the brainstorming. This is a perfect opportunity to establish or develop a relationship with the stakeholders who will need to buy into the redesigned governance framework since it will involve and impact them significantly.
Talking to key stakeholders will allow you to get a holistic view of the business strategy. You will be able to ask follow-up questions to get a better understanding of abstract or complex concepts. Interviews also allow you to have targeted discussions with specific stakeholders who have in-depth subject-matter knowledge.
Document any project assumptions or constraints. Before proceeding with the IT governance activities, validate the statement of business context with senior stakeholders. When consensus has been reached, have them sign the final page of the document.
Download the SoBC Template and complete for final approval.
In most circumstances, you should have the SoBC validated with the following stakeholders:
The new business direction to become an integrator shifted focus to faster software iteration and on enabling integration and translation technologies, while moving away from creating complete, top-to-bottom IT solutions to be leveraged by clinicians and patients.
Internal to the IT organization, this created a different in perspective on what was important to prioritize: foundational elements, web services, development, or data compliance issues. There was no longer agreement on which initiatives should move forward.
A series of mandatory meetings were held with key decision makers and SMEs within the organization in order to re-orient everyone on the overall purpose, goals, and outcomes of the organization.
All attendees were asked to identify what they saw as the mission and vision of the organization.
Finally, clinicians and patient representatives were brought in to describe how they were going to use the services the organization was providing and how it would enable better patient outcomes.
Identifying the purpose of the work the IT organization was doing and how the services were going to be used realigned the different perspectives in the context of the healthcare outcomes they enabled.
This activity provided a unifying view of the purpose and the state of the business. Understanding the business context prepared the organization to move forward with the governance redesign.
![]() |
|
1.1 |
![]() |
Identify Relevant Stakeholders
Build a list of relevant stakeholders and identify their position on the stakeholder power map. |
1.4 |
![]() |
Communication Plan
Build customized communication plans to engage the key stakeholders in IT governance redesign. |
1.7 |
![]() |
Gather Business Information
Review business documents, leverage business analysis tools, and brainstorm with key executives to document the Statement of Business Context. |
1.8 |
![]() |
Finalize the Statement of Business Context
Get final approval and acceptance on the Statement of Business Context that will guide your redesign. |
Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.
Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.
| Step 2.1: Outline the Current State Assessment | Step 2.2: Review the Current State Assessment |
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
| Review findings with analyst:
|
Then complete these activities…
| Then complete these activities…
|
With these tools & templates:
| With these tools & templates:
|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Align IT With the Business Context | Assess the Current Governance Framework | Redesign the Governance Framework | Implement Governance Redesign |
Don’t be passive; take action! Take an active approach to revising your governance framework. Understand why you are making decisions before actually making them.
"Much of the focus of governance today has been on the questions:
|
–› | "We need to shift to…
|
Download the Current State Assessment of IT Governance to work toward these outcomes
How to use the Current State Assessment of IT Governance deliverable: Follow the steps below to create a cohesive understanding of the current state of IT governance and the challenges that the current system poses.
Part A – Committee Profiles
|
Part B – Structure Map
|
Part C – Governance Guidelines
|
|
Membership Roles
Insert information here that reflects who the individuals are that sit on that governing body and what their role is. Include other important information about the individuals’ knowledge, skills, or capabilities that are relevant.
Purpose
Define why the committee was established in the first place.
Decision Areas
Explain the specific areas of decision making this group is responsible for overseeing.
Inputs
Consider the information and materials that are needed to make decisions.
Outputs
Describe the outcomes of the committee. Think about decisions that were made through the governance process.
Governing Bodies |
Inputs |
Outputs |
| Committee #1 | ||
| Committee #2 | ||
| Committee #3 | ||
| CFO | ||
| IT Director | ||
| CIO |
Using the outline provided, create your own governance structure map to represent the way the governing bodies interact and feed into each other.
This is crucial to ensure that the governing structure is streamlined. It will ensure that communication occurs efficiently and that there are no barriers to making decisions swiftly.


Note: Refer to the example guidelines in the Current State Assessment of IT Governance after you have considered your own specific guidelines. The examples are supplementary for your convenience.1 | SmallIT team is 30 people or less. | LargeIT team is more than 30 people. | |
2 | PublicWholly or partly funded by the government. | PrivateNo government funding is provided. | |
3 | Lean: The business aims to eliminate any waste of resources (time, effort, or money) by removing steps in the business process that do not create value. | Devops: Our organization aims to make quick decisions and navigate the fast-paced industry with agility. Uniting the development and operational sides of the business. | Hierarchical: Departments in the organization are siloed by function. The organization is top-down and hierarchical, and takes more time with decision making. |
‹– Multi-State (any combination) –›Multi-State Example A: If you are small organization that is publicly funded and you are shifting towards a lean methodology, combine the implications of all those groups in a way that fits your organization. Multi-State Example B: Your organization is shifting from a more traditional state of operating to combining the development and operations groups. Use hierarchical implications to govern one group and DevOps implications for the other. | |||
2.3 2 hours
Consider:
*Example | Structure | Authority | Process | Membership |
Strength |
|
|
|
|
Weakness |
|
|
|
|
2.3 2-4 hours
*Example | Structure | Authority | Process | Membership |
Strength | ||||
Weakness | ||||
Implication / Guideline |
|
|
|
|
Note: Use the examples of guidelines provided in the Current State Assessment of IT Governance to help formulate your own.
Over time, the organization had to create a large amount of governing committees and subcommittees in order to comply with governance frameworks applied to them and to meet regulatory compliance requirements.
The current structure was no longer optimal to meet the newly identified mandate of the organization. However, the organization did not want to start from scratch and scrap the elements that worked, such as the dates and times that had been embedded into the organization.
A current state assessment was planned and executed in order to review what was currently being done and identify what could be retained and what should be added, changed, or removed to improve the governance outcomes.
The scope involved examining how current and near-term governance needs were, or were not, met through the existing structure, bodies, and their processes.
The organization investigated governance approaches of organizations with similar governance needs and with similar constraints to model their own.
The outputs of this exercise included:
These guidelines were used to drive recommendations for improvements to the governance structures and processes in the organization.
![]() |
|
2.1 |
![]() |
Create Current State Structure and Profiles
Take the time to clearly articulate the current governance framework of your organization. Outline the structure and build the committee profiles for the governing bodies in your organization. |
2.3 |
![]() |
Determine Strengths, Weaknesses, and Guidelines
Evaluate the strengths of your governance framework, the weaknesses that it exhibits, and the guidelines that will help maintain the strengths and alleviate the pains. |
Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.
Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.
| Step 3.1: Understand the Redesign Process | Step 3.2: Review Governance Structure | Step 3.3: Review Governance Committees |
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
|
Review findings with analyst:
|
Finalize phase deliverable:
|
Then complete these activities…
|
Then complete these activities…
|
Then complete these activities…
|
With these tools & templates:
|
With these tools & templates:
|
With these tools & templates:
|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Align IT With the Business Context | Assess the Current Governance Framework | Redesign the Governance Framework | Implement Governance Redesign |
Keep the current and future goals in sight to build an optimized governance framework that maintains the minimum bar of oversight required.
Download the Future State Design for IT Governance template to work toward these outcomes.
How to use the Future State Design for IT Governance deliverable: Follow the steps below to redesign the future state of IT governance. Use the guidelines to respond to challenges identified in the current governance framework based on the current state assessment.
Part A – Structure Map |
Part B – Committee Profiles |
||
| 1a. Input Structural Guidelines | 1b. Input Authority Guidelines | 1a. Input Process Guidelines | 1b. Input Member Guidelines |
| 2. Guiding Questions
Do governing bodies operate at a tier that matches the guidelines? |
Do governing bodies focus on the decisions that align with the guidelines? |
2. Guiding Questions
Do the process inputs and outputs reflect the structure and authority guidelines? |
Do governing bodies engage the right people who have the roles, capacity, and knowledge to govern? |
| 3. Add / Change (Tier/Authority) / Remove Governing Bodies – Structure |
3. Adapt / Refine Governing Bodies – Profiles |
||
| 4. Use the Structure Map to Show Redesign | Use the IT Governance Terms of Reference for Redesign | ||
The future state design will reflect the state of business that was identified in Phase 1 along with the guidelines defined in Phase 2 to build a governance framework that promotes business-IT fusion.
| Statement of Business Context | –› | Current State Assessment |
Identified Future Business StateStructureAuthorityLeverage the structure and authority guidelines to build the governance structure. |
Defined Governance GuidelinesProcessMembershipLeverage the process and membership guidelines to build the governance committees. |
|
| Future State Design | ||
3A.1 Redesign the governance frameworks
Structure | Authority |
| 1a. Structural Guidelines | 1b. Authority Guidelines |
| Input the guidelines from the current state assessment to guide the redesign. | |
2. Leverage Guiding QuestionsUse the guiding questions provided to assess the needed changes. | |
| Guiding Questions | Do governing bodies focus on the decisions that align with the guidelines? |
| Build the “where/why” of governance. Consider at what tier each committee will reside and what area of governance will be part of its domain. Modify the current structure; do not start from scratch. | |
3. Add / Change (Tier/Authority) / Remove | |
| Determine changes to structure or authority that will be occurring for each of the current governing bodies. Work within the current structure as much as possible. | ![]() |
4. Use the Structure Map to Show Redesign | |
| Create your own governance structure map to represent the way the governing bodies interact and feed into each other. | ![]() |
3.1 2-4 hours
Keep the number of added or removed committees as low as possible, while still optimizing. The less change to the structure, the easier it will be to implement.
All Governing Bodies |
Add |
Change |
Remove |
| ITSC | Structure Authority |
Delegate the authority of portfolio investment decisions over $200K to this body | |
| Portfolio Review Board | This committee no longer needs to exist since its authority of portfolio investment decisions over $200K has been redelegated | ||
| Risk and Compliance Committee | Create a new governing body to address increasing risk and compliance issues that face the organization |
Process |
Membership |
| 1a. Process Guidelines | 1b. Authority Guidelines |
| Input the guidelines from the current state assessment to guide the redesign. | |
2. Leverage Guiding QuestionsUse the guiding questions provided to assess the needed changes. |
|
| Guiding Questions
Do the process inputs and outputs reflect the structure and authority guidelines? |
Do governing bodies engage the right people who have the roles, capacity, and knowledge to govern? |
| Build the “what/how” of governance. Build out the process and procedures that each committee will use. | |
3. Adapt / Refine Governing Body ProfilesUsing your customized guidelines, create a profile for each committee. |
|
We have provided templates for some common committees. To make these committee profiles reflective of your organization, use the information you have gathered in your Current State Assessment of IT Governance guidelines. For a more detailed approach to building out specific charters for each committee refer to the IT Governance Terms of Reference. |
![]() ![]() |
3.2 3-6 hours
The people on the committee matter. Governance committee membership does not have to correspond with the organizational structure, but it should correspond with the purpose and decision areas of the governance structure.
Refer to the sections outlined below to build a committee charter for your governance committees. Four examples are provided in the tool and can be edited for your convenience. They are: Executive Management Committee, IT Steering Committee, Portfolio Review Board, and Risk and Compliance Committee.
Be sure to embed the domains of governance in the charters so that committees focus on the appropriate elements of benefits realization, risk optimization, and resource optimization.
Download the IT Governance Terms of Reference for more in-depth committee charters.
The effectiveness of the governance is reliant on the ability to work within operational dependencies that will exist in the governance framework. Consider these questions to guide the duration, frequency, and sequencing of your governing body meetings.
Frequency
Duration
Sequencing
| ![]() |
If there are specific areas of IT governance that you require further support on, refer to Info-Tech’s library of DIY blueprints, Guided Implementations, and workshops for further support. We cover IT governance in the following areas:
Enterprise Architecture Governance |
Service Portfolio Governance |
Security Governance |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
A multi-state business will face unique challenges in navigating the redesign process with the goal of combining all related business states in governance.
The multi-state business will not fit into one “box” – consider implications from the overlapping business states.
As business needs change, ensure that you establish triggers to reassess the design of your governance framework.
Identifying the committees and processes that should be in place in the target state required a lot of different inputs.
A number of high-profile senior management team members were still resistant to the overall idea of applying governance to their initiatives since they were clinician driven.
The approach and target state, including the implementation plan, had to be approved and built out.
The information pulled together from the current state assessment, including best practices and jurisdictional scans, were tied together with the updated mandate and future state, and a list of recommended improvements were documented.
The improvements were presented to the optimization committee and the governance committee members to ensure agreement on the approach and confirm the timeline for agreed improvements.
A future state mapping of the new committee structure was created, as well as the revised membership requirements, responsibilities, and terms of reference.
The approved recommendations were prioritized and turned into an implementation plan, with each improvement being assigned an owner who would be responsible for driving the effort to completion.
Integration points in other processes, like SDLC, where change would be required were highlighted and included in the implementation plan.
![]() |
|
3.1 |
![]() |
Redesign the Governance Structure
Identify committees that need to be added, ones that must be changed, and the no-longer-needed governing bodies in an optimized and streamlined structure. Draw it out in the governance structure map. |
3.2 |
![]() |
Redesign the Governing Bodies
Use the IT Governance Terms of Reference and the Committee Template to build a committee profile for each governing body identified. Use these activities to build out and establish the processes of the modified governing groups. |
Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.
Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.
| Step 4.1: Identify Steps for Implementation | Step 4.2: Finalized Implementation Plan |
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
|
Review findings with analyst:
|
Then complete these activities…
|
Then complete these activities…
|
With these tools & templates:
|
With these tools & templates:
|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Align IT With the Business Context | Assess the Current Governance Framework | Redesign the Governance Framework | Implement Governance Redesign |
Often high-level organizational changes create challenges. We will help you break down the barriers to optimal IT governance by addressing key obstacles.
Key Obstacles |
Solutions |
| Identifying Steps | The prioritization must be driven by the common view of what is important for the organization to succeed. Prioritize the IT governance next steps according to the value they are anticipated to provide to the business. |
| Communicating the Redesign | The redesign of IT governance will bring impactful changes to diverse stakeholders across the organization. This phase will help you plan communication strategies for the different stakeholders. |
Don’t overlook the politics and culture of your organization while redesigning your governance framework.
4A Create an implementation and communication plan
Download the IT Governance Implementation Plan to organize your customized implementation and communication plan.
4.1
INPUT: Tasks Identified in the Future State Design
OUTPUT: Identified Tasks for Implementation as Well as the Audience
Materials: N/A
Participants: IT Governance Redesign Owner
Keep these questions in mind as you analyze and assess what steps to take first in the redesign implementation.
While there are other methods to implementing change, the big-bang approach is the most effective for governance redesign and will maintain the momentum of the change as well as the support needed to make it successful.
Phased |
Parallel |
Big Bang |
Implementation of redesign occurs in steps over a significant period of time. ![]() |
Components of the redesign are brought into the governance framework, while maintaining some of the old components. ![]() |
Implementation of redesign occurs all at once. This requires significant preparation. ![]() |
|
|
|
4.2 1 hour

Plan the message first, then deliver it to your stakeholders through the most appropriate medium to avoid message avoidance or confusion.
Face-to-face communication helps to ensure that the audience is receiving and understanding a clear message, and allows them to voice their concerns and clarify any confusion or questions.
Use email to communicate information to broad audiences. In addition, use email as the mass feedback mechanism.
Use an internal website or drive as an information repository.
4B Present the redesign to the key business stakeholders
Use the Executive Presentation customizable deliverable to lead a boardroom-quality presentation outlining the process and outcomes of the IT governance redesign.
4.3 1 hour
Use the Redesign IT Governance to Drive Optimal Business Results Executive Presentation Template for more information.
Members of the project management group and in the larger SDLC process identified a lack of clarity on how to best govern active projects and initiatives that were moving through the governance process during the changes to the governance framework.
These projects had already begun under the old frameworks and applying the redesigned governance framework would lead to work duplication and wasted time.
The organization decided that instead of applying the redesign to all initiatives across the organization, it would only be applied to new initiatives and ones that were still working within the first part of the “gating” process, where revised intake information could still be provided.
Active initiatives that fell into the grandfathered category were identified and could proceed based on the old process. Yet, those that did not receive this status were provided carry-over lead time to revise their documentation during the changes.
The implementation plan and timeframes were approved and an official change-over date identified.
A communication plan was provided, including the grandfathered approach to be used with in-flight initiatives.
A review cycle was also established for three months after launch to ensure the process was working as expected and would be repeated annually.
The revised process improved the cycle time by 30% and improved the ability of the organization to govern high-speed requests and decisions.
![]() |
|
4.1 |
![]() |
Build and Deploy the Implementation Plan
Construct a list of tasks and consider the individuals or groups that those tasks will impact when implementing the governance redesign. Ensure consistent and transparent communication for successful outcomes. |
4.3 |
![]() |
Build the Executive Presentation
Insert the state of business, current state, and future state design outcomes into a presentation to inform the key business stakeholders on the process and outcomes of the governance redesign. |
Deborah Eyzaguirre, IT Business Relationship Manager, UNT System
Herbert Kraft, MIS Manager, Prairie Knights Casino
Roslyn Kaman, CFO, Miles Nadal JCC
Nicole Haggerty, Associate Professor of Information Systems, Ivey Business School
Chris Austin, CTO, Ivey Business School
Adriana Callerio, IT Director Performance Management, Molina Healthcare Inc.
Joe Evers, Consulting Principal, JcEvers Consulting Corp
Huw Morgan, IT Research Executive
Joy Thiele, Special Projects Manager, Dunns Creek Baptist Church
Rick Daoust, CIO, Cambrian College
A.T. Kearney. “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Governance.” A.T. Kearney, 2008. Web. Nov. 2016.
Bertolini, Phil. “The Transformational Effect of IT Governance.” Government Finance Review, Dec. 2012. Web. Nov. 2016.
CGI. “IT Governance and Managed Services – Creative a win-win relationship” CGI Group Inc., 2015. Web. Dec. 2016.
De Haes, Steven, and Wim Van Grembergen. “An Exploratory Study into the Design of an IT Governance Minimum Baseline through Delphi Research.” Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 22 , Article 24. 2008. Web. Nov. 2016.
Deloitte LLP. “The Role of Senior Leaders in IT Governance.” The Wall Street Journal, 22 Jun. 2015. Web. Oct. 2016.
Dragoon, Alice. “Four Governance Best Practices.” CIO From IDG, 15 Aug. 2003. Web. Dec. 2016.
du Preez, Gert. “Company Size Matters: Perspectives on IT Governance.” PricewaterhouseCoopers, Aug. 2011. Web. Nov. 2016.
Hagen, Christian, et. al. “Building a Capability-Driven IT Organization.” A.T. Kearney, Jun. 2011. Web. Nov. 2016.
Heller, Martha. “Five Best Practices for IT Governance.” CFO.com, 27 Aug. 2012. Web. Oct. 2016.
Hoch, Detlev, and Payan, Miguel. “Establishing Good IT Governance in the Public Sector.” McKinsey Dusseldorf, Mar. 2008. Web. Oct. 2016.
Horne, Andrew, and Brian Foster. “IT Governance Is Killing Innovation.” Harvard Business Review, 22 Aug. 2013. Web. Dec. 2016.
ISACA. “COBIT 5: Enabling Processes.” ISACA, 2012. Web. Oct. 2016.
IT Governance Institute. “An Executive View of IT Governance.” IT Governance Institute, in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers. 2009. Web. Nov. 2016.
IT Governance Institute. “IT Governance Roundtable: Defining IT Governance.” IT Governance Institute, 2009. Web. Nov. 2016.
Macgregor, Stuart. “The linchpin between Corporate Governance and IT Governance.” The Open Group’s EA Forum Johannesburg and Cape Town, Nov. 2013. Web. Nov. 2016.
Mallette, Debra. “Implementing IT Governance An Introduction.” ISACA San Francisco Chapter, 23 Sep. 2009. Web. Oct. 2016.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “IT Governance Introduction.” MIT Centre for Information System Research, 2016. Web. Nov. 2016.
Mueller, Lynn, et. al. “IBM IT Governance Approach – Business Performance through IT Execution.” IBM Redbooks, Feb. 2008. Web. Nov. 2016.
National Computing Centre. “IT Governance: Developing a successful governance strategy.” The National Computing Centre, Nov. 2005. Web. Oct. 2016.
Pittsburgh ISACA Chapter. “Practical Approach to COBIT 5.0.” Pittsburgh ISACA Chapter, 17 Sep. 2012. Web. Nov. 2016.
PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Great by governance: Improve IT performance and Value While Managing Risks.” PricewaterhouseCoopers, Nov. 2014. Web. Dec. 2016.
PricewaterhouseCoopers. “IT Governance in Practice: Insights from leading CIOs.” PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2006. Web. Nov. 2016.
Routh, Richard L. “IT Governance Part 1 of 2.” Online video clip. YouTube. The Institute of CIO Excellence, 01 Aug. 2012. Web. Nov. 2016.
Salleh, Noor Akma Mohd, et. al. “IT Governance in Airline Industry: A Multiple Case Study.” International Journal of Digital Society, Dec. 2010. Web. Nov. 2016.
Speckert, Thomas, et. al. “IT Governance in Organizations Facing Decentralization – Case Study in Higher Education.” Department of Computer and Systems Sciences. Stockholm University, 2014. Web. Nov. 2016.
Thorp, John. The Information Paradox—Realizing the Business Benefits of Information Technology. Revised Edition, McGraw Hill, 2003 (written jointly with Fujitsu).
Vandervost, Guido, et. al. “IT Governance for the CxO.” Deloitte, Nov. 2013. Web. Nov. 2016.
Weill, Peter, and Jeanne W. Ross. “IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results.” Boston: Harvard Business School, 2004. Print. Oct. 2016.
Wong, Daron, et. al. “IT Governance in Oil and Gas: CIO Roundtable, Priorities for Surviving and Thriving in Lean Times.” Online video clip. YouTube. IT Media Group, Jun. 2016. Web. Nov. 2016.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand the benefits of data valuation.
Learn about the data value chain framework and preview the step-by-step guide to start collecting data sources.
Mature your data valuation by putting in the valuation dimensions and metrics. Establish documented results that can be leveraged to demonstrate value in your data assets.
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.
Explain data valuation approach and value proposition.
A clear understanding and case for data valuation.
1.1 Review common business data sources and how the organization will benefit from data valuation assessment.
1.2 Understand Info-Tech’s data valuation framework.
Organization data valuation priorities
Capture data sources and data collection methods.
A clear understanding of the data value chain.
2.1 Assess data sources and data collection methods.
2.2 Understand key insights and value proposition.
2.3 Capture data value chain.
Data Valuation Tool
Leverage the data valuation framework.
Capture key data valuation dimensions and align with data value chain.
3.1 Introduce data valuation framework.
3.2 Discuss key data valuation dimensions.
3.3 Align data value dimension to data value chain.
Data Valuation Tool
Improve organization’s data value.
Continue to improve data value.
4.1 Capture data valuation metrics.
4.2 Define data valuation for continuous monitoring.
4.3 Create a communication plan.
4.4 Define a plan for continuous improvements.
Data valuation metrics
Data Valuation Communication Plan
This research is designed to help organizations who are preparing for a merger or acquisition and need help with:
The goal of M&A cybersecurity due diligence is to assess security risks and the potential for compromise. To succeed, you need to look deeper.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to master M&A cyber security due diligence, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing this project.
Consistent, high-quality disclosure of ESG practices is the means by which organizations can demonstrate they are acting responsibly and in the best interest of their customers and society. Organizations may struggle with these challenges when implementing an ESG reporting program:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This storyboard provides a three-phased approach to establishing a comprehensive ESG reporting framework to drive sustainable corporate performance. It will help you identify what to report, understand how to implement your reporting program, and review in-house and external software and tooling options.
The workbook allows IT and business leaders to document decisions as they work through the steps to establish a comprehensive ESG reporting framework.
This planning tool guides IT and business leaders in planning, prioritizing, and addressing gaps to build an ESG reporting program.
Use this template to create a presentation that explains the drivers behind the strategy, communicates metrics, demonstrates gaps and costs, and lays out the timeline for the implementation plan.
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Determine material ESG factors.
Learn how to identify your key stakeholders and material ESG risks.
1.1 Create a list of stakeholders and applicable ESG factors.
1.2 Create a materiality map.
List of stakeholders and applicable ESG factors
Materiality map
Define performance and reporting metrics.
Align your ESG strategy with key performance metrics.
2.1 Create a list of SMART metrics.
2.2 Create a list of reporting obligations.
SMART metrics
List of reporting obligations
Assess data and implementation gaps.
Surface data and technology gaps.
3.1 Create a list of high-priority data gaps.
3.2 Summarize high-level implementation considerations.
List of high-priority data gaps
Summary of high-level implementation considerations
Select software and tooling options and develop implementation plan.
Complete your roadmap and internal communication document.
4.1 Review tooling and technology options.
4.2 Prepare ESG reporting implementation plan.
4.3 Prepare the ESG reporting program presentation.
Selected tooling and technology
ESG reporting implementation plan
ESG reporting strategy presentation
The shift toward stakeholder capitalism cannot be pinned on one thing; rather, it is a convergence of forces that has reshaped attitudes toward the corporation. Investor attention on responsible investing has pushed corporations to give greater weight to the achievement of corporate goals beyond financial performance.
Reacting to the new investor paradigm and to the wider systemic risk to the financial system of climate change, global regulators have rapidly mobilized toward mandatory climate-related disclosure.
IT will be instrumental in meeting the immediate regulatory mandate, but their role is much more far-reaching. IT has a role to play at the leadership table shaping strategy and assisting the organization to deliver on purpose-driven goals.
Delivering high-quality, relevant, and consistent disclosure is the key to unlocking and driving sustainable corporate performance. IT leaders should not underestimate the influence they have in selecting the right technology and data model to support ESG reporting and ultimately support top-line growth.
Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst
Info-Tech Research Group
Donna Bales
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group
Your ChallengeYour organization needs to define a ESG reporting strategy that is driven by corporate purpose. Climate-related disclosure mandates are imminent; you need to prepare for them by building a sustainable reporting program now. There are many technologies available to support your ESG program plans. How do you choose the one that is right for your organization? |
Common ObstaclesKnowing how to narrow down ESG efforts to material ESG issues for your organization. Understanding the key steps to build a sustainable ESG reporting program. Assessing and solving for data gaps and data quality issues. Being aware of the tools and best practices available to support regulatory and performance reporting. |
Info-Tech’s ApproachLearn best-practice approaches to develop and adopt an ESG reporting program approach to suit your organization’s unique needs. Understand the key features, tooling options, and vendors in the ESG software market. Learn through analyst insights, case studies, and software reviews on best-practice approaches and tool options. |
Implementing a robust reporting program takes time. Start early, remain focused, and plan to continually improve data quality and collection and performance metrics
Environmental, social, and governance are the components of a sustainability framework that is used to understand and measure how an organization impacts or is affected by society as a whole.
Human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning since the middle of the twentieth century, have increased greenhouse gas concentration, resulting in observable changes to the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere. The “E” in ESG relates to the positive and negative impacts an organization may have on the environment, such as the energy it takes in and the waste it discharges.
The “S” in ESG is the most ambiguous component in the framework, as social impact relates not only to risks but also to prosocial behavior. It’s the most difficult to measure but can have significant financial and reputational impact on corporations if material and poorly managed.
The “G” in ESG is foundational to the realization of “S” and “E.” It encompasses how well an organization integrates these considerations into the business and how well the organization engages with key stakeholders, receives feedback, and is transparent with its intentions.
Organizational Reputation: Seventy-four percent of those surveyed were concerned that failing to improve their corporate ESG performance would negatively impact their organization’s branding and overall reputation in the market (Intelex, 2022).
Ethical Business Compliance: Adherence to well-defined codes of business conduct and implementation of anti-corruption and anti-bribery practices is a great way to distinguish between organizations with good/poor governance intentions.
Shifting Consumer Preferences: ESG metrics can also largely influence consumer preferences in buying behavior intentions. Research from McKinsey shows that “upward of 70 percent” of consumers surveyed on purchases in multiple industries said they would pay an additional 5 percent for a green product if it met the same performance standards as a nongreen alternative (McKinsey, 2019).
Responsible Supply Chain Management: The successful alignment of ESG criteria with supply chain operations can lead to several benefits (e.g. producing more sustainable product offerings, maintaining constructive relationships with more sustainability-focused suppliers).
Environmental Stewardship: The growing climate crisis has forced companies of all sizes to rethink how they plan their corporate environmental sustainability practices.
Compliance With Regulatory Guidelines: An increasing emphasis on regulations surrounding ESG disclosure rates may result in some institutional investors taking a more proactive stance toward ESG-related initiatives.
Sustaining Competitive Advantage: Given today’s globalized economy, many businesses are constantly confronted with environmental issues (e.g. water scarcity, air pollution) as well as social problems (e.g. workplace wellness issues). Thus, investment in ESG factors is simply a part of maintaining competitive advantage.
The perceived importance of ESG has dramatically increased from 2020 to 2023
In a survey commissioned by Schneider Electric, researchers categorized the relative importance of ESG planning initiatives for global IT business leaders. ESG was largely identified as a critical factor in sustaining competitive advantage against competitors and maintaining positive investor/public relations.
Source: S&P Market Intelligence, 2020; N=825 IT decision makers
“74% of finance leaders say investors increasingly use nonfinancial information in their decision-making.”
Source: EY, 2020
The Evolving Regulatory Landscape
Canada
United States
Europe
New Zealand
ESG reporting is the disclosure of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data via qualitative and quantitative reports.
It is how organizations make their sustainability commitments and strategies transparent to stakeholders.
For investors it provides visibility into a company's ESG activities, enabling them to align investments to their values and avoid companies that cause damage to the environment or are offside on social and governance issues.
Despite the growing practice of ESG reporting, reporting standards and frameworks are still evolving and the regulatory approach for climate-related disclosure is inconsistent across jurisdictions, making it challenging for organizations to develop a robust reporting program.
|
“Environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments are at the core a data problem.” Source: EY, 2022 |
Despite the commitment to support an ESG Initiative, less than a quarter of IT professionals say their organization can accurately report on the impact of its ESG initiatives, and 44% say their reporting on impacts is not accurate.
Reporting accuracy was even worse for reporting on carbon footprint with 46% saying their organization could not report on its carbon footprint accurately. This despite most IT professionals saying they are working to support environmental mandates.
Country Sustainability Scores (CSR) as of October 2021
Scores range from 1 (poor) to 10 (best)
Source: Robeco, 2021
Finland has ranked consistently as a leading sustainability performer in recent years. Finland's strongest ESG pillar is the environment, and its environmental ranking of 9.63/10 is the highest out of all 150 countries.
Brazil, France, and India are among the countries whose ESG score rankings have deteriorated significantly in the past three years.
Increasing political tensions and risks as well as aftershock effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. high inequality and insufficient access to healthcare and education) have severely impacted Brazil’s performance across the governance and social pillars of the ESG framework, ultimately causing its overall ESG score to drop to a CSR value of 5.31.
Canada has received worse scores for corruption, political risk, income inequality, and poverty over the past three years.
Taiwan has seen its rankings improve in terms of overall ESG scores. Government effectiveness, innovation, a strong semiconductor manufacturing market presence, and stronger governance initiatives have been sufficient to compensate for a setback in income and economic inequality.
Source: Robeco, 2021
Business Benefits
IT Benefits
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
|
Key deliverable: Executive PresentationLeverage this presentation deck to improve corporate performance by implementing a holistic and proactive ESG reporting program. |
|
WorkbookAs you work through the activities, use this workbook to document decisions and rationale and to sketch your materiality map. |
|
Implementation PlanUse this implementation plan to address organizational, technology, and tooling gaps. |
|
RFP TemplateLeverage Info-Tech’s RFP Template to source vendors to fill technology gaps. |
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."
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.
Day 1 |
Day 2 |
Day 3 |
Day 4 |
Day 5 |
|
Activities |
Determine Material ESG Factors 1.1 Review ESG drivers. |
Define Performance and Reporting Metrics 2.1 Understand common program metrics for each ESG component. |
Assess Data and Implementation Gaps 3.1 Assess magnitude and prioritize data gaps. |
Software and Tooling Options 4.1 Review technology options. |
Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite) 5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days. |
Deliverables |
1. Customized list of key stakeholders and material ESG risks
|
1. SMART metrics
|
1. High-priority data gaps
|
1. Technology and tooling opportunities
|
1. ESG Reporting Workbook
|
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com
1-888-670-8889
This phase will walk you through the following:
This phase involves the following participants: CIO, CCO, CSO, business leaders, legal, marketing and communications, head of ESG reporting, and any dedicated ESG team members
Measuring and tracking incremental change among dimensions such as carbon emissions reporting, governance, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requires organizations to acquire, analyze, and synthesize data from beyond their internal organizational ecosystems
This section will walk you through some key considerations for establishing your ESG reporting strategy. The first step in this process is to identify the scope of your reporting program.
Evaluate your stakeholder landscape
Consider each of these areas of the ESG Stakeholder Wheel and identify your stakeholders. Once stakeholders are identified, consider how the ESG factors might be perceived by delving into the ESG factors that matter to each stakeholder and what drives their behavior.
Determine ESG impact on stakeholders
Review materiality assessment frameworks for your industry to surface ESG factors for your segment and stakeholder group(s).
Perform research and analysis of the competition and stakeholder trends, patterns, and behavior
Support your findings with stakeholder interviews.
27%: Support for social and environmental proposals at shareholder meetings of US companies rose to 27% in 2020 (up from 21% in 2017).
Source: Sustainable Investments Institute, 2020.
79%: of investors consider ESG risks and opportunities an important factor in investment decision making.
Source: “Global Investor Survey,” PwC, 2021.
33%: of survey respondents cited that a lack of attention or support from senior leadership was one of the major barriers preventing their companies from making any progress on ESG issues.
Source: “Consumer Intelligence Survey,” PwC, 2021.
To succeed with ESG reporting it is essential to understand who we hold ourselves accountable to and to focus ESG efforts in areas with the optimal balance between people, the planet, and profits
Input: Internal documentation (e.g. strategy, annual reports), ESG Stakeholder Wheel
Output: List of key stakeholders and applicable ESG factors
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders
Download the ESG Reporting Workbook
The concept of materiality as it relates to ESG is the process of gaining different perspectives on ESG issues and risks that may have significant impact (both positive and negative) on or relevance to company performance.
The objective of a materiality assessment is to identify material ESG issues most critical to your organization by looking at a broad range of social and environmental factors. Its purpose is to narrow strategic focus and enable an organization to assess the impact of financial and non-financial risks aggregately.
It helps to make the case for ESG action and strategy, assess financial impact, get ahead of long-term risks, and inform communication strategies.
Organizations can use assessment tools from Sustainalytics or GRI, SASB Standards, or guidance and benchmarking information from industry associations to help assess ESG risks .
The materiality assessment informs your risk management approach. Material ESG risks identified should be integrated into your organization’s risk reporting framework.
|
How you communicate the results of your ESG assessment may vary depending on whether you’re communicating to internal or external stakeholders and their communication delivery preferences. |
Using the results from your materiality assessment, narrow down your key stakeholders list. Enhance your strategy for disclosure and performance measurement through direct and indirect stakeholder engagement. Decide on the most suitable format to reach out to these stakeholders. Smaller groups lend themselves to interviews and forums, while surveys and questionnaires work well for larger groups. Develop relevant questions tailored to your company and the industry and geography you are in. Once you receive the results, decide how and when you will communicate them. Determine how they will be used to inform your strategy. |
Step 1Select framework
Review reporting frameworks and any industry guidance and select a baseline reporting framework to begin your materiality assessment. |
Step 2Begin to narrow down
Work with stakeholders to narrow down your list to a shortlist of high-priority material ESG issues. |
Step 3Consolidate and group
Group ESG issues under ESG components, your company’s strategic goals, or the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. |
Step 4Rate the risks of ESG factors
Assign an impact and likelihood scale for each risk and assign your risk threshold. |
Step 5Map
Use a material map framework such as GRI or SASB or Info-Tech’s materiality map to visualize your material ESG risks. |
The materiality assessment is a strategic tool used to help identify, refine, and assess the numerous ESG issues in the context of your organization.
There is no universally accepted approach to materiality assessments. Although the concept of materiality is often embedded within a reporting standard, your approach to conducting the materiality assessment does not need to link to a specific reporting standard. Rather, it can be used as a baseline to develop your own.
To arrive at the appropriate outcome for your organization, careful consideration is needed to tailor the materiality assessment to meet your organization’s objectives.
When defining the scope of your materiality assessment consider:
Consider your stakeholders and your industry when selecting your materiality assessment tool – this will ensure you provide relevant disclosure information to the stakeholders that need it.
Double materiality is an extension of the financial concept of materiality and considers the broader impact of an organization on the world at large – particularly to people and climate.
Using internal information (e.g. strategy, surveys) and external information (e.g. competitors, industry best practices), create a longlist of ESG issues.
Discuss and narrow down the list. Be sure to consider opportunities – not just material risks!
Group the issues under ESG components or defined strategic goals for your organization. Another option is to use the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to categorize.
Differentiate ESG factors that you already measure and report.
The benefit of clustering is that it shows related topics and how they may positively or negatively influence one another.
ESG risks are good predictors of future risks and are therefore key inputs to ensure long-term corporate success.
Regardless of the size of your organization, it’s important to build resilience against ESG risks.
To protect an organization against an ESG incident and potential liability risk, ESG risks should be treated like any other risk type and incorporated into risk management and internal reporting practices, including climate scenario analysis.
Some regulated entities will be required to meet climate-related financial disclosure expectations, and sound risk management practices will be prescribed through regulatory guidance. However, all organizations should instill sound risk practices.
ESG risk management done right will help protect against ESG mishaps that can be expensive and damaging while demonstrating commitment to stakeholders that have influence over all corporate performance.
Source: GreenBiz, 2022.
IT has a role to play to provide the underlying data and technology to support good risk decisions.
|
GRI’s Materiality Matrix
|
SASB’s Materiality Map
|
Info-Tech’s Materiality Map
|
Input: ESG corporate purpose or any current ESG metrics; Customer satisfaction or employee engagement surveys; Materiality assessment tools from SASB, Sustainalytics, GRI, or industry frameworks; Outputs from stakeholder outreach/surveys
Output: Materiality map, a list of material ESG issues
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Participants from marketing and communications
Download the ESG Reporting Workbook
Novartis, a leading global healthcare company based in Switzerland, stands out as a leader in providing medical consultancy services to address the evolving needs of patients worldwide. As such, its purpose is to use science and technologically innovative solutions to address some of society’s most debilitating, challenging, and ethically significant healthcare issues.
The application of Novartis’ materiality assessment process in understanding critical ESG topics important to their shareholders, stakeholder groups, and society at large enables the company to better quantify references to its ESG sustainability metrics.
Novartis applies its materiality assessment process to better understand relevant issues affecting its underlying business operations across its entire value chain. Overall, employing Novartis’s materiality assessment process helps the company to better manage its societal, environmental, and economic impacts, thus engaging in more socially responsible governance practices.
In 2021, Novartis had completed its most recent materiality assessment. From this engagement, both internal and external stakeholders had ranked as important eight clusters that Novartis is impacting on from an economic, societal, and environmental standpoint. The top four clusters were patient health and safety, access to healthcare, innovation, and ethical business practices.
Another benefit of the materiality assessment is that it helps to make the case for ESG action and provides key information for developing a purpose-led strategy.
An internal ESG strategy should drive toward company-specific goals such as green-house gas emission targets, use of carbon neutral technologies, focus on reusable products, or investment in DEI programs.
Most organizations focus on incremental goals of reducing negative impacts to existing operations or improving the value to existing stakeholders rather than transformative goals.
Yet, a strategy that is authentic and aligned with key stakeholders and long-term goals will bring sustainable value.
The strategy must be supported by an accountability and performance measurement framework such as SMART metrics.
Input: ESG corporate purpose or any current ESG metrics, Outputs from activities 1 and 2, Internally defined metrics (i.e. risk metrics or internal reporting requirements)
Output: SMART metrics
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Risk officer/Risk leaders, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Participants from marketing and communications
Download the ESG Reporting Workbook
Environmental
Social
Governance
Attach metrics to your goals to gauge the success of the ESG program.
Sample Metrics
High-level overview of reporting requirements:
Refer to your legal and compliance team for the most up-to-date and comprehensive requirements.
The focus of regulators is to move to mandatory reporting of material climate-related financial information.
There is some alignment to the TCFD* framework, but there is a lack of standardization in terms of scope across jurisdictions.
*TCFD is the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.
Input: Corporate strategy documents; Compliance registry or internal governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) tool
Output: A list of regulatory obligations
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders
Download the ESG Reporting Workbook
Once the scope of your ESG reporting framework has been identified, further assessment is needed to determine program direction and to understand and respond to organizational impact.
Reporting standards are available to enable relevant, high-quality, and comparable information. It’s the job of the reporting entity to decide on the most suitable framework for their organization.
The most established standard for sustainability reporting is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which has supported sustainability reporting for over 20 years.
The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was created by the Financial Stability Board to align ESG disclosure with financial reporting. Many global regulators support this framework.
The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is developing high-quality, understandable, and enforceable global standards using the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) as a baseline. It is good practice to use SASB Standards until the ISSB standards are available.
ESG ratings are provided by third-party agencies and are increasingly being used for financing and transparency to investors. ESG ratings provide both qualitative and quantitative information.
However, there are multiple providers, so organizations need to consider which ones are the most important and how many they want to use.
Some of the most popular rating agencies include Sustainalytics, MSCI, Bloomberg, Moody's, S&P Global, and CDP.
Reference Appendix Below
To meet ESG objectives, corporations are challenged with collecting non-financial data from across functional business and geographical locations and from their supplier base and supply chains.
One of the biggest impediments to ESG implementation is the lack of high-quality data and of mature processes and tools to support data collection.
An important step for delivering reporting requirements is to perform a gap analysis early on to surface gaps in the primary data needed to deliver your reporting strategy.
The output of this exercise will also inform and help prioritize implementation, as it may show that new data sets need to be sourced or tools purchased to collect and aggregate data.
Conduct a gap analysis to determine gaps in primary data
Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Data inventory (if exists), Output from Activity 1: Key stakeholders, Output from Activity 2: Materiality map, Output of Activity 3: SMART metrics, Output of Activity 4: Regulatory obligations
Output: List of high-priority data gaps
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts
Download the ESG Reporting Workbook
Source: “2023 Canadian ESG Reporting Insights,” PwC.
When implementing an ESG reporting framework, it is important not to implement in silos but to take a strategic approach that considers the evolving nature of ESG and the link to value creation and sound decision making.
“The future of sustainability reporting is digital – and tagged.”
Source: “XBRL Is Coming,” Novisto, 2022.
In the last few years, global regulators have proposed or effected legislation requiring public companies to disclose climate-related information.
Yet according to Info-Tech’s 2023 Trends and Priorities survey, most IT professionals expect to support environmental mandates but are not prepared to accurately report on their organization’s carbon footprint.
IT groups have a critical role to play in helping organizations develop strategic plans to meet ESG goals, measure performance, monitor risks, and deliver on disclosure requirements.
To future-proof your reporting structure, your data should be readable by humans and machines.
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) tagging is mandated in several jurisdictions for financial reporting, and several reporting frameworks are adopting XBRL for sustainability reporting so that non-financial and financial disclosure frameworks are aligned.
Example environmental metrics
“59% of businesses only talk about their positive performance, missing opportunities to build trust with stakeholders through balanced and verifiable ESG reporting.”
Source: “2023 Canadian ESG Reporting Insights,” PwC.
To date, regulatory focus has been on climate-related disclosure, although we are beginning to see signals in Europe and the UK that they are turning their attention to social issues.
Social reporting focuses on the socioeconomic impacts of an organization’s initiatives or activities on society (indirect or direct).
The “social” component of ESG can be the most difficult to quantify, but if left unmonitored it can leave your organization open to litigation from consumers, employees, and activists.
Although organizations have been disclosing mandated metrics such as occupational health and safety and non-mandated activities such as community involvement for years, the scope of reporting is typically narrow and hard to measure in financial terms.
This is now changing with the recognition by companies of the value of social reporting to brand image, traceability, and overall corporate performance.
Example social metrics
McDonald’s Corporation is the leading global food service retailer. Its purpose is not only providing burgers to dinner tables around the world but also serving its communities, customers, crew, farmers, franchisees, and suppliers alike. As such, not only is the company committed to having a positive impact on communities and in maintaining the growth and success of the McDonald's system, but it is also committed to conducting its business operations in a way that is mindful of its ESG commitments.
McDonald’s Better Together: Gender Balance & Diversity strategy and Women in Tech initiative
In 2019, MCD launched its Better Together: Gender Balance & Diversity strategy as part of a commitment to improving the representation and visibility of women at all levels of the corporate structure by 2023.
In conjunction with the Better Together strategy, MCD piloted a “Women in Tech” initiative through its education and tuition assistance program, Archways to Opportunity. The initiative enabled women from company-owned restaurants and participating franchisee restaurants to learn skills in areas such as data science, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence. MCD partnered with Microsoft and Colorado Technical University to carry out the initiative (McDonald’s, 2019).
Both initiatives directly correlate to the “S” of the ESG framework, as the benefits of gender-diverse leadership continue to be paramount in assessing the core strengths of a company’s overreaching ESG portfolio. Hence, public companies will continue to face pressure from investors to act in accordance with these social initiatives.
MCD’s Better Together and Women in Tech programs ultimately helped improve recruitment and retention rates among its female employee base. After the initialization of the gender balance and diversification strategy, McDonald’s signed on to the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles to help accelerate global efforts in addressing the gender disparity problem.
Strong governance is foundational element of a ESG program, yet governance reporting is nascent and is often embedded in umbrella legislation pertaining to a particular risk factor.
A good example of this is the recent proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US (CFR Parts 229, 232, 239, 240, and 249, Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure), which will require public companies to:
The "G” component includes more than traditional governance factors and acts as a catch-all for other important ESG factors such as fraud, cybersecurity, and data hygiene. Make sure you understand how risk may manifest in your organization and put safeguards in place.
Example governance metrics
The "G" in ESG may not be capturing the limelight under ESG legislation yet, but there are key governance factors that are that are under regulatory radar, including data, cybersecurity, fraud, and DEI. Be sure you stay on top of these issues and include performance metrics into your internal and external reporting frameworks.
48% of investment decision makers, including 58% of institutional investors, say companies’ self-reported ESG performance data is “much more important” than companies’ conventional financial data when informing their investment decisions (Benchmark ESG, 2021). |
Due to the nascent nature of climate-related reporting, data challenges such as the availability, usability, comparability, and workflow integration surface early in the ESG program journey when sourcing and organizing data:
In addition to good, reliable inputs, organizations need to have the infrastructure to access new data sets and convert raw data into actionable insights.
The establishment of data model and workflow processes to track data lineage is essential to support an ESG program. To be successful, it is critical that flexibility, scalability, and transparency exist in the architectural design. Data architecture must scale to capture rapidly growing volumes of unstructured raw data with the associated file formats.
Download Info-Tech’s Create and Manage Enterprise Data Models blueprint
Building and operating an ESG program requires the execution of a large number of complex tasks.
IT leaders have an important role to play in selecting the right technology approach to support a long-term strategy that will sustain and grow corporate performance.
The decision to buy a vendor solution or build capabilities in-house will largely depend on your organization’s ESG ambitions and the maturity of in-house business and IT capabilities.
For large, heavily regulated entities an integrated platform for ESG reporting can provide organizations with improved risk management and internal controls.
Example considerations when deciding to meet ESG reporting obligations in-house
Executive leadership should take a more holistic and proactive stance to not only accurately reporting upon baseline corporate financial metrics but also capturing and disclosing relevant ESG performance metrics to drive alternative streams of valuation across their respective organizational environments.
Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Data inventory (if exists), Asset inventory (if exists), Output from Activity 5
Output: Summary of high-level implementation considerations
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts, Data and IT architect/leaders,
Download the ESG Reporting Workbook
Communication: Teams must have some type of communication strategy. This can be broken into:
Proximity: Distributed teams create complexity as communication can break down. This can be mitigated by:
Trust: Members should trust other members are contributing to the project and completing their required tasks on time. Trust can be developed and maintained by:
Your communication of ESG performance is intricately linked to corporate value creation. When designing your communications strategy, consider:
A recent BDC survey of 121 large companies and public-sector buyers found that 82% require some disclosure from their suppliers on ESG, and that's expected to grow to 92% by 2024.
Source: BDC, 2023
ESG's link to corporate performance means that organizations must stay on top of ESG issues that may impact the long-term sustainability of their business.
ESG components will continue to evolve, and as they do so will stakeholder views. It is important to continually survey your stakeholders to ensure you are optimally managing ESG risks and opportunities.
To keep ESG on the strategy agenda, we recommend that organizations:
Download The ESG Imperative and Its Impact on Organizations
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase involves the following participants: CIO, CCO, CSO, EA, IT application and data leaders, procurement, business leaders, marketing and communications, head of ESG reporting, and any dedicated ESG team members
Before sourcing any technology, it’s important to have a good understanding of your requirements.
Key elements to consider:
The importance of ESG is something that will need to be considered for most, if not every decision in the future, and having reliable and available information is essential. While the industry will continue to see investment and innovation that drives operational efficiency and productivity, we will also see strong ESG themes in these emerging technologies to ensure they support both sustainable and socially responsible operations.
With the breadth of technology Datamine already has addressing the ESG needs for the mining industry combined with our new technology, our customers can make effective and timely decisions through incorporating ESG data into their planning and scheduling activities to meet customer demands, while staying within the confines of their chosen ESG targets.
Chris Parry
VP of ESG, Datamine
Technological Solutions Feature Bucket |
Basic Feature Description |
Advanced Feature Description |
Natural language processing (NLP) tools |
Ability to use NLP tools to track and monitor sentiment data from news and social media outlets. |
Leveraging NLP toolsets can provide organizations granular insights into workplace sentiment levels, which is a core component of any ESG strategy. A recent study by MarketPsych, a company that uses NLP technologies to analyze sentiment data from news and social media feeds, linked stock price performance to workplace sentiment levels. |
Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) |
DLTs can help ensure greater reporting transparency, in line with stringent regulatory reporting requirements. |
DLT as an ESG enabler, with advanced capabilities such as an option to provide demand response services linked to electricity usage and supply forecasting. |
Cloud-based data management and reporting systems |
Cloud-based data management and reporting can support ESG initiatives by providing increased reporting transparency and a better understanding of diverse social and environmental risks. |
Leverage newfound toolsets such as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability – a SaaS offering that enables organizations to seamlessly record, report, and reduce their emissions on a path toward net zero. |
IoT technologies |
Integration of IoT devices can help enhance the integrity of ESG reporting through the collection of descriptive and accurate ESG metrics (e.g. energy efficiency, indoor air quality, water quality and usage). |
Advanced management of real-time occupancy monitoring: for example, the ability to reduce energy consumption rates by ensuring energy is only used when spaces and individual cubicles are occupied. |
In a recent survey of over 1,000 global public- and private-sector leaders, 87% said they see AI as a helpful tool to fight climate change.
Source: Boston Consulting Group
Technology providers are part of the solution and can be leveraged to collect, analyze, disclose, track, and report on the vast amount of data.
Increasingly organizations are using artificial intelligence to build climate resiliency:
And protect organizations from vulnerabilities:
Our definition: ESG reporting software helps organizations improve the transparency and accountability of their ESG program and track, measure, and report their sustainability efforts.
Key considerations for reporting software selection:
Adoption of ESG reporting software has historically been low, but these tools will become critical as organizations strive to meet increasing ESG reporting requirements.
In a recent ESG planning and performance survey conducted by ESG SaaS company Diligent Corporation, it was found that over half of all organizations surveyed do not publish ESG metrics of any kind, and only 9% of participants are actively using software that supports ESG data collection, analysis, and reporting.
Source: Diligent, 2021.
Understanding business needs through requirements gathering is the key to defining everything about what is being purchased. However, it is an area where people often make critical mistakes.
Poorly scoped requirementsFail to be comprehensive and miss certain areas of scope. Focus on how the solution should work instead of what it must accomplish. Have multiple levels of detail within the requirements that are inconsistent and confusing. Drill all the way down into system-level detail. Add unnecessary constraints based on what is done today rather than focusing on what is needed for tomorrow. Omit constraints or preferences that buyers think are obvious. |
Best practicesGet a clear understanding of what the system needs to do and what it is expected to produce. Test against the principle of MECE – requirements should be “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.” Explicitly state the obvious and assume nothing. Investigate what is sold on the market and how it is sold. Use language that is consistent with that of the market and focus on key differentiators – not table stakes. Contain the appropriate level of detail – the level should be suitable for procurement and sufficient for differentiating vendors. |
Download Info-Tech's Improve Requirements Gathering blueprint
Central Data Repository: Collection of stored data from existing databases merged into one location that can then be shared, analyzed, or updated.
Automatic Data Collection: Ability to automate data flows, collect responses from multiple sources at specified intervals, and check them against acceptance criteria.
Automatic KPI Calculations, Conversions, and Updates: Company-specific metrics can be automatically calculated, converted, and tracked.
Built-In Indicator Catalogs and Benchmarking: Provides common recognized frameworks or can integrate a catalog of ESG indicators.
Custom Reporting: Ability to create reports on company emissions, energy, and asset data in company-branded templates.
User-Based Access and Permissions: Ability to control access to specific content or data sets based on the end user’s roles.
Real-Time Capabilities: Ability to analyze and visualize data as soon as it becomes available in underlying systems.
Version Control: Tracking of document versions with each iteration of document changes.
Intelligent Alerts and Notifications: Ability to create, manage, send, and receive notifications, enhancing efficiency and productivity.
Audit Trail: View all previous activity including any recent edits and user access.
Encrypted File Storage and Transfer: Ability to encrypt a file before transmitting it over the network to hide content from being viewed or extracted.
Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Data inventory (if exists), Asset inventory (if exists), Output from Activity 5, Output from Activity 6,
Output: List of tooling options
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts, Data and IT architect/leaders
Download the ESG Reporting Workbook
Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Output from Activity 5, Output from Activity 6, Output from Activity 7
Output: ESG Reporting Implementation Plan
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Implementation Plan Template
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts, PMO, Data and IT architect/leaders
Download the ESG Reporting Implementation Plan Template
Input: Business (ESG) strategy, ESG Reporting Workbook, ESG reporting implementation plan
Output: ESG Reporting Presentation Template
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Presentation Template, Internal communication templates
Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of Marketing/ Communications, Business leaders, PMO
Since a purpose-driven ESG program presents a significant change in how organizations operate, the goals and intentions need to be understood throughout the organization. Once you have developed your ESG reporting strategy it is important that it is communicated, understood, and accepted. Use the ESG Reporting Presentation Template as a guide to deliver your story.
Download the ESG Reporting Presentation Template
This phase will provide additional material on Info-Tech’s expertise in the following areas:
Review Info-Tech’s process and understand how you can prevent your organization from leaking negotiation leverage while preventing vendors from taking control of your RFP.
Expert Analyst Guidance over5 weeks on average to select and negotiate software.
Save Money, Align Stakeholders, Speed Up the Process & make better decisions.
Use a Repeatable, Formal Methodology to improve your application selection process.
Better, Faster Results, guaranteed, included in membership.
You may be faced with multiple products, services, master service agreements, licensing models, service agreements, and more.
Use the Contract Review Service to gain insights on your agreements.
Consider the aspects of a contract review:
Validate that a contract meets IT’s and the business’ needs by looking beyond the legal terminology. Use a practical set of questions, rules, and guidance to improve your value for dollar spent.
Click here to book The Contract Review Service
Download blueprint Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements
The purpose of this section is to showcase various vendors and companies that provide software solutions to help users manage and prioritize their ESG reporting initiatives.
This section showcases the core capabilities of each software platform to provide Info-Tech members with industry insights regarding some of the key service providers that operate within the ESG vendor market landscape.
Info-Tech members who are concerned with risks stemming from the inability to sort and disseminate unstructured ESG data reporting metrics or interested in learning more about software offerings that can help automate the data collection, processing, and management of ESG metrics will find high-level insights into the ESG vendor market space.
The establishment of the Datamine ESG unit comes at the same time the mining sector is showing an increased interest in managing ESG and its component systems as part of a single scope.
With miners collecting and dealing with ever-increasing quantities of data and looking for ways to leverage it to make data-driven decisions that enhance risk management and increase profitability, integrated software solutions are – now more than ever – essential in supporting continuous improvement and maintaining data fidelity and data integrity across the entire mining value chain.
Key Features:
Benchmark ESG provides industry-leading ESG data management and reporting software that can assist organizations in managing operational risk and compliance, sustainability, product stewardship, and ensuring responsible sourcing across complex global operations.
Key Features:
PwC’s ESG Management Solution provides quick insights into ways to improve reporting transparency surrounding your organization’s ESG commitments.
According to PwC’s most recent CEO survey, the number one motivator for CEOs in mitigating climate change risks is their own desire to help solve this global problem and drive transparency with stakeholders.
Source: “Annual Global CEO Survey,” PwC, 2022.
Key Features:
ServiceNow ESG Management (ESGM) and reporting platform helps organizations transform the way they manage, visualize, and report on issues across the ESG spectrum.
The platform automates the data collection process and the organization and storage of information in an easy-to-use system. ServiceNow’s ESGM solution also develops dashboards and reports for internal user groups and ensures that external disclosure reports are aligned with mainstream ESG standards and frameworks.
We know that doing well as a business is about more than profits. One workflow at a time, we believe we can change the world – to be more sustainable, equitable, and ethical.
Source: ServiceNow, 2021.
Key Features:
|
The ESG Imperative and Its Impact on OrganizationsUse this blueprint to educate yourself on ESG factors and the broader concept of sustainability. Identify changes that may be needed in your organizational operating model, strategy, governance, and risk management approach. Learn about Info-Tech’s ESG program approach and use it as a framework to begin your ESG program journey. |
|
Private Equity and Venture Capital Growing Impact of ESG ReportIncreasingly, new capital has a social mandate attached to it due to the rise of ESG investment principles. Learn about how the growing impact of ESG affects both your organization and IT specifically, including challenges and opportunities, with expert assistance. |
Terms |
Definition |
Corporate Social Responsibility |
Management concept whereby organizations integrate social and environmental concerns in their operations and interactions with their stakeholders. |
Chief Sustainability Officer |
Steers sustainability commitments, helps with compliance, and helps ensure internal commitments are met. Responsibilities may extend to acting as a liaison with government and public affairs, fostering an internal culture, acting as a change agent, and leading delivery. |
ESG |
An acronym that stands for environment, social, and governance. These are the three components of a sustainability program. |
ESG Standard |
Contains detailed disclosure criteria including performance measures or metrics. Standards provide clear, consistent criteria and specifications for reporting. Typically created through consultation process. |
ESG Framework |
A broad contextual model for information that provides guidance and shapes the understanding of a certain topic. It sets direction but does not typically delve into the methodology. Frameworks are often used in conjunction with standards. |
ESG Factors |
The factors or issues that fall under the three ESG components. Measures the sustainability performance of an organization. |
ESG Rating |
An aggregated score based on the magnitude of an organization’s unmanaged ESG risk. Ratings are provided by third-party rating agencies and are increasingly being used for financing, transparency to investors, etc. |
ESG Questionnaire |
ESG surveys or questionnaires are administered by third parties and used to assess an organization’s sustainability performance. Participation is voluntary. |
Key Risk Indicator (KRI) |
A measure to indicate the potential presence, level, or trend of a risk. |
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) |
A measure of deviation from expected outcomes to help a firm see how it is performing. |
Materiality |
Material topics are topics that have a direct or indirect impact on an organization's ability to create, preserve, or erode economic, environmental, and social impact for itself and its stakeholder and society as a whole. |
Materiality Assessment |
A tool to identify and prioritize the ESG issues most critical to the organization. |
Risk Sensing |
The range of activities carried out to identify and understand evolving sources of risk that could have a significant impact on the organization (e.g. social listening). |
Sustainability |
The ability of an organization and broader society to endure and survive over the long term by managing adverse impacts well and promoting positive opportunities. |
Sustainalytics |
Now part of Morningstar. Sustainalytics provides ESG research, ratings, and data to institutional investors and companies. |
UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) |
An essential methodological foundation for how impacts across all dimensions should be assessed. |
Standard |
Definition and focus |
|
CDP |
CDP has created standards and metrics for comparing sustainability impact. Focuses on environmental data (e.g. carbon, water, and forests) and on data disclosure and benchmarking. Audience: All stakeholders |
|
Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) |
Heavy on corporate governance and company performance. Equal balance of economic, environmental, and social. Audience: All stakeholders |
|
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) |
International standards organization that has a set of standards to help organizations understand and communicate their impacts on climate change and social responsibility. The standard has a strong emphasis on transparency and materiality, especially on social issues. Audience: All stakeholders |
|
International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) |
Standard-setting board that sits within the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation. The IFRS Foundation is a not-for-profit, public-interest organization established to develop high-quality, understandable, enforceable, and globally accepted accounting and sustainability disclosure standards. Audience: Investor-focused |
|
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) |
Global partnership across sectors and industries that sets out 17 goals to achieve sustainable development for all. Audience: All stakeholders |
|
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) |
Industry-specific standards to help corporations select topics that may impact their financial performance. Focus on material impacts on financial condition or operating performance. Audience: Investor-focused |
|
Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD; created by the Financial Stability Board) |
Standards framework focused on the impact of climate risk on financial and operating performance. More broadly the disclosures inform investors of positive and negative measures taken to build climate resilience and make transparent the exposure to climate-related risk. Audience: Investors, financial stakeholders |
"2021 Global Investor Survey: The Economic Realities of ESG." PwC, Dec. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
"2023 Canadian ESG Reporting Insights." PwC, Nov. 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.
Althoff, Judson. "Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability: Empowering Organizations On Their Path To Net Zero." Microsoft Blog, 14 July 2021. Accessed May 2022.
"Balancing Sustainability and Profitability." IBM, Feb. 2022. Accessed June. 2022.
"Beyond Compliance: Consumers and Employees Want Business to Do More on ESG." PwC, Nov. 2021. Accessed July 2022.
Bizo, Daniel. "Multi-Tenant Datacenters and Sustainability: Ambitions and Reality." S&P Market Intelligence, Sept. 2020. Web.
Bolden, Kyle. "Aligning nonfinancial reporting with your ESG strategy to communicate long-term value." EY, 18 Dec. 2020. Web.
Carril, Christopher, et al. "Looking at Restaurants Through an ESG Lens: ESG Stratify – Equity Research Report." RBC Capital Markets, 5 Jan. 2021. Accessed Jun. 2022.
"Celebrating and Advancing Women." McDonald’s, 8 March 2019. Web.
Clark, Anna. "Get your ESG story straight: A sustainability communication starter kit." GreenBiz, 20 Dec. 2022, Accessed Dec. 2022.
Courtnell, Jane. “ESG Reporting Framework, Standards, and Requirements.” Corporate Compliance Insights, Sept. 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.
“Country Sustainability Ranking. Country Sustainability: Visibly Harmed by Covid-19.” Robeco, Oct. 2021. Accessed June 2022.
“Defining the “G” in ESG Governance Factors at the Heart of Sustainable Business.” World Economic Forum, June 2022. Web.
“Digital Assets: Laying ESG Foundations.” Global Digital Finance, Nov. 2021. Accessed April 2022.
“Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJCI) Index Family.” S&P Global Intelligence, n.d. Accessed June 2022.
"ESG in Your Business: The Edge You Need to Land Large Contracts." BDC, March 2023, Accessed April 2023.
“ESG Performance and Its Impact on Corporate Reputation.” Intelex Technologies, May 2022. Accessed July 2022.
“ESG Use Cases. IoT – Real-Time Occupancy Monitoring.” Metrikus, March 2021. Accessed April 2022.
Fanter, Tom, et al. “The History & Evolution of ESG.” RMB Capital, Dec. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
Flynn, Hillary, et al. “A guide to ESG materiality assessments.” Wellington Management, June 2022, Accessed September 2022
“From ‘Disclose’ to ‘Disclose What Matters.’” Global Reporting Initiative, Dec. 2018. Accessed July 2022.
“Getting Started with ESG.” Sustainalytics, 2022. Web.
“Global Impact ESG Fact Sheet.” ServiceNow, Dec. 2021. Accessed June 2022.
Gorley, Adam. “What is ESG and Why It’s Important for Risk Management.” Sustainalytics, March 2022. Accessed May 2022.
Hall, Lindsey. “You Need Near-Term Accountability to Meet Long-Term Climate Goals.” S&P Global Sustainable1, Oct. 2021. Accessed April 2022.
Henisz, Witold, et al. “Five Ways That ESG Creates Value.” McKinsey, Nov. 2019. Accessed July 2022.
“Integrating ESG Factors in the Investment Decision-Making Process of Institutional Investors.” OECD iLibrary, n.d. Accessed July 2022.
“Investor Survey.” Benchmark ESG, Nov. 2021. Accessed July 2022.
Jackson, Brian. Tech Trends 2023, Info-Tech Research Group, Dec. 2022, Accessed Dec. 2022.
Keet, Lior. “What Is the CIO’s Role in the ESG Equation?” EY, 2 Feb. 2022. Accessed May 2022.
Lev, Helee, “Understanding ESG risks and why they matter” GreenBiz, June 2022. Accessed Dec 2022.
Marsh, Chris, and Simon Robinson. “ESG and Technology: Impacts and Implications.” S&P Global Market Intelligence, March 2021. Accessed April 2022.
Martini, A. “Socially Responsible Investing: From the Ethical Origins to the Sustainable Development Framework of the European Union.” Environment, Development and Sustainability, vol. 23, Nov. 2021. Web.
Maher, Hamid, et al. “AI Is Essential for Solving the Climate Crisis.” Boston Consulting Group, 7 July 2022. Web.
“Materiality Assessment. Identifying and Taking Action on What Matters Most.” Novartis, n.d. Accessed June. 2022.
Morrow, Doug, et al. “Understanding ESG Incidents: Key Lessons for Investors.” Sustainalytics, July 2017. Accessed May 2022.
“Navigating Climate Data Disclosure.” Novisto, July 2022. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Nuttall, Robin, et al. “Why ESG Scores Are Here to Stay.” McKinsey & Company, May 2020. Accessed July 2022.
“Opportunities in Sustainability – 451 Research’s Analysis of Sustainability Perspectives in the Data Center Industry.” Schneider Electric, Sept. 2020. Accessed May 2022.
Peterson, Richard. “How Can NLP Be Used to Quantify ESG Analytics?” Refinitiv, Feb. 2021. Accessed June 2022.
“PwC’s 25th Annual Global CEO Survey: Reimagining the Outcomes That Matter.” PwC, Jan. 2022. Accessed June 2022.
“SEC Proposes Rules on Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure by Public Companies.” Securities and Exchange Commission, 9 May 2022. Press release.
Serafeim, George. “Social-Impact Efforts That Create Real Value.” Harvard Business Review, Sept. 2020. Accessed May 2022.
Sherrie, Gonzalez. “ESG Planning and Performance Survey.” Diligent, 24 Sept. 2021. Accessed July 2022.
“Special Reports Showcase, Special Report: Mid-Year Report on Proposed SEC Rule 14-8 Change.” Sustainable Investments Institute, July 2020. Accessed April 2022.
“State of European Tech. Executive Summary Report.” Atomico, Nov. 2021. Accessed June 2022.
“Top Challenges in ESG Reporting, and How ESG Management Solution Can Help.” Novisto, Sept. 2022. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Vaughan-Smith, Gary. “Navigating ESG data sets and ‘scores’.” Silverstreet Capital, 23 March 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.
Waters, Lorraine. “ESG is not an environmental issue, it’s a data one.” The Stack, 20 May 2021. Web.
Wells, Todd. “Why ESG, and Why Now? New Data Reveals How Companies Can Meet ESG Demands – And Innovate Supply Chain Management.” Diginomica, April 2022. Accessed July 2022.
“XBRL is coming to corporate sustainability Reporting.” Novisto, Aug. 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.
Chris Parry
VP of ESG, Datamine
Chris Parry has recently been appointed as the VP of ESG at Datamine Software. Datamine’s dedicated ESG division provides specialized ESG technology for sustainability management by supporting key business processes necessary to drive sustainable outcomes.
Chris has 15 years of experience building and developing business for enterprise applications and solutions in both domestic and international markets.
Chris has a true passion for business-led sustainable development and is focused on helping organizations achieve their sustainable business outcomes through business transformation and digital software solutions.
Datamine’s comprehensive ESG capability supports ESG issues such as the environment, occupational health and safety, and medical health and wellbeing. The tool assists with risk management, stakeholder management and business intelligence.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Use the information in this blueprint and Info-Tech’s Agile Contract Playbook-Checklist to review and assess your Agile contracts, ensuring that the provisions and protections are suitable for Agile contracts specifically.
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.
To understand Agile-specific contract clauses, to improve risk identification, and to be more effective at negotiating Agile contract terms.
Increased awareness of how Agile contract provisions are different from traditional or waterfall contracts in 12 key areas.
Understanding available options.
Understanding the impact of being too prescriptive.
1.1 Review the Agile Contract Playbook-Checklist.
1.2 Review 12 contract provisions and reinforce key learnings with exercises.
Configured Playbook-Checklist as applicable
Exercise results and debrief
Organizations are joining the wave and adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to unlock the value in their data and power their competitive advantage. But to succeed with these complex analytics programs, they need to begin by looking at their data – empowering their people to realize and embrace the valuable insights within the organization’s data.
The key to achieve becoming a data-driven organization is to foster a strong data culture and equip employees with data skills through an organization-wide data literacy program.
Data literacy is critical to the success of digital transformation and AI analytics. Info-Tech’s approach to creating a sustainable and effective data literacy program is recognizing it is:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Data literacy as part of the data governance strategic program should be launched to all levels of employees that will help your organization bridge the data knowledge gap at all levels of the organization. This research recommends approaches to different learning styles to address data skill needs and helps members create a practical and sustainable data literacy program.
Kick off a data awareness program that explains the fundamental understanding of data and its lifecycle. Explore ways to create or mature the data literacy program with smaller amounts of information on a more frequent basis.
“Digital transformation” and “data driven” are two terms that are inseparable. With organizations accelerating in their digital transformation roadmap implementation, organizations need to invest in developing data skills with their people. Talent is scarce and the demand for data skills is huge, with 70% of employees expected to work heavily with data by 2025. There is no time like the present to launch an organization-wide data literacy program to bridge the data knowledge gap and foster a data-driven culture.
Data literacy training is as important as your cybersecurity training. It impacts all levels of the organization. Data literacy is critical to success with digital transformation and AI analytics.
Principal Advisory Director, Data & Analytics Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
Your ChallengeOrganizations are joining the wave and adopting machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to unlock the value in their data and power their competitive advantage. But to succeed with these complex analytics programs, they need to begin by empowering their people to realize and embrace the valuable insights within the organization’s data. The key to becoming a data-driven organization is to foster a strong data culture and equip people with data skills through an organization-wide data literacy program. |
Common ObstaclesChallenges the data leadership is likely to face as digital transformation initiatives drive intensified competition:
|
Info-Tech's ApproachWe interviewed data leaders and instructors to gather insights about investing in data:
|
By thoughtfully designing a data literacy training program for the audience's own experience, maturity level, and learning style, organizations build the data-driven and engaged culture that helps them to unlock their data's full potential and outperform other organizations.
“Data literacy is the ability to read, work with, analyze, and communicate with data. It's a skill that empowers all levels of workers to ask the right questions of data and machines, build knowledge, make decisions, and communicate meaning to others.” – Qlik, n.d.
Source: Accenture, 2020.
Source: Qlik, 2022.
“[Data debt is] when you have undocumented, unused, incomplete, and inconsistent data,” according to Secoda (2023). “When … data debt is not solved, data teams could risk wasting time managing reports no one uses and producing data that no one understands.”
Signs of data debt when considering investing in data literacy:
of organizations say a backlog of data debt is impacting new data management initiatives.
of organizations say individuals within the business do not trust data insights.
of organizations are unable to become data-driven.
Source: Experian, 2020
Image source: Welocalize, 2020.
Data represents a discrete fact or event without relation to other things (e.g. it is raining). Data is unorganized and not useful on its own.
Information organizes and structures data so that it is meaningful and valuable for a specific purpose (i.e. it answers questions). Information is a refined form of data.
When information is combined with experience and intuition, it results in knowledge. It is our personal map/model of the world.
Knowledge set with context generates insight. We become knowledgeable as a result of reading, researching, and memorizing (i.e. accumulating information).
Wisdom means the ability to make sound judgments. Wisdom synthesizes knowledge and experiences into insights.
Data-driven culture refers to a workplace where decisions are made based on data evidence, not on gut instinct.
Phase Steps |
1. Define Data Literacy Objectives1.1 Understand organization’s needs 1.2 Create vision and objective for data literacy program |
2. Assess Learning Style and Align to Program Design2.1 Create persona and identify audience 2.2 Assess learning style and align to program design 2.3 Determine the right delivery method |
3. Socialize Roadmap and Milestones3.1 Establish a roadmap 3.2 Set key performance metrics and milestones |
Phase Outcomes |
Identify key objectives to establish and grow the data literacy program by articulating the problem and solutions proposed. |
Assess each audience’s learning style and adapt the program to their unique needs. |
Show a roadmap with key performance indicators to track each milestone and tell a data story. |
– Miro Kazakoff, senior lecturer, MIT Sloan, in MIT Sloan School of Management, 2021
By thoughtfully designing a data literacy training program personalized to each audience's maturity level, learning style, and experience, organizations can develop and grow a data-driven culture that unlocks the data's full potential for competitive differentiation.
We can learn a lot from each other. Literacy works both ways – business data stewards learn to “speak data” while IT data custodians understand the business context and value. Everyone should strive to exchange knowledge.
Avoid traditional classroom teaching – create a data literacy program that is learner-centric to allow participants to learn and experiment with data.
Aligning program design to those learning styles will make participants more likely to be receptive to learning a new skill.
A data literacy program isn’t just about data but rather encompasses aspects of business, IT, and data. With executive support and partnership with business, running a data literacy program means that it won’t end up being just another technical training. The program needs to address why, what, how questions.
A lot of programs don’t include the fundamentals. To get data concepts to stick, focus on socializing the data/information/knowledge/wisdom foundation.
Many programs speak in abstract terms. We present case studies and tangible use cases to personalize training to the audience’s world and showcase opportunities enabled through data.
"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 the project."
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3 | Session 4 | |
Activities | Define Data Literacy Objectives1.1 Review Data Culture Diagnostic results 1.2 Identify business context: business goals, initiatives 1.3 Create vision and objective for data literacy program | Assess Learning Style and Align to Program Design2.1 Identify audience 2.2 Assess learning style and align to program design 2.3 Determine the right delivery method | Build a Data Literacy Roadmap and Milestones3.1 Identify program initiatives and topics 3.2 Determine delivery methods 3.3 Build the data literacy roadmap | Operational Strategy to implement Data Literacy4.1 Identify key performance metrics 4.2 Identify owners and document RACI matrix 4.3 Discuss next steps and wrap up. |
Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
Foster Data-Driven Culture With Data Literacy
Input
|
Output
|
Materials
|
Participants
|
Contact your Info-Tech Account Representative for details on launching a Data Culture Diagnostic.
Input
| Output
|
Materials
| Participants
|
Data collected through Info-Tech’s Data Culture Diagnostic suggests three ways to improve data literacy:
think more can be done to define and document commonly used terms with methods such as a business data glossary.
think they can have a better understanding of the meaning of all data elements that are being captured or managed.
feel that they can have more training in terms of tools as well as on what data is available at the organization.
Source: Info-Tech Research Group's Data Culture Diagnostic, 2022; N=2,652
Start with real business problems in a hands-on format to demonstrate the value of data.
Treat data as a strategic asset to gain insight into our customers for all levels of organization.
"According to Forrester, 91% of organizations find it challenging to improve the use of data insights for decision-making – even though 90% see it as a priority. Why the disconnect? A lack of data literacy."
– Alation, 2020
Info-Tech provides various topics suited for a data literacy program that can accommodate different data skill requirements and encompasses relevant aspects of business, IT, and data.
Use discovery and diagnostics to understand users’ comfort level and maturity with data.
Foster Data-Driven Culture With Data Literacy
feel that training was too long to remember or to apply in their day-to-day work.
find training had insufficient follow-up to help them apply on the job.
Source: Grovo, 2018.
Input
| Output
|
Materials
| Participants
|
IT and data professionals need to understand the business as much as business needs to talk about data. Bidirectional learning and feedback improves the synergy between business and IT.
Choose a data role (e.g. data steward, data owner, data scientist).
Describe the persona based on goals, priorities, tenures, preferred learning style, type of work with data.
Identify data skill and level of skills required.
Tailor your data literacy program to meet your organization’s needs, filling your range of knowledge gaps and catering to different levels of users.
When it comes to rolling out a data literacy program, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Your data literacy program is intended to spread knowledge throughout your organization. It should target everyone from executive leadership to management to subject matter experts across all functions of the business.
The imaginative learner group likes to engage in feelings and spend time on reflection. This type of learner desires personal meaning and involvement. They focus on personal values for themselves and others and make connections quickly.
For this group of learners, their question is: why should I learn this?
The analytical learner group likes to listen, to think about information, and to come up with ideas. They are interested in acquiring facts and delving into concepts and processes. They can learn effectively and enjoy doing independent research.
For this group of learners, their question is: what should I learn?
The common sense learner group likes thinking and doing. They are satisfied when they can carry out experiments, build and design, and create usability. They like tinkering and applying useful ideas.
For this group of learners, their question is: how should I learn?
The dynamic learner group learns through doing and experiencing. They are continually looking for hidden possibilities and researching ideas to make original adjustments. They learn through trial and error and self-discovery.
For this group of learners, their question is: what if I learn this?
There are four common ways to learn a new skill: by watching, conceptualizing, doing, and experiencing. The following are some suggestions on ways to implement your data literacy program through different delivery methods.
Foster Data-Driven Culture With Data Literacy
For the Gantt chart:
Input
| Output
|
Materials
| Participants
|
Name |
Position |
| Andrea Malick | Advisory Director, Info-Tech Research Group |
| Andy Neill | AVP, Data and Analytics, Chief Enterprise Architect, Info-Tech Research Group |
| Crystal Singh | Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group |
| Imad Jawadi | Senior Manager, Consulting Advisory, Info-Tech Research Group |
| Irina Sedenko | Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group |
| Reddy Doddipalli | Senior Workshop Director, Info-Tech Research Group |
| Sherwick Min | Technical Counselor, Info-Tech Research Group |
| Wayne Cain | Principal Advisory Director, Info-Tech Research Group |
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
Session 1 |
Session 2 |
Session 3 |
Session 4 |
|
Activities |
Understand the WHY and Value of Data1.1 Business context, business objectives, and goals 1.2 You and data 1.3 Data journey from data to insights 1.4 Speak data – common terminology |
Learn about the WHAT Through Data Flow2.1 Data creation 2.2 Data ingestion 2.3 Data accumulation 2.4 Data augmentation 2.5 Data delivery 2.6 Data consumption |
Explore the HOW Through Data Visualization Training3.1 Ask the right questions 3.2 Find the top five data elements 3.3 Understand your data 3.4 Present your data story 3.5 Sharing of lessons learned |
Put Them All Together Through Data Governance Awareness4.1 Data governance framework 4.2 Data roles and responsibilities 4.3 Data domain and owners |
Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
Deliver measurable business value.
Key to building and fostering a data-driven culture.
Streamline your data management program with our simplified framework.
About Learning. “4MAT overview.” About Learning., 16 Aug. 2001. Web.
Accenture. “The Human Impact of Data Literacy,” Accenture, 2020. Web.
Anand, Shivani. “IDC Reveals India Data and Content Technologies Predictions for 2022 and onwards; Focus on Data Literacy for an Elevated data Culture.” IDC, 14 Mar. 2022. Web.
Belissent, Jennifer, and Aaron Kalb. “Data Literacy: The Key to Data-Driven Decision Making.” Alation, April 2020. Web.
Brown, Sara. “How to build data literacy in your company.” MIT Sloan School of Management, 9 Feb 2021. Web.
---. “How to build a data-driven company.” MIT Sloan School of Management, 24 Sept. 2020. Web.
Domo. “Data Never Sleeps 9.0.” Domo, 2021. Web.
Dykes, Brent. “Creating A Data-Driven Culture: Why Leading By Example Is Essential.” Forbes, 26 Oct. 2017. Web.
Experian. “10 signs you are sitting on a pile of data debt.” Experian, 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021. Web.
Experian. “2019 Global Data Management Research.” Experian, 2019. Web.
Knight, Michelle. “Data Literacy Trends in 2023: Formalizing Programs.” Dataversity, 3 Jan. 2023. Web.
Ghosh, Paramita. “Data Literacy Skills Every Organization Should Build.” Dataversity, 2 Nov. 2022. Web.
Johnson, A., et al., “How to Build a Strategy in a Digital World,” Compact, 2018, vol. 2. Web.
LifeTrain. “Learning Style Quiz.” EMTrain, Web.
Lambers, E., et al. “How to become data literate and support a data-drive culture.” Compact, 2018, vol. 4. Web.
Marr, Benard. “Why is data literacy important for any business?” Bernard Marr & Co., 16 Aug. 2022. Web.
Marr, Benard. “8 simple ways to enhance your data literacy skills.” Bernard Marr & Co., 16 Aug. 2022. Web/
Mendoza, N.F. “Data literacy: Time to cure data phobia” Tech Republic, 27 Sept. 2022. Web.
Mizrahi, Etai. “How to stay ahead of data debt and downtime?” Secoda, 17 April 2023. Web.
Needham, Mass., “IDC FutureScape: Top 10 Predictions for the Future of Intelligence.” IDC, 5 Dec. 2022. Web.
Paton, J., and M.A.P. op het Veld. “Trusted Analytics.” Compact, 2017, vol. 2. Web.
Qlik. “Data Literacy to be Most In-Demand Skill by 2030 as AI Transforms Global Workplaces.” Qlik., 16 Mar 2022. Web.
Qlik. “What is data literacy?” Qlik, n.d. Web.
Reed, David. Becoming Data Literate. Harriman House Publishing, 1 Sept. 2021. Print.
Salomonsen, Summer. “Grovo’s First-Time Manager Microlearning® Program Will Help Your New Managers Thrive in 2018.” Grovos Blog, 5 Dec. 2018. Web.
Webb, Ryan. “More Than Just Reporting: Uncovering Actionable Insights From Data.” Welocalize, 1 Sept. 2020. Web.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Lay the foundation for the BI strategy by detailing key business information and analyzing current BI usage.
Assess the maturity level of the current BI practice and envision a future state.
Create BI-focused initiatives to build an improvement 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.
Document overall business vision, mission, and key objectives; assemble project team.
Collect in-depth information around current BI usage and BI user perception.
Create requirements gathering principles and gather requirements for a BI platform.
Increased IT–business alignment by using the business context as the project starting point
Identified project sponsor and project team
Detailed understanding of trends in BI usage and BI perception of consumers
Refreshed requirements for a BI solution
1.1 Gather key business information (overall mission, goals, objectives, drivers).
1.2 Establish a high-level ROI.
1.3 Identify ideal candidates for carrying out a BI project.
1.4 Undertake BI usage analyses, BI user perception survey, and a BI artifact inventory.
1.5 Develop requirements gathering principles and approaches.
1.6 Gather and organize BI requirements
Articulated business context that will guide BI strategy development
ROI for refreshing the BI strategy
BI project team
Comprehensive summary of current BI usage that has quantitative and qualitative perspectives
BI requirements are confirmed
Define current maturity level of BI practice.
Envision the future state of your BI practice and identify desired BI patterns.
Know the correct migration method for Exchange Online.
Prepare user profiles for the rest of the Office 365 implementation.
2.1 Perform BI SWOT analyses.
2.2 Assess current state of the BI practice and review results.
2.3 Create guiding principles for the future BI practice.
2.4 Identify desired BI patterns and the associated BI functionalities/requirements.
2.5 Define the future state of the BI practice.
2.6 Establish the critical success factors for the future BI, identify potential risks, and create a mitigation plan.
Exchange migration strategy
Current state of BI practice is documented from multiple perspectives
Guiding principles for future BI practice are established, along with the desired BI patterns linked to functional requirements
Future BI practice is defined
Critical success factors, potential risks, and a risk mitigation plan are defined
Build overall BI improvement initiatives and create a BI improvement roadmap.
Identify supplementary initiatives for enhancing your BI program.
Defined roadmap composed of robust improvement initiatives
3.1 Create BI improvement initiatives based on outputs from phase 1 and 2 activities. Build an improvement roadmap.
3.2 Build an improvement roadmap.
3.3 Create an Excel governance policy.
3.4 Create a plan for a BI ambassador network.
Comprehensive BI initiatives placed on an improvement roadmap
Excel governance policy is created
Internal BI ambassadors are identified
As the reporting and analytics space matured over the last decade, software suppliers used different terminology to differentiate their products from others’. This caused a great deal of confusion within the business communities.
Following are two definitions of the term Business Intelligence:
Business intelligence (BI) leverages software and services to transform data into actionable insights that inform an organization’s strategic and tactical business decisions. BI tools access and analyze data sets and present analytical findings in reports, summaries, dashboards, graphs, charts, and maps to provide users with detailed intelligence about the state of the business.
The term business intelligence often also refers to a range of tools that provide quick, easy-to-digest access to insights about an organization's current state, based on available data.
Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the data analysis of business information. BI technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations.
Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, process mining, complex event processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics.
We need data to inform the business of past and current performance and to support strategic decisions. But we can also drown in a flood of data. Without a clear strategy for business intelligence, a promising new solution will produce only noise.
BI and Analytics teams must provide the right quantitative and qualitative insights for the business to base their decisions on.
Your Business Intelligence and Analytics strategy must support the organization’s strategy. Your strategy for BI & Analytics provides direction and requirements for data warehousing and data integration, and further paves the way for predictive analytics, big data analytics, market/industry intelligence, and social network analytics.
Dirk Coetsee,
Director, Data and Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
BI drives a new reality. Uber is the world’s largest taxi company and they own no vehicles; Alibaba is the world’s most valuable retailer and they have no inventory; Airbnb is the world’s largest accommodation provider and they own no real estate. How did they disrupt their markets and get past business entry barriers? A deep understanding of their market through impeccable business intelligence!
Info-Tech Insight
| Practice Improvement Metrics | Data Collection and Calculation | Expected Improvement | |
| Program Level Metrics | Efficiency
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Comprehensiveness
|
|
|
Tap into the results of Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic to monitor the changes in business-user satisfaction as you implement the initiatives in your BI improvement roadmap.
Formulating an Enterprise Reporting and Analytics Strategy requires the business vision and strategies to first be substantiated. Any optimization to the Data Warehouse, Integration and Source layer is in turn driven by the Enterprise Reporting and Analytics Strategy
The current state of your Integration and Warehouse platforms determine what data can be utilized for BI and Analytics
Industry: Manufacturing and Retail
Source: RICOH
Ricoh Canada transforms the way people work with breakthrough technologies that help businesses innovate and grow. Its focus has always been to envision what the future will look like so that it can help its customers prepare for success. Ricoh empowers digital workplaces with a broad portfolio of services, solutions, and technologies – helping customers remove obstacles to sustained growth by optimizing the flow of information and automating antiquated processes to increase workplace productivity. In their commitment towards a customer-centric approach, Ricoh Canada recognized that BI and analytics can be used to inform business leaders in making strategic decisions.
Enterprise BI and analytics Initiative
Ricoh Canada enrolled in the ITRG Reporting & Analytics strategy workshop with the aim to create a BI strategy that will allow the business to harvest it strengths and build for the future. The workshop acted as a forum for the different business units to communicate, share ideas, and hear from each other what their pains are and what should be done to provide a full customer 360 view.
Results
“This workshop allowed us to collectively identify the various stakeholders and their unique requirements. This is a key factor in the development of an effective BI Analytics tool.” David Farrar
The Customer 360 Initiative included the following components
In today’s ever-changing and global environment, organizations of every size need to effectively leverage their data assets to facilitate three key business drivers: customer intimacy, product/service innovation, and operational excellence. Plus, they need to manage their operational risk efficiently.
Investing in a comprehensive business intelligence strategy allows for a multidimensional view of your organization’s data assets that can be operationalized to create a competitive edge:
Without a BI strategy, creating meaningful reports for business users that highlight trends in past performance and draw relationships between different data sources becomes a more complex task. Also, the ever growing need to identify and assess risks in new ways is driving many companies to BI.
The core purpose of BI is to provide the right data, to the right users, at the right time, and in a format that is easily consumable and actionable. In developing a BI strategy, remember the driver for managed cross-functional access to data assets and features such as interactive dashboards, mobile BI, and self-service BI.
As the volume, variety, and velocity of data increases rapidly, businesses will need a strategy to outline how they plan to consume the new data in a manner that does not overwhelm their current capabilities and aligns with their desired future state. This same strategy further provides a foundation upon which organizations can transition from ad hoc reporting to using data assets in a codified BI platform for decision support.
As executive decision making shifts to more fact-based, data-driven thinking, there is an urgent need for data assets to be organized and presented in a manner that enables immediate action.
Typically, business decisions are based on a mix of intuition, opinion, emotion, organizational culture, and data. Though business users may be aware of its potential value in driving operational change, data is often viewed as inaccessible.
Business intelligence bridges the gap between an organization’s data assets and consumable information that facilitates insight generation and informed decision making.
Most organizations realize that they need a BI strategy; it’s no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.
– Albert Hui, Principal, Data Economist
Ask 100 people and you will get 100 answers. We like the prevailing view that BI looks at today and backward for improving who we are, while BA is forward-looking to support change decisions.
However, establishing a strong business intelligence program is a necessary precursor to an organization’s development of its business analytics capabilities.
Evidence is piling up: if planned well, BI contributes to the organization’s bottom line.
It’s expected that there will be nearly 45 billion connected devices and a 42% increase in data volume each year posing a high business opportunity for the BI market (BERoE, 2020).
The global business intelligence market size to grow from US$23.1 billion in 2020 to US$33.3 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.6% (Global News Wire, 2020)
In the coming years, 69% of companies plan on increasing their cloud business intelligence usage (BARC Research and Eckerson Group Study, 2017).
Small organizations of up to 100 employees had the highest rate of business intelligence penetration last year (Forbes, 2018).
Source: IBM Business Value, 2015
Industry: Professional Sports
Source Target Marketing
Despite continued success as a franchise with a loyal fan base, the New England Patriots experienced one of their lowest season ticket renewal rates in over a decade for the 2009 season. Given the numerous email addresses that potential and current season-ticket holders used to engage with the organization, it was difficult for Kraft Sports Group to define how to effectively reach customers.
Kraft Sports Group turned to the customer data that it had been collecting since 2007 and chose to leverage analytics in order to glean insight into season ticket holder behavior. By monitoring and reporting on customer activity online and in attendance at games, Kraft Sports Group was able to establish that customer engagement improved when communication from the organization was specifically tailored to customer preferences and historical behavior.
By operationalizing their data assets with the help of analytics, the Patriots were able to achieve a record 97% renewal rate for the 2010 season. KSG was able to take their customer engagement to the next level and proactively look for signs of attrition in season-ticket renewals.
We're very analytically focused and I consider us to be the voice of the customer within the organization… Ultimately, we should know when renewal might not happen and be able to market and communicate to change that behavior.
– Jessica Gelman,
VP Customer Marketing and Strategy, Kraft Sports Group
BI pitfalls are lurking around every corner, but a comprehensive strategy drafted upfront can help your organization overcome these obstacles. Info-Tech’s approach to BI has involvement from the business units built right into the process from the start and it equips IT to interact with key stakeholders early and often.
Only 62% of Big Data and AI projects in 2019 provided measurable results.
Source: NewVantage Partners LLC
Info-Tech Insight
Combining these priorities will lead to better tool selection and more synergy.
| Industry Drivers | Private label | Rising input prices | Retail consolidation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company strategies | Win at supply chain execution | Win at customer service | Expand gross margins |
| Value disciplines | Strategic cost management | Operational excellence | Customer service |
| Core processes | Purchasing | Inbound logistics | Sales, service & distribution |
| Enterprise management: Planning, budgeting, control, process improvement, HR | |||
| BI Opportunities | Customer service analysis | Cost and financial analysis | Demand management |
Williams (2016)
Info-Tech’s approach to formulating a fit-for-purpose BI strategy is focused on making the link between factors that are the most important to the business users and the ways that BI providers can enable those consumers.
Though business intelligence is primarily thought of as enabling executives, a comprehensive BI strategy involves a spectrum of analytics that can provide data-driven insight to all levels of an organization.
| Styles of BI | New age BI | New age data | Functional Analytics | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reporting | Agile BI | Social Media data | Performance management analytics | Scorecarding dashboarding |
| Ad hoc query | SaaS BI | Unstructured data | Financial analytics | Query & reporting |
| Parameterized queries | Pervasive BI | Mobile data | Supply chain analytics | Statistics & data mining |
| OLAP | Cognitive Business | Big data | Customer analytics | OLAP cubes |
| Advanced analytics | Self service analytics | Sensor data | Operations analytics | ETL |
| Cognitive business techniques | Real-time Analytics | Machine data | HR Analytics | Master data management |
| Scorecards & dashboards | Mobile Reporting & Analytics | “fill in the blanks” analytics | Data Governance |
Williams (2016)
"BI can be confusing and overwhelming…"
– Dirk Coetsee,
Research Director,
Info-Tech Research Group
The interactions between the information dimensions and overlying data management enablers such as data governance, data architecture, and data quality underscore the importance of building a robust process surrounding the other data practices in order to fully leverage your BI platform.
Within this framework BI and analytics are grouped as one lens through which data assets at the business information level can be viewed.
A BI program is not a static project that is created once and remains unchanged. Your strategy must be treated as a living platform to be revisited and revitalized in order to effectively enable business decision making. Develop a reporting and analytics strategy that propels your organization by building it on business goals and objectives, as well as comprehensive assessments that quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate your current reporting and analytical capabilities.
| Phase 1: Understand the Business Context and BI Landscape | Phase 2: Evaluate Your Current BI Practice | Phase 3: Create a BI Roadmap for Continuous Improvement |
|---|---|---|
1.1 Establish the Business Context
|
2.1 Assess Your Current BI Maturity
|
3.1 Construct a BI Initiative Roadmap
|
1.2 Assess Existing BI Environment
|
2.2 Envision BI Future State
|
3.2 Plan for Continuous Improvement
|
1.3 Develop BI Solution Requirements
|
As part of our research process, we leveraged the frameworks of COBIT5, Mike 2.0, and DAMA DMBOK2. Contextualizing business intelligence within these frameworks clarifies its importance and role and ensures that our assessment tool is focused on key priority areas.
The DMBOK2 Data Management framework by the Data Asset Management Association (DAMA) provided a starting point for our classification of the components in our IM framework.
Mike 2.0 is a data management framework that helped guide the development of our framework through its core solutions and composite solutions.
The Cobit 5 framework and its business enablers were used as a starting point for assessing the performance capabilities of the different components of information management, including business intelligence.
BI Strategy Roadmap Template
BI Practice Assessment Tool
BI Initiatives and Roadmap Tool
BI Strategy and Roadmap Executive Presentation Template
| 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
| 1. Understand the Business Context and BI Landscape | 2. Evaluate the Current BI Practice | 3. Create a BI Roadmap for Continuous Improvement | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best-Practice Toolkit | 1.1 Document overall business vision, mission, industry drivers, and key objectives; assemble a project team 1.2 Collect in-depth information around current BI usage and BI user perception 1.3 Create requirements gathering principles and gather requirements for a BI platform |
2.1 Define current maturity level of BI practice 2.2 Envision the future state of your BI practice and identify desired BI patterns |
3.1 Build overall BI improvement initiatives and create a BI improvement roadmap 3.2 Identify supplementary initiatives for enhancing your BI program |
| Guided Implementations |
|
|
|
| Onsite Workshop | Module 1: Establish Business Vision and Understand the Current BI Landscape |
Module 2: Evaluate Current BI Maturity Identify the BI Patterns for the Future State |
Module 3: Build Improvement Initiatives and Create a BI Development Roadmap |
Phase 1 Outcome:
|
Phase 2 Outcome:
|
Phase 3 Outcome:
|
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 Business Context and Structure the Project 1.1 Make the case for a BI strategy refresh. 1.2 Understand business context. 1.3 Determine high-level ROI. 1.4 Structure the BI strategy refresh project. |
Understand Existing BI and Revisit Requirements 2.1 Understand the usage of your existing BI. 2.2 Gather perception of the current BI users. 2.3 Document existing information artifacts. 2.4 Develop a requirements gathering framework. 2.5 Gather requirements. |
Revisit Requirements and Current Practice Assessment 3.1 Gather requirements. 3.2 Determine BI Maturity Level. 3.3 Perform a SWOT for your existing BI program. 3.4 Develop a current state summary. |
Roadmap Develop and Plan for Continuous Improvements 5.1 Develop BI strategy. 5.2 Develop a roadmap for the strategy. 5.3 Plan for continuous improvement opportunities. 5.4 Develop a re-strategy plan. |
| Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
Step 1: Establish the business context in terms of business vision, mission, objectives, industry drivers, and business processes that can leverage Business Intelligence
Step 2: Understand your BI Landscape
Step 3: Understand business needs
The closer you align your new BI platform to real business interests, the stronger the buy-in, realized value, and groundswell of enthusiastic adoption will be. Get this phase right to realize a high ROI on your investment in the people, processes, and technology that will be your next generation BI platform.
| Understand the Business Context to Rationalize Your BI Landscape | Evaluate Your Current BI Practice | Create a BI Roadmap for Continuous Improvement |
|---|---|---|
Establish the Business Context
|
Assess Your Current BI Maturity
|
Construct a BI Initiative Roadmap
|
Access Existing BI Environment
|
Envision BI Future State
|
Plan for Continuous Improvement
|
Undergo Requirements Gathering
|
| Practice Improvement Metrics | Data Collection and Calculation | Expected Improvement |
|---|---|---|
Monetary ROI
|
Derive the number of the use cases, benefits, and costs in the scoping. Ask business SMEs to verify the quality. | High-quality ROI studies are created for at least three use cases |
| Response Rate of the BI Perception Survey | Sourced from your survey delivery system | Aim for 40% response rate |
| # of BI Reworks | Sourced from your project management system | Reduction of 10% in BI reworks |
Intangible Metrics:
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 two to three advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.
Proposed Time to Completion: 2-4 weeks
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
Then complete these activities…
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
Then complete these activities…
Review findings with analyst:
Then complete these activities…
With these tools & templates:
Info-Tech recommends you select a senior executive with close ties to BI be the sponsor for this project (e.g. CDO, CFO or CMO). To maximize the chance of success, Info-Tech recommends you start with the CDO, CMO, CFO, or a business unit (BU) leader who represents strategic enterprise portfolios.
CFO or Chief Risk Officer (CRO)
CDO or a Business Unit (BU) Leader
CEO
"In the energy sector, achieving production KPIs are the key to financial success. The CFO is motivated to work with IT to create BI applications that drive higher revenue, identify operational bottlenecks, and maintain gross margin."
– Yogi Schulz, Partner, Corvelle Consulting
Create a project team with the right skills, experience, and perspectives to develop a comprehensive strategy aligned to business needs.
You may need to involve external experts as well as individuals within the organization who have the needed skills.
A detailed understanding of what to look for in potential candidates is essential before moving forward with your BI project.
Leverage several of Info-Tech’s Job Description Templates to aid in the process of selecting the right people to involve in constructing your BI strategy.
Business Stakeholders
Business Intelligence Specialist
"In developing the ideal BI team, your key person to have is a strong data architect, but you also need buy-in from the highest levels of the organization. Buy-in from different levels of the organization are indicators of success more than anything else."
– Rob Anderson, Database Administrator and BI Manager, IT Research and Advisory Firm
A common project management pitfall for any endeavour is unclear definition of responsibilities amongst the individuals involved.
As a business intelligence project requires a significant amount of back and forth between business and IT – bridged by the BI Steering Committee – clear guidelines at the project outset with a RACI chart provide a basic framework for assigning tasks and lines of communication for the later stages.
| Obtaining Buy-in | Project Charter | Requirements | Design | Development | Program Creation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BI Steering Committee | A | C | I | I | I | C |
| Project Sponsor | - | C | I | I | I | C |
| Project Manager | - | R | A | I | I | C |
| VP of BI | R | I | I | I | I | A |
| CIO | A | I | I | I | I | R |
| Business Analyst | I | I | R | C | C | C |
| Solution Architect | - | - | C | A | C | C |
| Data Architect | - | - | C | A | C | C |
| BI Developer | - | - | C | C | R | C |
| Data Steward | - | - | C | R | C | C |
| Business SME | C | C | C | C | C | C |
Note: This RACI is an example of how role expectations would be broken down across the different steps of the project. Develop your own RACI based on project scope and participants.
1.1.1 Craft the vision and mission statements for the Analytics program using the vision, mission, and strategies of your organization as basis.
1.1.2 Articulate program goals and objectives
1.1.3 Determine business differentiators and key drivers
1.1.4 Brainstorm BI-specific constraints and improvement objectives
Your BI strategy should enable the business to make fast, effective, and comprehensive decisions.
| Fast | Effective | Comprehensive |
|---|---|---|
| Reduce time spent on decision-making by designing a BI strategy around information needs of key decision makers. | Make the right data available to key decision makers. | Make strategic high-value, impactful decisions as well as operational decisions. |
"We can improve BI environments in several ways. First, we can improve the speed with which we create BI objects by insisting that the environments are designed with flexibility and adaptability in mind. Second, we can produce higher quality deliverables by ensuring that IT collaborate with the business on every deliverable. Finally, we can reduce the costs of BI by giving access to the environment to knowledgeable business users and encouraging a self-service function."
– Claudia Imhoff, Founder, Boulder BI Brain Trust, Intelligent Solutions Inc.
Different users have different consumption and usage patterns. Categorize users into user groups and visualize the usage patterns. The user groups are the connection between the BI capabilities and the users.
| User groups | Mindset | Usage Pattern | Requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front-line workers | Get my job done; perform my job quickly. | Reports (standard reports, prompted reports, etc.) | Examples:
|
| Analysts | I have some ideas; I need data to validate and support my ideas. | Dashboards, self-service BI, forecasting/budgeting, collaboration | Examples:
|
| Management | I need a big-picture view and yet I need to play around with the data to find trends to drive my business. | Dashboards, scorecards, mobile BI, forecasting/budgeting | Examples:
|
| Data scientists | I need to combine existing data, as well as external or new, unexplored data sources and types to find nuggets in the data. | Data mashup, connections to data sources | Examples:
|
The overarching question that needs to be continually asked to create an effective BI strategy is:
How do I create an environment that makes information accessible and consumable to users, and facilitates a collaborative dialogue between the business and IT?
Sponsorship of BI that is outside of IT and at the highest levels of the organization is essential to the success of your BI strategy. Without it, there is a high chance that your BI program will fail. Note that it may not be an epic fail, but it is a subtle drying out in many cases.
Providing the right tools for business decision making doesn’t need to be a guessing game if the business context is laid as the project foundation and the most pressing decisions serve as starting points. And business is engaged in formulating and executing the strategy.
Start with understanding the business processes and where analytics can improve outcomes. “Think business backwards, not data forward.” (McKinsey)
Lack of Executive support
Old Technology
Lack of business support
Too many KPIs
No methodology for gathering requirements
Overly long project timeframes
Bad user experience
Lack of user adoption
Bad data
Lack of proper human resources
No upfront definition of true ROI
Mico Yuk, 2019
Make it clear to the business that IT is committed to building and supporting a BI platform that is intimately tied to enabling changing business objectives.
Document the BI program planning in Info-Tech’s
1.1.1
30-40 minutes
Compelling vision and mission statements will help guide your internal members toward your company’s target state. These will drive your business intelligence strategy.
Info-Tech Insight
Adjust your statements until you feel that you can elicit a firm understanding of both your vision and mission in three minutes or less.
| Industry Drivers | Private label | Rising input prices | Retail consolidation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company strategies | Win at supply chain execution | Win at customer service | Expand gross margins |
| Value disciplines | Strategic cost management | Operational excellence | Customer service |
| Core processes | Purchasing | Inbound logistics | Sales, service & distribution |
| Enterprise management: Planning, budgeting, control, process improvement, HR | |||
| BI Opportunities | Customer service analysis | Cost and financial analysis | Demand management |
Williams 2016
Arm your project sponsor with our Executive Brief for this blueprint as a quick way to convey the value of this project to potential stakeholders.
Bolster this presentation by adding use cases and metrics that are most relevant to your organization.
Identifying organizational goals and how data can support those goals is key to creating a successful BI & Analytical strategy. Rounding out the business model with technology drivers, environmental factors (as described in previous steps), and internal barriers and enablers creates a holistic view of Business Intelligence within the context of the organization as a whole.
Through business engagement and contribution, the following holistic model can be created to understand the needs of the business.
1.1.2
30-45 minutes
Industry drivers are external influencers that has an effect on a business such as economic conditions, competitor actions, trade relations, climate etc. These drivers can differ significantly by industry and even organizations within the same industry.
| Environmental Factors | Organizational Goals | Business Needs | Technology Drivers | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Definition | External considerations are factors taking place outside the organization that are impacting the way business is conducted inside the organization. These are often outside the control of the business. | Organizational drivers can be thought of as business-level metrics. These are tangible benefits the business can measure, such as customer retention, operation excellence, and/or financial performance. | A requirement that specifies the behavior and the functions of a system. | Technology drivers are technological changes that have created the need for a new BI solution. Many organizations turn to technology systems to help them obtain a competitive edge. |
| Examples |
|
|
|
|
1.1.3
30-45 minutes
| External Considerations | Organizational Drivers | Technology Considerations | Functional Requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
There are several factors that may stifle the success of a BI implementation. Scan the current environment to identify internal barriers and challenges to identify potential challenges so you can meet them head-on.
| Definition | The degree of management understanding and acceptance towards BI solutions. | The collective shared values and beliefs. | The functional relationships between people and departments in an organization. | The degree to which the organization’s people and processes are prepared for a new BI solution. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Questions |
|
|
|
|
| Impact |
|
|
|
|
1.1.4
30-45 minutes
| Functional Gaps | Technical Gaps | Process Gaps | Barriers to Success |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
1.1.5
30-45 minutes
| Business Benefits | IT Benefits | Organizational Benefits | Enablers of Success |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
The following diagram represents [Client]’s business model for BI and data. This holistic view of [Client]’s current environment serves as the basis for the generation of the business-aligned Data & Analytics Strategy.
Taking a top-down approach will ensure senior management’s involvement and support throughout the project. This ensures that the most critical decisions are supported by the right data/information, aligning the entire organization with the BI strategy. Furthermore, the gains from BI will be much more significant and visible to the rest of the organization.
Far too often, organizations taking a bottom-up approach to BI will fail to generate sufficient buy-in and awareness from senior management. Not only does a lack of senior involvement result in lower adoption from the tactical and operational levels, but more importantly, it also means that the strategic decision makers aren’t taking advantage of BI.
The value of creating a new strategy – or revamping an existing one – needs to be conveyed effectively to a high-level stakeholder, ideally a C-level executive. That executive buy-in is more likely to be acquired when effort has been made to determine the return on investment for the overall initiative.
| Business Impacts |
|---|
| New revenue |
| Cost savings |
| Time to market |
| Internal Benefits |
|---|
| Productivity gain |
| Process optimization |
| Investment |
|---|
| People – employees’ time, external resources |
| Data – cost for new datasets |
| Technology – cost for new technologies |

Example
| One percent increase in revenue; three more employees | $225,000/yr, $150,000/yr | 50% |
1.1.6
1.5 hours
Communicating an ROI that is impactful and reasonable is essential for locking in executive-level support for any initiative. Use this activity as an initial touchpoint to bring business and IT perspectives as part of building a robust business case for developing your BI strategy.
Emphasize that ROI is not fully realized after the first implementation, but comes as the platform is built upon iteratively and in an integrated fashion to mature capabilities over time.
In an effort to keep users satisfied, many organizations rush into implementing a BI platform and generating reports for their business users. BI is, first and foremost, a presentation layer; there are several stages in the data lifecycle where the data that BI visualizes can be compromised.
Without paying the appropriate amount of attention to the underlying data architecture and application integration, even the most sophisticated BI platforms will fall short of providing business users with a holistic view of company information.
In moving away from single application-level reporting, a strategy around data integration practices and technology is necessary before the resultant data can be passed to the BI platform for additional analyses and visualization.
As business intelligence is primarily a presentation layer that allows business users to visualize data and turn information into actionable decisions, there are a number of data management practices that precede BI in the flow of data.
The data warehouse structures source data in a manner that is more operationally focused. The Reporting & Analytics Strategy must inform the warehouse strategy on data needs and building a data warehouse to meet those needs.
The data warehouse is built from different sources that must be integrated and normalized to enable Business Intelligence. The Info-Tech integration and MDM blueprints will guide with their implementation.
A major roadblock to building an effective BI solution is a lack of accurate, timely, consistent, and relevant data. Use Info-Tech’s blueprint to refine your approach to data quality management.
Data quality, poor integration/P2P integration, poor data architecture are the primary barriers to truly leveraging BI, and a lot of companies haven’t gotten better in these areas.
– Shari Lava, Associate Vice-President, IT Research and Advisory Firm
Business intelligence is heavily reliant on the ability of an organization to mesh data from different sources together and create a holistic and accurate source of truth for users.
Useful analytics cannot be conducted if your business units define key business terms differently.
Finance may label customers as those who have transactional records with the organization, but Marketing includes leads who have not yet had any transactions as customers. Neglecting to note these seemingly small discrepancies in data definition will undermine efforts to combine data assets from traditionally siloed functional units.
In the stages prior to implementing any kind of BI platform, a top priority should be establishing common definitions for key business terms (customers, products, accounts, prospects, contacts, product groups, etc.).
As a preliminary step, document different definitions for the same business terms so that business users are aware of these differences before attempting to combine data to create custom reports.
Do you have common definitions of business terms?
1.2.1 Analyze the usage levels of your current BI programs/platform
1.2.2 Perform a survey to gather user perception of your current BI environment
1.2.3 Take an inventory of your current BI artifacts
Project Manager
Data Architect(s) or Enterprise Architect
Project Team
Current State Summary of BI Landscape
| 1.2.1 | 1.2.2 | 1.2.3 | 1.2.4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Usage Insights | Perception Insights | BI Inventory Insights | Requirements Insights |
Strategy and Roadmap Formulation
Usage data reflects the consumption patterns of end users. By reviewing usage data, you can identify aspects of your BI program that are popular and those that are underutilized. It may present some opportunities for trimming some of the underutilized content.
Info-Tech Insight
Don’t forget some of the power users. They may perform analytics by accessing datasets directly or with the help of a query tool (even straight SQL statements). Their usage information is important. The next generation BI should provide consumption options for them.
Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment allows you to create a custom survey based on your current applications, generate a custom report that will help you visualize user satisfaction levels, and pinpoint areas for improvement.
1.2.1
2 hours
This activity helps you to locate usage data in your existing environment. It also helps you to review and analyze usage data to come up with a few findings.
a. Administrator console – limited to real-time or daily usage data. You may need to track usage data over for several days to identify patterns.
b. Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment (APA).
c. Other – be creative. Some may use an IT usage monitoring system or web analytics to track time users spent on the BI portal.
| By Frequency | Real Time | Daily | Weekly | Yearly |
| By Presentation Format | Report | Dashboard | Alert | Scorecard |
| By Delivery | Web portal | Excel | Mobile application |
1.2.1
2 hours
3. Sort your collection of BI artifacts by usage. Discuss some of the reasons why some content is popular whereas some has no usage at all.
Popular BI Artifacts – Discuss improvements, opportunities and new artifacts
Unpopular BI Artifacts – Discuss retirement, improvements, and realigning information needs
4. Summarize your findings in the Usage Insights section of the BI Strategy and Roadmap Template.
In 1.2.1, we gathered the statistics for BI usage; it’s the hard data telling who uses what. However, it does not tell you the rationale, or the why, behind the usage. Gathering user perception and having conversations with your BI consumers is the key to bridging the gap.
User Perception Survey
User Interviews
Perception can be gathered by user interviews and surveys. Conducting user interviews takes time so it is a good practice to get some primary insights via survey before doing in-depth interviews in selected areas.
– Shari Lava, Associate Vice-President, IT Research and Advisory Firm
Find a data-related problem or opportunity
Ask open-ended discovery questions about stakeholder fears, hopes, and frustrations to identify a data-related problem that is clear, contained, and fixable. This is then to be written as a problem/opportunity statement.
Next, gather information to support a problem/opportunity statement:
Info-Tech has developed a BI survey framework to help existing BI practices gather user perception via survey. The framework is built upon best practices developed by McLean & Company.
The survey takes a comprehensive approach by examining your existing BI practices through the following lenses:
| Demographics | Who are the users? From which department? |
|---|---|
| Usage | How is the current BI being used? |
| People | Web portal |
| Process | How good is your BI team from a user perspective? |
| Data | How good is the BI data in terms of quality and usability? |
| Technology | How good are your existing BI/reporting tools? |
| Textual Feedback | The sky’s the limit. Tell us your comments and ideas via open-ended questions. |
Use Info-Tech’s BI End-User Satisfaction Survey Framework to develop a comprehensive BI survey tailored to your organization.
1.2.2
2 hours
This activity helps you to plan for a BI perception survey and subsequent interviews.
Collectively, the project team and the BI consuming departments should review the presentation and discuss these items:
Misalignment
Opportunities
Inefficiencies
Trends
Need detailed interviews?
Taking an inventory of your BI artifacts allows you to understand what deliverables have been developed over the years. Inventory taking should go beyond the BI content. You may want to include additional information products such as Excel spreadsheets, reports that are coming out of an Access database, and reports that are generated from front-end applications (e.g. Salesforce).
If you are currently using a BI platform, you have some BI artifacts (reports, scorecards, dashboards) that are developed within the platform itself.
1.2.3
2+ hours
This activity helps you to inventory your BI information artifacts and other related information artifacts.
| Duplicated reports/ dashboards | Similar reports/ dashboards that may be able to merge | Excel and Access reports that are using undocumented, unconventional business logics | Application reports that need to be enhanced by additional data | Classify artifacts by BI Type |
1.2.4
2+ hours
This activity helps you to inventory your BI by report type.
| Duplicated reports/dashboards | Similar reports/dashboards that may be able to merge | Excel and Access reports that are using undocumented, unconventional business logics | Application reports that need to be enhanced by additional data |
1.3.1 Create requirements gathering principles
1.3.2 Gather appropriate requirements
1.3.3 Organize and consolidate the outputs of requirements gathering activities
Project Manager
Data Architect(s) or Enterprise Architect
Project Team
Business Users
The challenges in requirements management often have underlying causes; find and eliminate the root causes rather than focusing on the symptoms.
Info-Tech Insight
Requirements gathering is the number one failure point for most development or procurement projects that don’t deliver value. This has been, and continues to be, the case as most organizations still don't get requirements gathering right. Overcoming organizational cynicism can be a major obstacle to clear when it is time to optimize the requirements gathering process.
| Verifiable | It is stated in a way that can be tested. |
|---|---|
| Unambiguous | It is free of subjective terms and can only be interpreted in one way. |
| Complete | It contains all relevant information. |
| Consistent | It does not conflict with other requirements. |
| Achievable | It is possible to accomplish given the budgetary and technological constraints. |
| Traceable | It can be tracked from inception to testing. |
| Unitary | It addresses only one thing and cannot be deconstructed into multiple requirements. |
| Accurate | It is based on proven facts and correct information. |
Organizations can also track a requirement owner, rationale, priority level (must have vs. nice to have), and current status (approved, tested, etc.).
Info-Tech Insight
Requirements must be solution agnostic – they should focus on the underlying need rather than the technology required to satisfy the need.
1.3.1
1 hour
| Effectiveness | Face-to-face interviews are preferred over phone interviews. |
| Alignment | Clarify any misalignments, even the tiniest ones. |
| Validation | Rephrase requirements at the end to validate requirements. |
| Ideation | Use drawings and charts to explain ideas. |
| Demonstration | Make use of Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions. |
Info-Tech Insight
Turn requirements gathering principles into house rules. The house rules should be available in every single requirements gathering session and the participants should revisit them when there are disagreements, confusion, or silence.
Info-Tech suggests four requirements management approaches based on project complexity and business significance. BI projects usually require the Strategic Approach in requirements management.
| Approach | Definition | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic Approach | High business significance and high project complexity merits a significant investment of time and resources in requirements gathering. | Treat the requirements gathering phase as a project within a project. A large amount of time should be dedicated to elicitation, business process mapping, and solution design. |
| Fundamental Approach | High business significance and low project complexity merits a heavy emphasis on the elicitation phase to ensure that the project bases are covered and business value is realized. | Look to achieve quick wins and try to survey a broad cross-section of stakeholders during elicitation and validation. The elicitation phase should be highly iterative. Do not over-complicate the analysis and validation of a straightforward project. |
| Calculated Approach | Low business significance and high project complexity merits a heavy emphasis on the analysis and validation phases to ensure that the solution meets the needs of users. | Allocate a significant amount of time to business process modeling, requirements categorization, prioritization, and solution modeling. |
| Elementary Approach | Low business significance and low project complexity does not merit a high amount of rigor for requirements gathering. Do not rush or skip steps, but aim to be efficient. | Focus on basic elicitation techniques (e.g. unstructured interviews, open-ended surveys) and consider capturing requirements as user stories. Focus on efficiency to prevent project delays and avoid squandering resources. |
Info-Tech has identified four effective requirements gathering modes. During the requirements gathering process, you may need to switch between the four gathering modes to establish a thorough understanding of the information needs.
BI is a continually evolving program. BI artifacts that were developed in the past may not be relevant to the business anymore due to changes in the business and information usage. Revamping your BI program entails revisiting some of the BI requirements and/or gathering new BI requirements.
| Requirements | User Stories | Rapid Prototyping |
|---|---|---|
| Gather requirements. Most importantly, understand the business needs and wants. | Leverage user stories to organize and make sense of the requirements. | Use a prototype to confirm requirements and show the initial draft to end users. |
Pain Mode: “I can’t access and manipulate data on my own...”
Decode Mode: Dig deeper: could this hint at a self-service use case?
Dream Mode: E.g. a sandbox area where I can play around with clean, integrated, well-represented data.
Profile Mode: E.g. another marketing analyst is currently using something similar.
ExampleMary has a spreadmart that keeps track of all campaigns. Maintaining and executing that spreadmart is time consuming.
Mary is asking for a mash-up data set that she can pivot on her own…
Upon reviewing the data and the prototype, Mary decided to use a heat map and included two more data points – tenure and lifetime value.
A spectrum of Business Intelligence solutions styles are available. Use Info-Tech’s BI Styles Tool to assess which business stakeholder will be best served by which style.
| Style | Description | Strategic Importance (1-5) | Popularity (1-5) | Effort (1-5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standards Preformatted reports | Standard, preformatted information for backward-looking analysis. | 5 | 5 | 1 |
| User-defined analyses | Pre-staged information where “pick lists” enable business users to filter (select) the information they wish to analyze, such as sales for a selected region during a selected previous timeframe. | 5 | 4 | 2 |
| Ad-hoc analyses | Power users write their own queries to extract self-selected pre-staged information and then use the information to perform a user-created analysis. | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Scorecards and dashboards | Predefined business performance metrics about performance variables that are important to the organization, presented in a tabular or graphical format that enables business users to see at a glance how the organization is performing. | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Multidimensional analysis (OLAP) | Multidimensional analysis (also known as on-line analytical processing): Flexible tool-based, user-defined analysis of business performance and the underlying drivers or root causes of that performance. | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| Alerts | Predefined analyses of key business performance variables, comparison to a performance standard or range, and communication to designated businesspeople when performance is outside the predefined performance standard or range. | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| Advanced Analytics | Application of long-established statistical and/or operations research methods to historical business information to look backward and characterize a relevant aspect of business performance, typically by using descriptive statistics. | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| Predictive Analytics | Application of long-established statistical and/or operations research methods and historical business information to predict, model, or simulate future business and/or economic performance and potentially prescribe a favored course of action for the future. | 5 | 3 | 5 |
1.3.2
2-6 hours
Using the approaches discussed on previous slides, start a dialogue with business users to confirm existing requirements and develop new ones.
For existing BI artifacts – Invite existing users of those artifacts.
For new BI development – Invite stakeholders at the executive level to understand the business operation and their needs and wants. This is especially important if their department is new to BI.
| The Setting | The Characters | The Venues | The Activities | The Future | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Example | Customers are asking for a bundle discount. | CMO and the marketing analysts want to… | …the information should be available in the portal, mobile, and Excel. | …information is then used in the bi-weekly pricing meeting to discuss… | …bundle information should contain historical data in a graphical format to help executives. |
Requirements are too broad in some situations and too detailed in others. In the previous step we developed user stories to provide context. Now you need to define requirement categories and gather detailed requirements.
| Category | Subcategory | Sample Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Granularity | Individual transaction |
| Transformation | Transform activation date to YYYY-MM format | |
| Selection Criteria | Client type: consumer. Exclude SMB and business clients. US only. Recent three years | |
| Fields Required | Consumer band, Region, Submarket… | |
| Functionality | Filters | Filters required on the dashboard: date range filter, region filter… |
| Drill Down Path | Drill down from a summary report to individual transactions | |
| Analysis Required | Cross-tab, time series, pie chart | |
| Visual Requirements | Mock-up | See attached drawing |
| Section | The dashboard will be presented using three sections | |
| Conditional Formatting | Below-average numbers are highlighted | |
| Security | Mobile | The dashboard needs to be accessed from mobile devices |
| Role | Regional managers will get a subset of the dashboard according to the region | |
| Users | John, Mary, Tom, Bob, and Dave | |
| Export | Dashboard data cannot be exported into PDF, text, or Excel formats | |
| Performance | Speed | A BI artifact must be loaded in three seconds |
| Latency | Two seconds response time when a filter is changed | |
| Capacity | Be able to serve 50 concurrent users with the performance expected | |
| Control | Governance | Govern by the corporate BI standards |
| Regulations | Meet HIPPA requirements | |
| Compliance | Meet ISO requirements |
| Must Have | Requirements that mustbe implemented for the solution to be considered successful. |
|---|---|
| Should Have | Requirements that are high priority and should be included in the solution if possible. |
| Could Have | Requirements that are desirable but not necessary and could be included if resources are available. |
| Won't Have | Requirements that won’t be in the next release but will be considered for the future releases. |
The MoSCoW model was introduced by Dai Clegg of Oracle UK in 1994.
Prioritization is the process of ranking each requirement based on its importance to project success. Hold a separate meeting for the domain SMEs, implementation SMEs, project managers, and project sponsors to prioritize the requirements list. At the conclusion of the meeting, each requirement should be assigned a priority level. The implementation SMEs will use these priority levels to ensure that efforts are targeted towards the proper requirements and the plan features available on each release. Use the MoSCoW Model of Prioritization to effectively order requirements.
1.3.3
1-4 hours
| Category | Subcategory |
|---|---|
| Data | Granularity |
| Transformation | |
| Selection Criteria | |
| Fields Required | |
| Functionality | Filters |
| Drill Down Path | |
| Analysis Required | |
| Visual Requirements | Mock-up |
| Section | |
| Conditional Formatting | |
| Security | Mobile |
| Role | |
| Users | |
| Export | |
| Performance | Speed |
| Latency | |
| Capacity | |
| Control | Governance |
| Regulations | |
| Compliance |
Create requirement buckets and classify requirements.
As you progress through each phase, document findings and ideas as they arise. At phase end, hold a brainstorming session with the project team focused on documenting findings and ideas and substantiating them into improvement actions.
Ask yourself how BI or analytics can be used to address the gaps and explore opportunities uncovered in each phase. For example, in Phase 1, how do current BI capabilities impede the realization of the business vision?
1.3.4
1-2 hours
| High Business Value, Low Effort | High Business Value, High Effort |
| Low Business Value, High Effort | Low Business Value, High Effort |
| Sample Phase 1 Findings | Found two business objectives that are not supported by BI/analytics |
|---|---|
| Some executives still think BI is reporting | |
| Some confusion around operational reporting and BI | |
| Data quality plays a big role in BI | |
| Many executives are not sure about the BI ROI or asking for one |
Establish the business context
To begin the workshop, your project team will be taken through a series of activities to establish the overall business vision, mission, objectives, goals, and key drivers. This information will serve as the foundation for discerning how the revamped BI strategy needs to enable business users.
Create a comprehensive documentation of your current BI environment
Our analysts will take your project team through a series of activities that will facilitate an assessment of current BI usage and artifacts, and help you design an end-user interview survey to elicit context around BI usage patterns.
Establish new BI requirements
Our analysts will guide your project team through frameworks for eliciting and organizing requirements from business users, and then use those frameworks in exercises to gather some actual requirements from business stakeholders.
| Practice Improvement Metrics | Data Collection and Calculation | Expected Improvement |
|---|---|---|
| # of groups participated in the current state assessment | The number of groups joined the current assessment using Info-Tech’s BI Practice Assessment Tool | Varies; the tool can accommodate up to five groups |
| # of risks mitigated | Derive from your risk register | At least two to five risks will be identified and mitigated |
Intangible Metrics:
BI success is not based solely on the technology it runs on; technology cannot mask gaps in capabilities. You must be capable in your environment, and data management, data quality, and related data practices must be strong. Otherwise, the usefulness of the intelligence suffers. The best BI solution does not only provide a technology platform, but also addresses the elements that surround the platform. Look beyond tools and holistically assess the maturity of your BI practice with input from both the BI consumer and provider perspectives.
| Understand the Business Context to Rationalize Your BI Landscape | Evaluate Your Current BI Practice | Create a BI Roadmap for Continuous Improvement |
|---|---|---|
Establish the Business Context
|
Assess Your Current BI Maturity
|
Construct a BI Initiative Roadmap
|
Access Existing BI Environment
|
Envision BI Future State
|
Plan for Continuous Improvement
|
Undergo Requirements Gathering
|
Step 1: Assess Your Current BI Practice
Step 2: Envision a Future State for Your BI Practice
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.
Proposed Time to Completion: 1-2 weeks
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
Then complete these activities…
With these tools & templates:
BI Practice Assessment Tool
BI Strategy and Roadmap Template
Review findings with an analyst:
Then complete these activities…
With these tools & templates:
BI Practice Assessment Tool
BI Strategy and Roadmap Template
2.1.1 Perform multidimensional SWOT analyses
2.1.2 Assess current BI and analytical capabilities, Document challenges, constraints, opportunities
2.1.3 Review the results of your current state assessment
Project Manager
Data Architect(s) or Enterprise Architect
Project Team
| Strengths Best practices, what is working well |
Weaknesses Inefficiencies, errors, gaps, shortcomings |
| Opportunities Review internal and external drivers |
Threats Market trends, disruptive forces |
While SWOT is not a new concept, you can add value to SWOT by:
Info-Tech Insight
Consider a SWOT with two formats: a private SWOT worksheet and a public SWOT session. Participants will be providing suggestions anonymously while solicited suggestions will be discussed in the public SWOT session to further the discussion.
2.1.1
1-2 hours
This activity will take your project team through a holistic SWOT analysis to gather a variety of stakeholder perception of the current BI practice.
Group 1 Provider Group E.g. The BI Team
Group 2 Consumer Group E.g. Business End Users
A way to categorize your analytics maturity to understand where you are currently and what next steps would be best to increase your BI maturity.
Buy-in and Data Culture
Determines if there is enterprise-wide buy-in for developing business intelligence and if a data-driven culture exists.
Business–IT Alignment
Examines if current BI and analytics operations are appropriately enabling the business objectives.
Governance Structure
Focuses on whether or not there is adequate governance in place to provide guidance and structure for BI activities.
Organization Structure and Talent
Pertains to how BI operations are distributed across the overall organizational structure and the capabilities of the individuals involved.
Process
Reviews analytics-related processes and policies and how they are created and enforced throughout the organization.
Data
Deals with analytical data in terms of the level of integration, data quality, and usability.
Technology
Explores the opportunities in building a fit-for-purpose analytics platform and consolidation opportunities.
Leverage a BI strategy to revamp your BI program to strive for a high analytics maturity level. In the future you should be doing more than just traditional BI. You will perform self-service BI, predictive analytics, and data science.
| Ad Hoc | Developing | Defined | Managed | Trend Setting | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Questions | What’s wrong? | What happened? | What is happening? | What happened, is happening, and will happen? | What if? So what? |
| Scope | One business problem at a time | One particular functional area | Multiple functional areas | Multiple functional areas in an integrated fashion | Internal plus internet scale data |
| Toolset | Excel, Access, primitive query tools | Reporting tools or BI | BI | BI, business analytics tools | Plus predictive platforms, data science tools |
| Delivery Model | IT delivers ad hoc reports | IT delivers BI reports | IT delivers BI reports and some self-service BI | Self-service BI and report creation at the business units | Plus predictive models and data science projects |
| Mindset | Firefighting using data | Manage using data | Analyze using data; shared tooling | Data is an asset, shared data | Data driven |
| BI Org. Structure | Data analysts in IT | BI | BI program | BI CoE | Data Innovation CoE |
Info-Tech Insight
Assessing current and target states is only the beginning. The real value comes from the interpretation and analysis of the results. Use visualizations of multiple viewpoints and discuss the results in groups to come up with the most effective ideas for your strategy and roadmap.
2.1.2
2-3 hours
Use the BI Practice Assessment Tool to establish a baseline for your current BI capabilities and maturity.
Info-Tech suggests the following groups participate in the completion of the assessment to holistically assess BI and to uncover misalignment:
| Providers | Consumers | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CIO & BI Management | BI Work Groups (developers, analysts, modelers) | Business Unit #1 | Business Unit #2 | Business Unit #3 |
Info-Tech Insight
Discuss the rationale for your answers as a group. Document the comments and observations as they may be helpful in formulating the final strategy and roadmap.
2.1.3
2-3 hours
The tool provides a brief synopsis of your current BI state. Review the details of your maturity level and see where this description fits your organization and where there may be some discrepancies. Add additional comments to your current state summary in the BI Strategy and Roadmap Document.
In addition to reviewing the attributes of your maturity level, consider the following:
2.1.3
2-3 hours
2. Tab 3 will also visualize a breakdown of your maturity by BI practice dimension. Use this graphic as a preliminary method to identify where your organization is excelling and where it may need improvement.
Better Practices
Consider: What have you done in the areas where you perform well?
Candidates for Improvement
Consider: What can you do to improve these areas? What are potential barriers to improvement?
2.2.1 Define guiding principles for the future state
2.2.2 Define the target state of your BI practice
2.2.3 Confirm requirements for BI Styles by management group
2.2.4 Analyze gaps in your BI practice and generate improvement activities and objectives
2.2.5 Define the critical success factors for future BI
2.2.6 Identify potential risks for your future state and create a mitigation plan
Project Manager
Data Architect(s) or Enterprise Architect
Project Team
Envisioning a BI future state is essentially architecting the future for your BI program. It is very similar to enterprise architecture (EA). Guiding principles are widely used in enterprise architecture. This best practice should also be used in BI envisioning.
2.2.1
1-2 hours
Guiding principles are broad statements that are fundamental to how your organization will go about its activities. Use this as an opportunity to gather relevant stakeholders and solidify how your BI practice should perform moving forward.
| Awareness | Buy-in | Business-IT Alignment | Governance | Org. Structure; People | Process; Policies; Standards | Data | Technology |
At the end of the day, BI makes data and information available to the business communities. It has to be fit for purpose and relevant to the business. Prototypes are an effective way to ensure relevant deliverables are provided to the necessary users. Prototyping makes your future state a lot closer and a lot more business friendly.
Document essential findings in Info-Tech’s BI Strategy and Roadmap Template.
Info-Tech Insight
Assessing current and target states is only the beginning. The real value comes from the interpretation and analyses of the results. Use visualizations of multiple viewpoints and discuss the results in groups to come up with the most effective ideas for your strategy and roadmap.
2.2.2
2 hours
This exercise takes your team through establishing the future maturity of your BI practice across several dimensions.
The business and IT groups should get together separately and determine the target state maturity of each of the BI practice components:
2.2.2
2 hours
2. The target state levels from the two groups will be averaged in the column “Target State Level.” The assessment tool will automatically calculate the gaps between future state value and the current state maturity determined in Step 2.1. Significant gaps in practice maturity will be highlighted in red; smaller or non-existent gaps will appear green.
2.2.3
1-2 hours
The information needs for each executive is unique to their requirements and management style. During this exercise you will determine the reporting and analytical needs for an executive in regards to content, presentation and cadence and then select the BI style that suite them best.
Having completed both current and target state assessments, the BI Practice Assessment Tool allows you to compare the results from multiple angles.
At a higher level, you can look at your maturity level:
At a detailed level, you can drill down to the dimensional level and item level.
At a detailed level, you can drill down to the dimensional level and item level.
2.2.4
2 hours
This interpretation exercise helps you to make sense of the BI practice assessment results to provide valuable inputs for subsequent strategy and roadmap formulation.
Begin this exercise by reviewing the heat map and identifying:
Consider: Is the target state feasible and achievable? What are ways we can improve incrementally in this area? What is the priority for addressing this gap?
Consider: Can we learn from those areas? Are we setting the bar too low for our capabilities?
2.2.4
2 hours
2. Discuss the differences in the current and target state maturity level descriptions. Questions to ask include:
2.2.4
2 hours
3. Have the same group members reconvene and discuss the recommendations at the BI practice dimension level on Tab 5. of the BI Practice Assessment Tool. These recommendations can be used as improvement actions or translated into objectives for building your BI capabilities.
The heat map displayed the largest gap between target state and current state in the technology dimension. The detailed drill-down chart will further illustrate which aspect(s) of the technology dimension is/are showing the most room for improvement in order to better direct your objective and initiative creation.
Critical success factors (CSFs) are the essential factors or elements required for ensuring the success of your BI program. They are used to inform organizations with things they should focus on to be successful.
…a data culture is essential to the success of analytics. Being involved in a lot of Bay Area start-ups has shown me that those entrepreneurs that are born with the data DNA, adopt the data culture and BI naturally. Other companies should learn from these start-ups and grow the data culture to ensure BI adoption.
– Cameran Hetrick, Senior Director of Data Science & Analytics, thredUP
2.2.5
2 hours
Create critical success factors that are important to both BI providers and BI consumers.
| BI Provider (aka IT) | BI Consumer (aka Business) |
What needs to be put in place to ensure that this objective is achieved?
The answer to the question is your candidate CSF. Write CSFs on sticky notes and stick them by the relevant objective.
As you evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover new objectives for achieving your future state BI.
A risk matrix is a useful tool that allows you to track risks on two dimensions: probability and impact. Use this matrix to help organize and prioritize risk, as well as develop mitigation strategies and contingency plans appropriately.
Info-Tech Insight
Tackling risk mitigation is essentially purchasing insurance. You cannot insure everything – focus your investments on mitigating risks with a reasonably high impact and high probability.
These are some of the most common BI risks based on Info-Tech’s research:
| Low Impact | Medium Impact | High Impact | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High Probability |
|
|
|
| Medium Probability |
|
|
|
| Low Probability |
|
2.2.6
1 hour
As part of developing your improvement actions, use this activity to brainstorm some high-level plans for mitigating risks associated with those actions.
Example:
Users find the BI tool interface too confusing.
A. Reducing its probability
B. Reducing its impact
C. Reducing both
Option A: Brainstorm ways to reduce risk probability
E.g. The probability of the above risk may be reduced by user training. With training, the probability of confused end users will be reduced.
Option B: Brainstorm ways to reduce risk impact
E.g. The impact can be reduced by ensuring having two end users validate each other’s reports before making a major decision.
As you progress through each phase, document findings and ideas as they arise. By phase end, hold a brainstorming session with the project team focused on documenting findings and ideas and substantiating them into improvement actions.
Ask yourself how BI or analytics can be used to address the gaps and explore opportunities uncovered in each phase. For example, in Phase 1, how do current BI capabilities impede the realization of the business vision?
2.2.7
1-2 hours
| High Business Value, Low Effort | High Business Value, High Effort |
| Low Business Value, High Effort | Low Business Value, High Effort |
| Sample Phase 2 Findings | Found a gap between the business expectation and the existing BI content they are getting. |
|---|---|
| Our current maturity level is “Level 2 – Operational.” Almost everyone thinks we should be at least “Level 3 – Tactical” with some level 4 elements. | |
| Found an error in a sales report. A quick fix is identified. | |
| The current BI program is not able to keep up with the demand. |
2.1.1
Determine your current BI maturity level
The analyst will take your project team through Info-Tech’s BI Practice Assessment Tool, which collects perspectives from BI consumer and provider groups on multiple facets of your BI practice in order to establish a current maturity level.
2.2.1
Define guiding principles for your target BI state
Using enterprise architecture principles as a starting point, our analyst will facilitate exercises to help your team establish high-level standards for your future BI practice.
2.2.2-2.2.3
Establish your desired BI patterns and matching functionalities
In developing your BI practice, your project team will have to decide what BI-specific capabilities are most important to your organization. Our analyst will take your team through several BI patterns that Info-Tech has identified and discuss how to bridge the gap between these patterns, linking them to specific functional requirements in a BI solution.
2.2.4-2.2.5
Analyze the gaps in your BI practice capabilities
Our analyst will guide your project team through a number of visualizations and explanations produced by our assessment tool in order to pinpoint the problem areas and generate improvement ideas.
The benefit of creating a comprehensive and actionable roadmap is twofold: not only does it keep BI providers accountable and focused on creating incremental improvement, but a roadmap helps to build momentum around the overall project, provides a continuous delivery of success stories, and garners grassroots-level support throughout the organization for BI as a key strategic imperative.
| Understand the Business Context to Rationalize Your BI Landscape | Evaluate Your Current BI Practice | Create a BI Roadmap for Continuous Improvement |
|---|---|---|
Establish the Business Context
| Assess Your Current BI Maturity
| Construct a BI Initiative Roadmap
|
Access Existing BI Environment
| Envision BI Future State
| Plan for Continuous Improvement
|
Undergo Requirements Gathering
|
Step 1: Establish Your BI Initiative Roadmap
Step 2: Identify Opportunities to Enhance Your BI Practice
Step 3: Create Analytics Strategy
Step 4: Define CSF and metrics to monitor success of BI and analytics
| Practice Improvement Metrics | Data Collection and Calculation | Expected Improvement | |
| Program Level Metrics | Efficiency
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Comprehensiveness
|
|
|
Learn more about the CIO Business Vision program.
Tap into the results of Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic to monitor the changes in business-user satisfaction as you implement the initiatives in your BI improvement roadmap.
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 helps you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.
Proposed Time to Completion: 1-2 weeks
Step 3.1: Construct a BI Improvement Initiative Roadmap
Start with an analyst kick off call:
Then complete these activities…
With these tools & templates:
BI Initiatives and Roadmap Tool
BI Strategy and Roadmap Template
Step 3.2: Continuous Improvement Opportunities for BI
Review findings with analyst:
Then complete these activities…
With these tools & templates:
BI Strategy and Roadmap Executive Presentation Template
3.1.1 Characterize individual improvement objectives and activities ideated in previous phases.
3.1.2 Synthesize and detail overall BI improvement initiatives.
3.1.3 Create a plan of action by placing initiatives on a roadmap.
Project Manager
Project Team
When developing initiatives, all components of the initiative need to be considered, from its objectives and goals to its benefits, risks, costs, effort required, and relevant stakeholders.
Determining the dependencies that exist between objectives will enable the creation of unique initiatives with associated to-do items or tasks.
BI Initiatives and Roadmap Tool
Use the BI Initiatives and Roadmap Tool to develop comprehensive improvement initiatives and add them to a BI strategy improvement roadmap.
| Tab 1. Instructions | Use this tab to get an understanding as to how the tool works. |
| Tab 2. Inputs | Use this tab to customize the inputs used in the tool. |
| Tab 3. Activities Repository | Use this tab to list and prioritize activities, to determine dependencies between them, and build comprehensive initiatives with them. |
| Tab 4. Improvement Initiatives | Use this tab to develop detailed improvement initiatives that will form the basis of the roadmap. Map these initiatives to activities from Tab 3. |
| Tab 5. Improvement Roadmap | Use this tab to create your BI strategy improvement roadmap, assigning timelines and accountability to initiatives and tasks, and to monitor your project performance over time. |
3.1.1
3.1.1
2 hours
Screenshot of Tab 3. BI Activities Repository, with samples improvement activities, dependencies, statuses, and priorities
Revisit the outputs of your current state assessment and note which activities have already been completed in the “Status” column, to avoid duplication of your efforts.
When classifying the status of items in your activity repository, distinguish between broader activities (potential initiatives) and granular activities (tasks).
3.1.2
1.5 hours
Screenshot of the Improvement Initiative template, to be used for developing comprehensive initiatives
The image is a screenshot of the Improvement Initiative template, to be used for developing comprehensive initiatives.">
Building a comprehensive BI program will be a gradual process involving a variety of stakeholders. Different initiatives in your roadmap will either be completed sequentially or in parallel to one another, given dependencies and available resources. The improvement roadmap should capture and represent this information.
To determine the order in which main initiatives should be completed, exercises such as a value–effort map can be very useful.
Initiatives that are high value–low effort are found in the upper left quadrant and are bolded; These may be your four primary initiatives. In addition, initiative five is valuable to the business and critical to the project’s success, so it too is a priority despite requiring high effort. Note that you need to consider dependencies to prioritize these key initiatives.
This exercise is best performed using a white board and sticky notes, and axes can be customized to fit your needs (E.g. cost, risk, time, etc.).
3.1.3
45 minutes
The BI Strategy Improvement Roadmap (Tab 5 of the BI Initiatives and Roadmap Tool) has been populated with your primary initiatives and related tasks. Read the instructions provided at the top of Tab 5.
Use a proprietary presentation template
Develop your proprietary presentation template with:
Following the approval of your roadmap, begin to plan the implementation of your first initiatives.
Info-Tech Insight
At this point, it is likely that you already have the support to implement a data quality improvement roadmap. This meeting is about the specifics and the ROI.
Maximize support by articulating the value of the data quality improvement strategy for the organization’s greater information management capabilities. Emphasize the business requirements and objectives that will be enhanced as a result of tackling the recommended initiatives, and note any additional ramifications of not doing so.
Use the BI Strategy and Roadmap Executive Presentation Template to present your most important findings and brilliant ideas to the business executives and ensure your BI program is endorsed. Business executives can also learn about how the BI strategy empowers them and how they can help in the BI journey.
3.2.1 Construct a concrete policy to integrate Excel use with your new BI strategy.
3.2.2 Map out the foundation for a BI Ambassador network.
Project Manager
Project Team
Additional Business Users
3.2.1
4 hours
Construct a policy around Excel use to ensure that Excel documents are created and shared in a manner that does not compromise the integrity of your overall BI program.
| Category | To Do: | Policy Context |
|---|---|---|
| Allowed | Discuss what makes these use cases ideal for BI. | Document use cases, scenarios, examples, and reasons that allow Excel as an information artifact. |
| Not Allowed | Discuss why these cases should be avoided. | Document forbidden use cases, scenarios, examples, and reasons that use Excel to generate information artifacts. |
| Not Sure | Discuss the confusions; clarify the gray area. | Document clarifications and advise how end users can get help in those “gray area” cases. |
BI ambassadors are influential individuals in the organization that may be proficient at using BI tools but are passionate about analytics. The network of ambassadors will be IT’s eyes, ears, and even mouth on the frontline with users. Ambassadors will promote BI, communicate any messages IT may have, and keep tabs on user satisfaction.
You need to motivate ambassadors to take on this additional responsibility. Make sure the BI ambassadors are recognized in their business units when they go above and beyond in promoting BI.
| Reward Approach | Reward Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Privileges | High Priority Requests | Given their high usage and high visibility, ambassadors’ BI information requests should be given a higher priority. |
| First Look at New BI Development | Share the latest BI updates with ambassadors before introducing them to the organization. Ambassadors may even be excited to test out new functionality. | |
| Recognition | Featured in Communications | BI ambassadors’ use cases and testimonials can be featured in BI communications. Be sure to create a formal announcement introducing the ambassadors to the organization. |
| BI Ambassador Certificate | A certificate is a formal way to recognize their efforts. They can also publicly display the certificate in their workspace. | |
| Rewards | Appointed by Senior Executives | Have the initial request to be a BI ambassador come from a senior executive to flatter the ambassador and position the role as a reward or an opportunity for success. |
| BI Ambassador Awards | Award an outstanding BI ambassador for the year. The award should be given by the CEO in a major corporate event. |
3.2.2
2 hours
Identify individuals within your organization to act as ambassadors for BI and a bridge between IT and business users.
A next generation BI not only provides a platform that mirrors business requirements, but also creates a flexible environment that empowers business users to explore data assets without having to go back and forth with IT to complete queries.
Business users are generally not interested in the underlying architecture or the exact data lineages; they want access to the data that matters most for decision-making purposes.
It comes in the form of structural metadata (information about the spaces that contain data) and descriptive metadata (information pertaining to the data elements themselves), in order to answer questions such as:
By creating effective metadata, business users are able to make connections between and bring together data sources from multiple areas, creating the opportunity for holistic insight generation.
Like BI, metadata lies in the Information Dimension layer of our data management framework.
The metadata needs to be understood before building anything. You need to identify fundamentals of the data, who owns not only that data, but also its metadata. You need to understand where the consolidation is happening and who owns it. Metadata is the core driver and cost saver for building warehouses and requirements gathering.
– Albert Hui, Principal, Data Economist
In order to maximize your ROI on business intelligence, it needs to be treated less like a one-time endeavor and more like a practice to be continually improved upon.
Though the BI strategy provides the overall direction, the BI operating model – which encompasses organization structure, processes, people, and application functionality – is the primary determinant of efficacy with respect to information delivery. The alterations made to the operating model occur in the short term to improve the final deliverables for business users.
An optimal BI operating model satisfies three core requirements:
Timeliness
Effectiveness
Bring tangible benefits of your revamped BI strategy to business users by critically assessing how your organization delivers business intelligence and identifying opportunities for increased operational efficiency.
Assess and Optimize BI Operations
Focus on delivering timely, quality, and affordable information to enable fast and effective business decisions
Organizations new to business intelligence or with immature BI capabilities are under the impression that simply getting the latest-and-greatest tool will provide the insights business users are looking for.
BI technology can only be as effective as the processes surrounding it and the people leveraging it. Organizations need to take the time to select and implement a BI suite that aligns with business goals and fosters end-user adoption.
As an increasing number of companies turn to business intelligence technology, vendors are responding by providing BI and analytics platforms with more and more features.
Our vendor landscape will simplify the process of selecting a BI and analytics solution by:
Differentiating between the platforms and features vendors are offering.
Detailing a robust framework for requirements gathering to pinpoint your organization’s needs.
Developing a high-level plan for implementation.
Select and Implement a Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution
Find the diamond in your data-rough using the right BI & Analytics solution
3.1.1-3.1.3
Construct a BI improvement initiative roadmap
During these activities, your team will consolidate the list of BI initiatives generated from the assessments conducted in previous phases, assign timelines to each action, prioritize them using a value–effort matrix, and finally produce a roadmap for implementing your organization’s BI improvement strategy.
3.2
Identify continuous improvement opportunities for BI
Our analyst team will work with your organization to ideate supplementary programs to support your BI strategy. Defining Excel use cases that are permitted and prohibited in conjunction with your BI strategy, as well as structuring an internal BI ambassador network, are a few extra initiatives that can enhance your BI improvement plans.
A BI program is not a static project that is created once and remains unchanged. Your strategy must be treated as a living platform to be revisited and revitalized in order to provide effective enablement of business decision making. Develop a BI strategy that propels your organization by building it on business goals and objectives, as well as comprehensive assessments that quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate your current BI capabilities.
The closer you align your new BI platform to real business interests, the stronger will be the buy-in, realized value, and groundswell of enthusiastic adoption. Ultimately, getting this phase right sets the stage to best realize a strong ROI for your investment in the people, processes, and technology that will be your next generation BI platform.
BI success is not based solely on the technology it runs on; technology cannot mask gaps in capabilities. You must be capable in your environment – data management, data quality, and related data practices must be strong, otherwise the usefulness of the intelligence suffers. The best BI solution does not only provide a technology platform, but also addresses the elements that surround the platform. Look beyond tools and holistically assess the maturity of your BI practice with input from both the BI consumer and provider perspectives.
| Style | Description | Strategic Importance (1-5) | Popularity (1-5) | Effort (1-5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standards Preformatted reports | Standard, preformatted information for backward-looking analysis. | 5 | 5 | 1 |
| User-defined analyses | Pre-staged information where “pick lists” enable business users to filter (select) the information they wish to analyze, such as sales for a selected region during a selected previous timeframe. | 5 | 4 | 2 |
| Ad-hoc analyses | Power users write their own queries to extract self-selected pre-staged information and then use the information to perform a user-created analysis. | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Scorecards and dashboards | Predefined business performance metrics about performance variables that are important to the organization, presented in a tabular or graphical format that enables business users to see at a glance how the organization is performing. | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Multidimensional analysis (OLAP) | Multidimensional analysis (also known as On-line analytical processing): Flexible tool-based user-defined analysis of business performance and the underlying drivers or root causes of that performance. | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| Alerts | Predefined analyses of key business performance variables, comparison to a performance standard or range, and communication to designated businesspeople when performance is outside the predefined performance standard or range. | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| Advanced Analytics | Application of long-established statistical and/or operations research methods to historical business information to look backward and characterize a relevant aspect of business performance, typically by using descriptive statistics | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| Predictive Analytics | Application of long-established statistical and/or operations research methods to historical business information to predict, model, or simulate future business and/or economic performance and potentially prescribe a favored course of action for the future | 5 | 3 | 5 |
A comprehensive BI strategy needs to be developed under the umbrella of an overall IT strategy. Specifically, creating a BI strategy is contributing to helping IT mature from a firefighter to a strategic partner that has close ties with business units.
| 1. Determine mandate and scope | 2. Assess drivers and constraints | 3. Evaluate current state of IT | 4. Develop a target state vision | 5. Analyze gaps and define initiatives | 6. Build a roadmap | 8. Revamp | 7. Execute |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mandate | Business drivers | Holistic assessments | Vision and mission | Initiatives | Business-driven priorities | ||
| Scope | External drivers | Focus-area specific assessments | Guiding principles | Risks | |||
| Project charter | Opportunities to innovate | Target state vision | Execution schedule | ||||
| Implications | Objectives and measures |
This BI strategy blueprint is rooted in our road-tested and proven IT strategy framework as a systematic method of tackling strategy development.
Albert Hui is a cofounder of Data Economist, a data-consulting firm based in Toronto, Canada. His current assignment is to redesign Scotiabank’s Asset Liability Management for its Basel III liquidity compliance using Big Data technology. Passionate about technology and problem solving, Albert is an entrepreneur and result-oriented IT technology leader with 18 years of experience in consulting and software industry. His area of focus is on data management, specializing in Big Data, business intelligence, and data warehousing. Beside his day job, he also contributes to the IT community by writing blogs and whitepapers, book editing, and speaking at technology conferences. His recent research and speaking engagement is on machine learning on Big Data.
Albert holds an MBA from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering. He has twin boys and enjoys camping and cycling with them in his spare time.
Cameran is the Senior Director of Analytics and Data Science at thredUP, a startup inspiring a new generation to think second hand first. There she helps drives top line growth through advanced and predictive analytics. Previously, she served as the Director of Data Science at VMware where she built and led the data team for End User Computing. Before moving to the tech industry, she spent five years at The Disneyland Resort setting ticket and hotel prices and building models to forecast attendance. Cameran holds an undergraduate degree in Economics/Mathematics from UC Santa Barbara and graduated with honors from UC Irvine's MBA program.
Bange, Carsten and Wayne Eckerson. “BI and Data Management in the Cloud: Issues and Trends.” BARC and Eckerson Group, January 2017. Web.
Business Intelligence: The Strategy Imperative for CIOs. Tech. Information Builders. 2007. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.
COBIT 5: Enabling Information. Rolling Meadows, IL: ISACA, 2013. Web.
Dag, Naslund, Emma Sikander, and Sofia Oberg. "Business Intelligence - a Maturity Model Covering Common Challenges." Lund University Publications. Lund University, 2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
“DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK Guide).” First Edition. DAMA International. 2009. Digital. April 2014.
Davenport, Thomas H. and Bean, Randy. “Big Data and AI Executive Survey 2019.” NewVantage Partners LLC. 2019. Web.
"Debunking the Business of Analytics." Experian Data Quality. Sept. 2013. Web.
Drouin, Sue. "Value Chain." SAP Analytics. February 27, 2015.
Farrar, David. “BI & Data analytics workshop feedback.” Ricoh Canada. Sept. 2019.
Fletcher, Heather. "New England Patriots Use Analytics & Trigger Emails to Retain Season Ticket Holders." Target Marketing. 1 Dec. 2011. Web.
Gonçalves, Alex. "Social Media Analytics Strategy - Using Data to Optimize Business Performance.” Apress. 2017.
Imhoff, Claudia, and Colin White. "Self Service Business Intelligence: Empowering Users to Generate Insights." SAS Resource Page. The Data Warehouse Institute, 2011. Web.
Khamassi, Ahmed. "Building An Analytical Roadmap : A Real Life Example." Wipro. 2014.
Kuntz, Jerry, Pierre Haren, and Rebecca Shockley. IBM Insight 2015 Teleconference Series. Proc. of Analytics: The Upside of Disruption. IBM Institute for Business Value, 19 Oct. 2015. Web.
Kwan, Anne , Maximillian Schroeck, Jon Kawamura. “Architecting and operating model, A platform for accelerating digital transformation.” Part of a Deliotte Series on Digital Industrial Transformation, 2019. Web.
Lebied, Mona. "11 Steps on Your BI Roadmap To Implement A Successful Business Intelligence Strategy." Business Intelligence. July 20, 2018. Web.
Light, Rob. “Make Business Intelligence a Necessity: How to Drive User Adoption.” Sisense Blog. 30 July 2018.
Mazenko, Elizabeth. “Avoid the Pitfalls: 3 Reasons 80% of BI Projects Fail.” BetterBuys. October 2015.
Marr, Bernard. "Why Every Business Needs A Data And Analytics Strategy.” Bernard Marr & Co. 2019.
Mohr, Niko and Hürtgen, Holger. “Achieving Business Impact with Data.” McKinsey. April 2018.
MIT Sloan Management
Quinn, Kevin R. "Worst Practices in Business Intelligence: Why BI Applications Succeed Where BI Tools Fail." (2007): 1-19. BeyeNetwork. Information Builders, 2007. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.
Ringdal, Kristen. "Learning multilevel Analysis." European social Survey. 2019.
Schaefer, Dave, Ajay Chandramouly, Burt Carmak, and Kireeti Kesavamurthy. "Delivering Self-Service BI, Data Visualization, and Big Data Analytics." IT@Intel White Paper (2013): 1-11. June 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
Schultz, Yogi. “About.” Corvelle Consulting. 2019.
"The Current State of Analytics: Where Do We Go From Here?" SAS Resource Page. SAS & Bloomberg Businessweek, 2011. Web.
"The Four Steps to Defining a Customer Analytics Strategy." CCG Analytics Solutions & Services. Nov 10,2017.
Traore, Moulaye. "Without a strategic plan, your analytics initiatives are risky." Advisor. March 12, 2018. web.
Wells, Dave. "Ten Mistakes to Avoid When Gathering BI Requirements." Engineering for Industry. The Data Warehouse Institute, 2008. Web.
“What is a Business Intelligence Strategy and do you need one?” Hydra. Sept 2019. Web.
Williams, Steve. “Business Intelligence Strategy and Big Data Analytics.” Morgan Kaufman. 2016.
Wolpe, Toby. "Case Study: How One Firm Used BI Analytics to Track Staff Performance | ZDNet." ZDNet. 3 May 2013. Web.
Yuk, Mico. “11 Reasons Why Most Business Intelligence Projects Fail.” Innovative enterprise Channels. May 2019.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Assess current capabilities and define an ideal target state.
Understand the different collection solutions to identify which best supports needs.
Begin analyzing and acting on gathered intelligence.
Stand up an intelligence dissemination program.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
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.
Under the best of circumstances, mainframe systems are complex, expensive, and difficult to scale. In today’s world, applications written for mainframe legacy systems also present significant operational challenges to customers compounded by the dwindling pool of engineers who specialize in these outdated technologies. Many organizations want to migrate their legacy applications to the cloud but to do so they need to go through a lengthy migration process that is made more challenging by the complexity of mainframe applications.
The most common tactic is for the organization to better realize their z/Series options and adopt a strategy built on complexity and workload understanding. To make the evident, obvious, the options here for the non-commodity are not as broad as with commodity server platforms and the mainframe is arguably the most widely used and complex non-commodity platform on the market.
This research will help you:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This blueprint will help you assess the fit, purpose, and price; develop strategies for overcoming potential challenges; and determine the future of z/Series for your organization.
Use this tool to play with the pre-populated values or insert your own amounts to compare possible database decisions, and determine the TCO of each. Note that common assumptions can often be false; for example, open-source Cassandra running on many inexpensive commodity servers can actually have a higher TCO over six years than a Cassandra environment running on a larger single expensive piece of hardware. Therefore, calculating TCO is an essential part of the database decision process.
“A number of market conditions have coalesced in a way that is increasingly driving existing mainframe customers to consider running their application workloads on alternative platforms. In 2020, the World Economic Forum noted that 42% of core skills required to perform existing jobs are expected to change by 2022, and that more than 1 billion workers need to be reskilled by 2030.” – Dale Vecchio
Your Challenge |
It seems like anytime there’s a new CIO who is not from the mainframe world there is immediate pressure to get off this platform. However, just as there is a high financial commitment required to stay on System Z, moving off is risky and potentially more costly. You need to truly understand the scale and complexity ahead of the organization. |
|---|---|
Common Obstacles |
Under the best of circumstances, mainframe systems are complex, expensive, and difficult to scale. In today’s world, applications written for mainframe legacy systems also present significant operational challenges to customers compounded by the dwindling pool of engineers who specialize in these outdated technologies. Many organizations want to migrate their legacy applications to the cloud, but to do so they need to go through a lengthy migration process that is made more challenging by the complexity of mainframe applications. |
Info-Tech Approach |
The most common tactic is for the organization to better realize its z/Series options and adopt a strategy built on complexity and workload understanding. To make the evident, obvious: the options here for the non-commodity are not as broad as with commodity server platforms and the mainframe is arguably the most widely used and complex non-commodity platform on the market. |
Problem statement: The z/Series remains a vital platform for many businesses and continues to deliver exceptional reliability and performance and play a key role in the enterprise. With the limited and aging resources at hand, CIOs and the like must continually review and understand their migration path with the same regard as any other distributed system roadmap. |
This research is designed for: IT strategic direction decision makers. IT managers responsible for an existing z/Series platform. Organizations evaluating platforms for mission critical applications. |
This research will help you:
|
Good Luck.
![]() |
Modernize the mainframe … here we go again. Prior to 2020, most organizations were muddling around in “year eleven of the four-year plan” to exit the mainframe platform where a medium-term commitment to the platform existed. Since 2020, it appears the appetite for the mainframe platform changed. Again. Discussions mostly seem to be about what the options are beyond hardware outsourcing or re-platforming to “cloud” migration of workloads – mostly planning and strategy topics. A word of caution: it would appear unwise to stand in front of the exit door for fear of being trampled. Hardware expirations between now and 2025 are motivating hosting deployments. Others are in migration activities, and some have already decommissioned and migrated but now are trying to rehab the operations team now lacking direction and/or structure. |
Darin Stahl |
Thinking of modernizing your mainframe can cause you angst so grab a fidget spinner and relax because we have you covered!
External Business Pressures:
Internal Considerations:
With multiple control points to be addressed, care must be taken to simplify your options while addressing all concerns to ease operational load.
Dating back to 2011, Darin Stahl has been the primary z/Series subject matter expert within the Infrastructure & Operations Research team. Below represents the percentage of calls, per industry, where z/Series advisory has been provided by Darin*: 37% - State Government 19% - Insurance 11% - Municipality 8% - Federal Government 8% - Financial Services 5% - Higher Education 3% - Retail 3% - Hospitality/Resort 3% - Logistics and Transportation 3% - Utility Based on the Info-Tech call history, there is a consistent cross section of industry members who not only rely upon the mainframe but are also considering migration options. |
Note:Of course, this only represents industries who are Info-Tech members and who called for advisory services about the mainframe. There may well be more Info-Tech members with mainframes who have no topic to discuss with us about the mainframe specifically. Why do we mention this? We caution against suggesting things like, ”somewhat less than 50% of mainframes live in state data centers” or any other extrapolated inference from this data. Our viewpoint and discussion is based on the cases and the calls that we have taken over the years. *37+ enterprise calls were reviewed and sampled. |
For most workloads “scale out" (e.g. virtualized cloud or IaaS ) is going to provide obvious and quantifiable benefits. However, with some workloads (extremely large analytics or batch processing ) a "scale up" approach is more optimal. But the scale up is really limited to very specific workloads. Despite some assumptions, the gains made when moving from scale up to scale out are not linear. Obviously, when you scale out from a performance perspective you experience a drop in what a single unit of compute can do. Additionally, there will be latency introduced in the form of network overhead, transactions, and replication into operations that were previously done just bypassing object references within a single frame. Some applications or use cases will have to be architected or written differently (thinking about the high-demand analytic workloads at large scale). Remember the “grid computing” craze that hit us during the early part of this century? It was advantageous for many to distribute work across a grid of computing devices for applications but the advantage gained was contingent on the workload able to be parsed out as work units and then pulled back together through the application. There can be some interesting and negative consequences for analytics or batch operations in a large scale as mentioned above. Bottom line, as experienced previously with Microfocus mainframe ports to x86, the batch operations simply take much longer to complete. |
Big Data Considerations*:
|
Below is a summary of concerns regarding core mainframe skills:
|
The Challenge An aging workforce, specialized skills, and high salary expectations
The In-House Solution: Build your mentorship program to create a viable succession plan
|
Migrate to another platform |
Use a hosting provider |
Outsource |
Re-platform (cloud/vendors) |
Reinvest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
There are several challenges to overcome in a migration project, from finding an appropriate alternative platform to rewriting legacy code. Many organizations have incurred huge costs in the attempt, only to be unsuccessful in the end, so make this decision carefully. |
Organizations often have highly sensitive data on their mainframes (e.g. financial data), so many of these organizations are reluctant to have this data live outside of their four walls. However, the convenience of using a hosting provider makes this an attractive option to consider. |
The most common tactic is for the organization to adopt some level of outsourcing for the non-commodity platform, retaining the application support/development in-house. |
A customer can “re-platform” the non-commodity workload into public cloud offerings or in a few offerings |
If you’re staying with the mainframe and keeping it in-house, it’s important to continue to invest in this platform, keep it current, and look for opportunities to optimize its value. |
If this sounds like your organization, it’s time to do the analysis so you can decide and get clarity on the future of the mainframe in your organization.
|
*3 of the top 4 challenges related to shortfalls of alternative platforms
|
*Source: Maximize the Value of IBM Mainframes in My Business |
Potential for reduced costs
Reliable infrastructure and experienced staff
So, what are the risks?
The most common tactic is for the organization to adopt some level of outsourcing for the non-commodity platform, retaining the application support/development in-house. The options here for the non-commodity (z/Series, IBM Power platforms, for example) are not as broad as with commodity server platforms. More confusingly, the term “outsourcing” for these can include: |
Traditional/Colocation – A customer transitions their hardware environment to a provider’s data center. The provider can then manage the hardware and “system.” Onsite Outsourcing – Here a provider will support the hardware/system environment at the client’s site. The provider may acquire the customer’s hardware and provide software licenses. This could also include hiring or “rebadging” staff supporting the platform. This type of arrangement is typically part of a larger services or application transformation. While low risk, it is not as cost-effective as other deployment models. Managed Hosting – A customer transitions their legacy application environment to an off-prem hosted multi-tenanted environment. It will provide the most cost savings following the transition, stabilization, and disposal of existing environment. Some providers will provide software licensing, and some will also support “Bring Your Own,” as permitted by IBM terms for example. |
Info-Tech Insight Technical debt for non-commodity platforms isn’t only hardware based. Moving an application written for the mainframe onto a “cheaper” hardware platform (or outsourced deployment) leaves the more critical problems and frequently introduces a raft of new ones. |
While the majority of the coded functionality (JCLs, programs, etc.) migrate easily, there will be a need to re-code or re-write objects – especially if any object, code, or location references are not exactly the same in the new environment. Micro Focus has solid experience in this but if consider it within the context of an 80/20 rule (the actual metrics might be much better than that), meaning that some level of rework would have to be accomplished as an overhead to the exercise. Build that thought into your thinking and business case. |
AWS Cloud
Azure Cloud
Micro Focus COBOL (Visual COBOL)
|
Yeah, a complication for this situation is the legacy code. While re-platforming/re-hosting non-COBOL code is not new, we have not had many member observations compared to the re-platforming/re-hosting of COBOL functionality initiatives. That being said, there are a couple of interesting opportunities to explore. |
NTT Data Services (GLOBAL)
ModernSystems (or ModSys) has relevant experience.
ATOS, as a hosting vendor mostly referenced by customers with global locations in a short-term transition posture, could be an option. Lastly, the other Managed Services vendors with NATURAL and Adabas capabilities: |
*92% of organizations that added capacity said TCO is lower than for commodity servers (compared to 50% of those who did not add capacity) |
*63% of organizations that added capacity said finding resources is not very difficult (compared to 42% of those who did not add capacity) |
![]() |
![]() |
| Temporary workaround. This would align with a technical solution allowing the VASM files to be accessed using platforms other than on mainframe hardware (Micro Focus or other file store trickery). This can be accomplished relatively quickly but does run the risk of technology obsolesce for the workaround at some point in the future. Bulk conversion. This method would involve the extract/transform/load of the historical records into the new application platform. Often the order of the conversion is completed on work newest to oldest (the idea is that the newest historical records would have the highest likelihood of an access need), but all files would be converted to the new application and the old data store destroyed. Forward convert, which would have files undergo the extract/transform/load conversion into the new application as they are accessed or reopened. This method would keep historical records indefinitely or until they are converted – or the legal retention schedule allows for their destruction (hopefully no file must be kept forever). This could be a cost-efficient approach since the historical files remaining on the VSAM platform would be shrunk over time based on demand from the district attorney process. The conversion process could be automated and scripted, with a QR step allowing for the records to be deleted from the old platform. |
Info-Tech Insight It is not usual for organizations to leverage options #2 and #3 above to move the functionality forward while containing the scope creep and costs for the data conversions. |
Note: Enterprise job scheduling is a topic with low member interest or demand. Since our published research is driven by members’ interest and needs, the lack of activity or member demand would obviously be a significant influence into our ability to aggregate shared member insight, trends, or best practices in our published agenda.
|
|
✓ Advanced Systems Concepts ✓ BMC ✓ Broadcom ✓ HCL ✓ Fortra |
✓ Redwood ✓ SMA Technologies ✓ StoneBranch ✓ Tidal Software ✓ Vinzant Software |
Creating vendor profiles will help quickly filter the solution providers that directly meet your z/Series needs.
ActiveBatch
| Workload Management: | ||
Summary Founded in 1981, ASCs ActiveBatch “provides a central automation hub for scheduling and monitoring so that business-critical systems, like CRM, ERP, Big Data, BI, ETL tools, work order management, project management, and consulting systems, work together seamlessly with minimal human intervention.”* URL Coverage: Global |
Amazon EC2 Hadoop Ecosystem IBM Cognos DataStage IBM PureData (Netezza) Informatica Cloud Microsoft Azure Microsoft Dynamics AX Microsoft SharePoint Microsoft Team Foundation Server |
Oracle EBS Oracle PeopleSoft SAP BusinessObjects ServiceNow Teradata VMware Windows Linux Unix IBM i |
*Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc.
Control-M
Workload Management: | ||
Summary Founded in 1980, BMCs Control-M product “simplifies application and data workflow orchestration on premises or as a service. It makes it easy to build, define, schedule, manage, and monitor production workflows, ensuring visibility, reliability, and improving SLAs.”* URL bmc.com/it-solutions/control-m.html Coverage: Global | AWS Azure Google Cloud Platform Cognos IBM InfoSphere DataStage SAP HANA Oracle EBS Oracle PeopleSoft BusinessObjects | ServiceNow Teradata VMware Windows Linux Unix IBM i IBM z/OS zLinux |
*BMC
Atomic Automation
Autosys Workload Automation
Workload Management: | ||
Summary Broadcom offers Atomic Automation and Autosys Workload Automation which ”gives you the agility, speed and reliability required for effective digital business automation. From a single unified platform, Atomic centrally provides the orchestration and automation capabilities needed accelerate your digital transformation and support the growth of your company.”* URL broadcom.com/products/software/automation/automic-automation broadcom.com/products/software/automation/autosys Coverage: Global
| Windows MacOS Linux UNIX AWS Azure Google Cloud Platform VMware z/OS zLinux System i OpenVMS Banner Ecometry | Hadoop Oracle EBS Oracle PeopleSoft SAP BusinessObjects ServiceNow Teradata VMware Windows Linux Unix IBM i |
Workload Automation
Workload Management: | |||
Summary “HCL Workload Automation streamlined modelling, advanced AI and open integration for observability. Accelerate the digital transformation of modern enterprises, ensuring business agility and resilience with our latest version of one stop automation platform. Orchestrate unattended and event-driven tasks for IT and business processes from legacy to cloud and kubernetes systems.”* URL hcltechsw.com/workload-automation Coverage: Global
| Windows MacOS Linux UNIX AWS Azure Google Cloud Platform VMware z/OS zLinux System i OpenVMS IBM SoftLayer IBM BigInsights | IBM Cognos Hadoop Microsoft Dynamics 365 Microsoft Dynamics AX Microsoft SQL Server Oracle E-Business Suite PeopleSoft SAP ServiceNow Apache Oozie Informatica PowerCenter IBM InfoSphere DataStage Salesforce BusinessObjects BI | IBM Sterling Connect:Direct IBM WebSphere MQ IBM Cloudant Apache Spark |
JAMS Scheduler
Workload Management: | ||
Summary Fortra’s “JAMS is a centralized workload automation and job scheduling solution that runs, monitors, and manages jobs and workflows that support critical business processes. JAMS reliably orchestrates the critical IT processes that run your business. Our comprehensive workload automation and job scheduling solution provides a single pane of glass to manage, execute, and monitor jobs—regardless of platforms or applications.”* URL Coverage: Global
| OpenVMS OS/400 Unix Windows z/OS SAP Oracle Microsoft Infor Workday AWS Azure Google Cloud Compute ServiceNow Salesforce | Micro Focus Microsoft Dynamics 365 Microsoft Dynamics AX Microsoft SQL Server MySQL NeoBatch Netezza Oracle PL/SQL Oracle E-Business Suite PeopleSoft SAP SAS Symitar |
*JAMS
Redwood SaaS
Workload Management: | ||
Summary Founded in 1993 and delivered as a SaaS solution, ”Redwood lets you orchestrate securely and reliably across any application, service or server, in the cloud or on-premises, all inside a single platform. Automation solutions are at the core of critical business operations such as forecasting, replenishment, reconciliation, financial close, order to cash, billing, reporting, and more. Enterprises in every industry — from manufacturing, utility, retail, and biotech to healthcare, banking, and aerospace.”* URL Coverage: Global
| OpenVMS OS/400 Unix Windows z/OS SAP Oracle Microsoft Infor Workday AWS Azure Google Cloud Compute ServiceNow Salesforce | Github Office 365 Slack Dropbox Tableau Informatica SAP BusinessObjects Cognos Microsoft Power BI Amazon QuickSight VMware Xen Kubernetes |
Robot Scheduler
Workload Management: | |
Summary “Robot Schedule’s workload automation capabilities allow users to automate everything from simple jobs to complex, event-driven processes on multiple platforms and centralize management from your most reliable system: IBM i. Just create a calendar of when and how jobs should run, and the software will do the rest.”* URL fortra.com/products/job-scheduling-software-ibm-i Coverage: Global
| IBM i (System i, iSeries, AS/400) AIX/UNIX Linux Windows SQL/Server Domino JD Edwards EnterpriseOne SAP Automate Schedule (formerly Skybot Scheduler) |
OpCon
Workload Management: | |||
Summary Founded in1980, SMA offers to “save time, reduce error, and free your IT staff to work on more strategic contributions with OpCon from SMA Technologies. OpCon offers powerful, easy-to-use workload automation and orchestration to eliminate manual tasks and manage workloads across business-critical operations. It's the perfect fit for financial institutions, insurance companies, and other transactional businesses.”* URL Coverage: Global | Windows Linux Unix z/Series IBM i Unisys Oracle SAP Microsoft Dynamics AX Infor M3 Sage Cegid Temenos | FICS Microsoft Azure Data Management Microsoft Azure VM Amazon EC2/AWS Web Services RESTful Docker Google Cloud VMware ServiceNow Commvault Microsoft WSUS Microsoft Orchestrator | Java JBoss Asysco AMT Tuxedo ART Nutanix Corelation Symitar Fiserv DNA Fiserv XP2 |
Universal Automation Center (UAC)
Workload Management: | |||
Summary Founded in 1999, ”the Stonebranch Universal Automation Center (UAC) is an enterprise-grade business automation solution that goes beyond traditional job scheduling. UAC's event-based workload automation solution is designed to automate and orchestrate system jobs and tasks across all mainframe, on-prem, and hybrid IT environments. IT operations teams gain complete visibility and advanced control with a single web-based controller, while removing the need to run individual job schedulers across platforms.”* URL stonebranch.com/it-automation-solutions/enterprise-job-scheduling Coverage: Global | Windows Linux Unix z/Series Apache Kafka AWS Databricks Docker GitHub Google Cloud Informatica | Jenkins Jscape Kubernetes Microsoft Azure Microsoft SQL Microsoft Teams PagerDuty PeopleSoft Petnaho RedHat Ansible Salesforce | SAP ServiceNow Slack SMTP and IMAP Snowflake Tableau VMware |
Workload Automation
Workload Management: | |||
Summary Founded in 1979, Tidal’s Workload Automation will “simplify management and execution of end-to-end business processes with our unified automation platform. Orchestrate workflows whether they're running on-prem, in the cloud or hybrid environments.”* URL Coverage: Global | CentOS Linux Microsoft Windows Server Open VMS Oracle Cloud Oracle Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Server Suse Enterprise Tandem NSK Ubuntu UNIX HPUX (PA-RISC, Itanium) Solaris (Sparc, X86) | AIX, iSeries z/Linux z/OS Amazon AWS Microsoft Azure Oracle OCI Google Cloud ServiceNow Kubernetes VMware Cisco UCS SAP R/3 & SAP S/4HANA Oracle E-Business | Oracle ERP Cloud PeopleSoft JD Edwards Hadoop Oracle DB Microsoft SQL SAP BusinessObjects IBM Cognos FTP/FTPS/SFTP Informatica |
Global ECS
Workload Management: | |
Summary Founded in 1987, Global ECS can “simplify operations in all areas of production with the GECS automation framework. Use a single solution to schedule, coordinate and monitor file transfers, database operations, scripts, web services, executables and SAP jobs. Maximize efficiency for all operations across multiple business units intelligently and automatically.”* URL Coverage: Global | Windows Linux Unix iSeries SAP R/3 & SAP S/4HANA Oracle, SQL/Server |
Activities:
This activity involves the following participants:
IT strategic direction decision makers
IT managers responsible for an existing z/Series platform
Organizations evaluating platforms for mission critical applications
Outcomes of this step:
This checkpoint process creates transparency around agreement costs with the business and gives the business an opportunity to re-evaluate its requirements for a potentially leaner agreement.
The Scale Up vs. Scale Out TCO Tool provides organizations with a framework for estimating the costs associated with purchasing and licensing for a scale-up and scale-out environment over a multi-year period. Use this tool to:
| ![]() |
Info-Tech InsightWatch out for inaccurate financial information. Ensure that the financials for cost match your maintenance and contract terms. | Use the Scale Up vs. Scale Out TCO Tool to determine your TCO options. |
Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services
Acquiring a service is like buying an experience. Don’t confuse the simplicity of buying hardware with buying an experience.
Outsource IT Infrastructure to Improve System Availability, Reliability, and Recovery
There are very few IT infrastructure components you should be housing internally – outsource everything else.
Build Your Infrastructure Roadmap
Move beyond alignment: Put yourself in the driver’s seat for true business value.
Make the most of cloud for your organization.
Drive consensus by outlining how your organization will use the cloud.
Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms
Know where to start and where to focus attention in the implementation of a big data strategy.
Improve your RFPs to gain leverage and get better results.
![]() |
Darin Stahl, Principal Research Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group Darin is a Principal Research Advisor within the Infrastructure Practice, and leveraging 38+ years of experience, his areas of focus include: IT Operations Management, Service Desk, Infrastructure Outsourcing, Managed Services, Cloud Infrastructure, DRP/BCP, Printer Management, Managed Print Services, Application Performance Monitoring/ APM, Managed FTP, non-commodity servers (z/Series, mainframe, IBM i, AIX, Power PC). |
![]() |
Troy Cheeseman, Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group Troy has over 25 years of IT management experience and has championed large enterprise-wide technology transformation programs, remote/home office collaboration and remote work strategies, BCP, IT DRP, IT Operations and expense management programs, international right placement initiatives, and large technology transformation initiatives (M&A). Additionally, he has deep experience working with IT solution providers and technology (cloud) start-ups. |
“AWS Announces AWS Mainframe Modernization.” Business Wire, 30 Nov. 2021.
de Valence, Phil. “Migrating a Mainframe to AWS in 5 Steps with Astadia?” AWS, 23 Mar. 2018.
Graham, Nyela. “New study shows mainframes still popular despite the rise of cloud—though times are changing…fast?” WatersTechnology, 12 Sept. 2022.
“Legacy applications can be revitalized with API.” MuleSoft, 2022.
Vecchio, Dale. “The Benefits of Running Mainframe Applications on LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe® & Microsoft Azure.” LzLabs Sites, Mar. 2021.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
A step-by-step approach to walk you through understanding the IT accessibility compliance requirements, building your roadmap, and communicating with your department. This storyboard will help you figure out what’s needed from IT to support the business and launch accessibility with your team.
Accessibility compliance can be overwhelming at first. Use this template to simplify the requirements for the IT managers and build out a roadmap.
Using the EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (2021-03) as a basis for digital accessibility conformance. Use this tool to build a priorities list of requirements that are applicable to your organization.
Use this pre-built slide deck to customize your accessibility communication to the IT department. It will help you build a shared vision for accessibility, a current state picture, and plans to build to the target future state.
Accessibility is an organizational directive; however, IT plays a fundamental role in its success. As business partners require support and expertise to assist with their accessibility requirements IT needs to be ready to respond. Even if your organization hasn't fully committed to an accessibility standard, you can proactively get ready by planting the seeds to change the culture. By building understanding and awareness of the significant impact technology has on accessibility, you can start to change behaviors.
Implementing an accessibility program requires many considerations: legal requirements; international guidelines, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG); training for staff; ongoing improvement; and collaborating with accessibility experts and people with disabilities. It can be overwhelming to know where to start. The tendency is to start with compliance, which is a fantastic first step. For a sustained program use, change management practices are needed to change behaviors and build inclusion for people with disabilities.
15% of the world's population identify as having some form of a disability (not including others that are impacted, e.g. caretakers, family). Why would anyone want to alienate over 1.1 billion people?
Heather Leier-Murray
Senior Research Analyst, People & Leadership
Info-Tech Research Group
Merriam-Webster defines disability as a "physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impairs, interferes with, or limits a person's ability to engage in certain tasks or actions or participate in typical daily activities and interactions."(1)
The World Health Organization points out that a crucial part of the definition of disability is that it's not just a health problem, but the environment impacts the experience and extent of disability. Inaccessibility creates barriers for full participation in society.(2)
The likelihood of you experiencing a disability at some point in your life is very high, whether a physical or mental disability, seen or unseen, temporary or permanent, severe or mild.(2)
Many people acquire disabilities as they age yet may not identify as "a person with a disability."3 Where life expectancies are over 70 years of age, 11.5% of life is spent living with a disability. (4)
"Extreme personalization is becoming the primary difference in business success, and everyone wants to be a stakeholder in a company that provides processes, products, and services to employees and customers with equitable, person-centered experiences and allows for full participation where no one is left out."
– Paudie Healy, CEO, Universal Access
(1.) Merriam-Webster
(2.) World Health Organization, 2022
(3.) Digital Leaders, as cited in WAI, 2018
(4.) Disabled World, as cited in WAI, 2018
You know the push for accessibility is coming in your organization. You might even have a program started or approval to build one. But you're not sure if you and your team are ready to support and enable the organization on its accessibility journey.
Understanding where to start, where accessibility lives, and if or when you're done can be overwhelmingly difficult. Accessibility is an organizational initiative that IT enables; being able to support the organization requires a level of understanding of common obstacles.
Prepare your people for accessibility and inclusion, even if your organization doesn't have a formal standard yet. Take your accessibility from mandate to movement, i.e. from Phase 1 - focused on compliance to Phase 2 - driven by experience for sustained change.
Accessibility is a practice, not a project. Therefore, accessibility is an organizational initiative; however, IT support is critical. Use change management theory to guide the new behaviors, processes, and thinking to adopt accessibility beyond compliance. Determining where to start is challenging because the tendency is to start with tech or compliance; however, starting with the people is key. It must be a change in organizational culture.
90% of companies claim to prioritize diversity.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2020
Over 30% of those that claim to prioritize diversity are focused on compliance.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2022
Source: Angel Business Communications, 2022
Still, most businesses aren't meeting compliance standards. Even though legislation has been in place for over 30 years, a 2022 study by WebAIM of 1,000,000 homepages returned a 96.8% WCAG 2.0 failure rate.
Source: Institute for Disability Research, Policy, and Practice, 2022
Changing behaviors and mindsets is necessary to be experience driven and sustain accessibility.
"Compliance is the minimum. And when we look at web tech, people are still arguing about their positioning on the standards that need to be enforced in order to comply, forgetting that it isn't enough to comply."
-- Jordyn Zimmerman, M.Ed., Director of Professional Development, The Nora Project, and Appointee, President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
To see more on the Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework:
"As an organization matures, the impact of accessibility shifts. A good company will think of security at the very beginning. The same needs to be applied to accessibility thinking. At the peak of accessibility maturity an organization will have people with disabilities involved at the outset."
-- Cam Beaudoin, Owner, Accelerated Accessibility
|
1. Planning IT's accessibility requirements |
2. Change enablement of accessibility |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Phase Steps |
|
|
|
Phase Outcomes |
List of business needs and priorities related to accessibility IT accessibility requirements for conformance Assessment of state of accessibility conformance Prioritization of accessibility initiatives for IT Remediation plan for IT related to accessibility conformance Accessibility commitment statement |
Team understanding of what, why, and how Accessibility Quick Cards Sustainment plan |
Accessibility is a practice, not a project. Therefore, accessibility is an organizational initiative; however, IT support is critical. Use change management theory to guide the new behaviors, processes, and thinking to adopt accessibility beyond compliance. Determining where to start is challenging. The tendency is to start with tech or compliance; however, starting with the people is key. It must be a change in organizational culture.
Compliance is the minimum; people and behavior changes are the hardest part and have the largest impact on accessibility. Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility makes the necessary behavior changes easier. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.
Think about accessibility like you think about IT security. Use IT security concepts that you and your team are already familiar with to initiate the accessibility program.
People are learning a new way to behave and think; this can be an unsettling period. Patience, education, communication, support, and time are keys for success of the implementation of accessibility. There is a transition period needed; people will gradually change their practices and attitudes. Celebrate small successes as they arise.
Accessibility isn't a project as there is no end. Effective planning and continuous reinforcement of "the new way of doing things" is necessary to enable accessibility as the new status quo.
IT Manager Meeting Template
Use this meeting slide deck to work with IT managers to build out the accessibility remediation plan and commitment statement.
Departmental Meeting Template
Use this meeting slide deck to introduce the concept of accessibility and communicate IT goals and objectives.
Accessibility Quick Cards
Using the Info-Tech IT Management and Governance Framework to identify key activities to help improve and maintain the accessibility of your organization and your core IT processes.
Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool
This tool will assist you in identifying remediation priorities applicable to your organization.
|
IT Benefits |
Business Benefits |
|---|---|
|
|
Improve IT effectiveness and employee buy-in to change.
Measuring the effectiveness of your program helps contribute to a culture of continuous improvement. Having consistent measures in place helps to inform decisions and enables your plan to be iterative to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
Monitor employee engagement, overall stakeholder satisfaction with IT, and the overall end-customer satisfaction.
Remember, accessibility is not a project – just because measures are positive does not mean your work is done.
In phase 1 of this blueprint, we will help you establish metrics for your organization.
In phase 2, we will help you develop a sustainment for achieving those metrics.
| Suggested Metrics |
|---|
|
INDUSTRY: Technology
SOURCE: Microsoft.com
https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/accessib...
Microsoft's accessibility journey starts with the goal of building a culture of accessibility and disability inclusion. They recognize that the starting point for the magnitude of organizational change is People.
"Accessibility in Action Badge"
Every employee at Microsoft is trained on accessibility to build understanding of why and how to be inclusive using accessibility. The program entails 90 minutes of virtual content.
Microsoft treats accessibility and inclusion like a business, managing and measuring it to ensure sustained growth and success. They have worked over the years to bust systemic bias company-wide and to build a program with accessibility criteria that works for their business.
The program Microsoft has built allows them to shift the accessibility lens earlier in their processes and listen to its users' needs. This allows them to continuously mature their accessibility program, which means continuously improving its users' experience.
“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.”
What does a typical guided implementation (GI) on this topic look like?
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Call #1: Discuss motivation for the initiative and foundational knowledge requirements. |
Call #3: Identify current maturity and IT accountabilities. |
Call #6: Review key messages and next steps to prepare for departmental meeting. |
Call #8: Review sustainment plan 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 eight to ten calls over the course of four to six months.
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
|
Pre-Work |
Day 1 |
Day 2 |
Day 3 |
Day 4 |
Day 5 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Understand Your Legislative Environment |
Understand Your Current State |
Define the |
Build the IT Accessibility Plan |
Prepare for Change Enablement |
Next Steps and |
|
| Activities |
0.1 Make a list of the legislation you need to comply with |
1.1 Define the risks of inaction |
2.1 Define IT compliance accountabilities |
3.1 Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation |
4.1 Prepare the roadmap |
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days |
|
Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Phase 1 |
Phase 2 |
|---|---|
|
1.1 Determine accessibility requirements of IT 1.2 Build IT accessibility plan |
2.1 Build awareness 2.2 Support new behaviors 2.3 Continuous reinforcement |
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase involves the following participants:
1.1.1 Determine what the business needs from IT
1.1.2 Complete the Accessibility Maturity Assessment (optional)
1.1.3 Determine IT compliance requirements
1.1.4 Define target state
1.1.5 Create a list of goals and objectives
1.1.6 Finalize key metrics
1.1.7 Prepare a meeting for IT managers
1. Harvard Business Review, 2020
2. Harvard Business Review, 2022
IT typically works through maturity frameworks from the bottom to the top, progressing at each level until they reach the end. When it comes to IT accessibility initiatives, being especially thorough, thoughtful, and collaborative is critical to success. This will mean spending more time in the Developing, Defined, and Managed levels of maturity rather than trying to reach Optimized as quickly as you can. This may feel contrary to what IT historically considers as a successful implementation.
After initially ensuring your organization is compliant with regulations and standards, you will progress to building disciplined process and consistent standardized processes. Eventually you will build the ability for predictable process, and lastly, you'll optimize by continuously improving.
Depending on the level of maturity you are trying to achieve, it could take months or even years to implement. The important thing to understand, however, is that accessibility work is never done.
At all levels of the maturity framework, you must consider the interconnected aspects of people, process, and technology. However, as the organization progresses, the impact will shift from largely being focused on process and technology improvement to being focused on people.
Although there will be various motivating factors, aligning the drivers of your accessibility program provides direction to the program. Connecting the advantages of program drivers to organizational goals builds the confidence of senior leaders and decision makers, increasing the continued commitment to invest in accessibility programming.
| Driver | Description | Benefits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial | Compliance |
|
|
| Developing | Experience |
|
|
| Defined | Experience |
|
|
| Managed | Experience |
|
|
| Optimized | Incorporation |
|
|
|
Identify stakeholders through the following questions: |
Take a 360-degree view of potential internal and external stakeholders who might be impacted by the initiative. |
|---|---|
|
|
There are four areas in the map, and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.
|
|
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 InformedTry 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 | MonitorThey are followers. Keep them in the loop by providing clarity on objectives and status updates. |
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Think about the positive and negative reactions you could face about implementing accessibility.
It's likely individuals will have an emotional reaction to change and may have different emotions at different times during the change process.
Plan for how to leverage support and deal with resistance to change by assessing people's emotional responses:
On the accessibility questionnaire, tab 2, choose the amount you agree or disagree with each statement. Answer the questions based on your knowledge of your current state organizationally.
Once you've answered all the questions, see the results on the tab 3, Accessibility Results. You can see your overall maturity level and the maturity level for each of six dimensions that are necessary to increase the success of an accessibility program.
Click through to tab 4, Recommendations, to see specific recommendations based on your results and proven research to progress through the maturity levels. Keep in mind that not all organizations will or should aspire to the "Optimize" maturity level.
Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Before you start this activity, you may need to discuss with your organization's legal counsel to determine the legislation that applies to your organization.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool
*Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activities 2.1.2 and 2.1.3.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
SMART is a common framework for setting effective goals. Make sure your goals satisfy these criteria to ensure you can achieve real results.
S |
Specific: Is the goal clear, concrete, and well defined? |
|---|---|
M |
Measurable: How will you know when the goal is met? |
A |
Achievable: Is the goal possible to achieve in a reasonable time? |
R |
Relevant: Does this goal align with your responsibilities and with departmental and organizational goals? |
T |
Time-based: Have you specified a time frame in which you aim to achieve the goal? |
*Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activity 2.2.1.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
| Metric | Definition | Calculation |
|---|---|---|
| Overall end-customer satisfaction | The percentage of end customers who are satisfied with the IT department. | Number of end customers who are satisfied / Total number of end customers |
| Requests for accommodation or assistive technology fulfilled | The percentage of accommodation/assistive technology requests fulfilled by the IT department. | Number of requests fulfilled / Total number of requests |
| Employee engagement | The percentage of employees who are engaged within an organization. | Number of employees who are engaged / Total number of employees |
| Overall compliance status | The percentage of accessibility controls in place in the IT department. | The number of compliance controls in place / Total number of applicable accessibility controls |
Finalize key metrics the organization will use to measure accessibility success.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
*Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activity 2.2.2.
Cascade messages down to IT managers next. This ensures they will have time to internalize the change before communicating it to others.
Communicate with and build the accessibility plan with IT managers by customizing Info-Tech's IT Manager Meeting Template, which is designed to effectively convey your key messages. Tailor the template to suit your needs.
It includes:
Download the IT Manager Meeting Template
Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier.
Know your audience:
Download the IT Manager Meeting Template
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
1.2.1 Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation
1.2.2 Decide on your priorities
1.2.3 Add priorities to the roadmap
1.2.4 Write an IT accessibility commitment statement
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
Use the spreadsheet from activity 1.1.3 where you identified which controls apply to your organization.
Have managers work in groups to identify which controls (of the applicable ones) are currently being met and which ones have an existing mitigation plan.
Info-Tech Insight
Based on EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (2021-03) as a basis for digital accessibility conformance. This tool is designed to assist you in building a priorities list of requirements that are applicable to your organization. EN 301 549 is currently the most robust accessibility regulation and encompasses other regulations within it. Although EN 301 549 is the European Standard, other countries are leaning on it as the standard they aspire to as well.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool
Use the spreadsheet from activity 1.3.1.
Have managers work in the same groups to prioritize controls by assigning a quarterly timeline for compliance.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool
Don't overload your team. Make sure the timelines assigned in the breakout groups make sense and are realistic.
Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
A commitment statement communicates why accessibility and disability inclusion are important and guides behaviors toward the ideal state. The statement will guide and align work, build accountability, and acknowledge the dedication of the leadership team to accessibility and disability inclusion. The statement will:
Take action! Writing the statement is only the first step. It takes more than words to build accessibility and make your work environment more disability inclusive.
Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier.
"theScore strives to provide products and services in a way that respects the dignity and independence of persons with disabilities. We are committed to giving persons with disabilities the same opportunity to access our products and services and allowing them to benefit from the same services, in the same place and in a similar way as other clients. We are also committed to meeting the needs of persons with disabilities in a timely manner, and we will meet applicable legislative requirements for preventing and removing barriers."(1)
Apple Canada
"Apple Canada is committed to ensuring equal access and participation for people with disabilities. Apple Canada is committed to treating people with disabilities in a way that allows them to maintain their dignity and independence. Apple Canada believes in integration and is committed to meeting the needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner. Apple Canada will do so by removing and preventing barriers to accessibility and meeting accessibility requirements under the AODA and provincial and federal laws across Canada." (2)
Google Canada
"We are committed to meeting the accessibility needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner, and will do so by identifying, preventing and removing barriers to accessibility, and by meeting the accessibility requirements under the AODA." (3)
Source 1: theScore
Source 2: Apple Canada
Source 3: Google Canada.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Phase 1 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|
1.1 Determine accessibility requirements of IT 1.2 Build IT accessibility plan | 2.1 Build awareness 2.2 Support new behaviors 2.3 Continuous reinforcement |
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase involves the following participants:
Building awareness and focusing on experience helps move along the accessibility maturity framework. Shifting from mandate to movement.
In this phase, start to move beyond compliance. Build the IT team's understanding of accessibility, disability inclusion, and their role.
Communicate the following messages to your team:
Compliance is the minimum; the people and behavior changes are the harder part and have the largest impact on accessibility. Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.
|
Incremental Change:
|
Transitional Change:
|
Transformational Change:
|
|
Examples:
|
Examples:
|
Examples:
|
Invest time at the start to develop a detailed understanding of the impact of the change. This will help to create a plan that will simplify the change and save time. Evaluate the impact from a people, process, and technology perspective.
Leverage a design thinking principle: Empathize with the stakeholder – what will change?
|
People |
Process | Technology |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Anticipate responses to change:
Quickly assess the size of change by answering these questions:
If you answered "Yes" to two or more questions, the change is bigger than you think. Your staff will feel the impact.
This step involves the following participants:
This phase is focused on communicating within IT. All communication has an overall goal. This outcome or purpose of communicating is often dependent on the type of influence the stakeholder wields within the organization as well as the type of impact the change will have on them. Consider each of the communication outcomes listed below.
How to establish key messages
Ground key messages in organizational strategy and culture. These should be the first places you look to determine the organization's key messages:
The intent of key messages is to convey important information in a way that is relatable and memorable, to promote reinforcement, and ultimately, to drive action.
Empathizing with the audience is key to anticipating and addressing objections as well as identifying benefits. Customize messaging based on audience attributes such as work model (e.g. hybrid), anticipated objections, what's in it for me?, and specific expectations.
Download the Communications Planner Tool
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
2.2.1 Prepare for IT department meeting
2.2.2 Practice delivery of your presentation
2.2.3 Hold department meeting
This step involves the following participants:
To effectively communicate change, answer questions before they're asked, whenever possible. To do this, outline at each stage of the change process what's happening next for the audience, as well as answer other anticipated questions. Pair key questions with core messages.
Examples of key questions by change stage include:
Download the Departmental Presentation Template
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Using voice and body
Think about the message you are trying to convey and how your body can support that delivery. Hands, stance, frame – all have an impact on what might be conveyed.
If you want your audience to lean in and be eager about your next point, consider using a pause or softer voice and volume.
Be professional and confident
State the main points of your presentation confidently. While this should be obvious, it is essential. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.
Present in a way that is genuine to you and your voice. Whether you have an energetic personality or calm and composed personality, the presentation should be authentic to you.
Connect with your audience
Look each member of the audience in the eye at least once during your presentation. Avoid looking at the ceiling, the back wall, or the floor. Your audience should feel engaged – this is essential to keeping their attention.
Avoid reading from your slides. If there is text on a slide, paraphrase it while maintaining eye contact.
You are responsible for the response of your audience. If they aren't engaged, it is on you as the communicator.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Accessibility Quick Cards template
2.3.1 Establish a frequency and timeframe for communications
2.3.2 Obtain feedback and improve
2.3.3 Sustainment plan
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
Don't forget: Cascade messages down through the organization to ensure those who need to deliver messages have time to internalize the change before communicating it to others. Include a mix of personal and organizational messages, but where possible, separate personal and organizational content into different communications.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Communications Planner Tool
Make sure you have established feedback mechanisms to collect feedback on both the messages delivered and how they were delivered. Some ways to collect feedback include:
Feedback Mechanisms:
Who
The project team gathers feedback from:
What
Gather feedback on:
How
Use Info-Tech's Standard Focus Group Guide
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Communications Planner Tool
R | Responsible |
|---|---|
A | Accountable |
C | Consulted |
I | Informed |
Sustainment is critical to success of accessibility
Identify resources required for sustainment components using metrics and input from implementation owners, subject matter experts, and frontline managers.
For example:
Estimate the budget required for resources based on past projects that used similar resources, and then estimate the time it will take until the change evolves into "business as usual" (e.g. 6 months, 12 months).
If you haven't already performed the Accessibility Maturity Assessment, complete it in the wake of the accessibility initiative to assess improvements and progress toward target future accessibility maturity.
As your accessibility program starts to scale out over a range of projects, revisit the assessment on a quarterly or bi-annual basis to help focus your improvement efforts across the six accessibility categories.
To drive continual improvement of your organizational accessibility and disability inclusion, continue to share progress, wins, challenges, feedback, and other accessibility related concerns with stakeholders. At the end of the day, IT's efforts to become a change leader and support organizational accessibility will come down to stakeholder perceptions based upon employee morale and benefits realized.
Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
The Accessibility Business Case for IT
IT Diversity and Inclusion Tactics
Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice
"2021 State of Digital Accessibility." Level Access, n.d. Accessed 10 Aug. 2022
"Apple Canada Accessibility Policy & Plan." Apple Canada, 11 March 2019.
Casey, Caroline. "Do Your D&I Efforts Include People With Disabilities?" Harvard Business Review, 19 March 2020. Accessed 28 July 2022.
Digitalisation World. "Organisations failing to meet digital accessibility standards." Angel Business Communications, 19 May 2022. Accessed Oct. 2022.
"disability." Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,
"Disability." World Health Organization, 2022. Accessed 10 Aug 2022.
"Google Canada Corporation Accessibility Policy and Multi Year Plan." Google Canada, June 2020.
Hypercontext. "The State of High Performing Teams in Tech 2022." Hypercontext. 2022.
Lay-Flurrie, Jenny. "Accessibility Evolution Model: Creating Clarity in your Accessibility Journey." Microsoft, 2023. <https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/accessibility-evolution-model/>.
Maguire, Jennifer. "Applause 2022 Global Accessibility Survey Reveals Organizations Prioritize Digital Accessibility but Fall Short of Conformance with WCAG 2.1 Standards." Business Wire, 19 May 2022.
"The Business Case for Digital Accessibility." W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), 9 Nov. 2018. Accessed 4 Aug. 2022.
"THESCORE's Commitment to Accessibility." theScore, May 2021.
"The WebAIM Million." Web AIM, 31 March 2022. Accessed 28 Jul. 2022.
Washington, Ella F. "The Five Stages of DEI Maturity." Harvard Business Review, November - December 2022. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.
Web AIM. "The WebAIM Million." Institute for Disability Research, Policy, and Practice, 31 March 2022. Accessed 28 Jul. 2022.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Build a foundational understanding of the current big data landscape.
Appraise current capabilities for handling a big data initiative and revisit the key data management practices that will enable big data success.
Armed with Info-Tech’s variety dimension framework, identify the top use cases and the data sources/elements that will power the initiative.
Leverage a repeatable framework to detail the core components of the pilot project.
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.
Understand the basic elements of big data and its relationship to traditional business intelligence.
Common, foundational knowledge of what big data entails.
1.1 Determine which of the four Vs is most important to your organization.
1.2 Explore new data through a social lens.
1.3 Brainstorm new opportunities for enhancing current reporting assets with big data sources.
Relative importance of the four Vs from IT and business perspectives
High-level improvement ideas to report artifacts using new data sources
Establish an understanding of current maturity for taking on big data, as well as revisiting essential data management practices.
Concrete idea of current capabilities.
Recommended actions for developing big data maturity.
2.1 Determine your organization’s current big data maturity level.
2.2 Plan for big data management.
Established current state maturity
Foundational understanding of data management practices in the context of a big data initiative
Explore a plethora of potential use cases at the industry and business unit level, followed by using the variety element of big data to identify the highest value initiative(s) within your organization.
In-depth characterization of a pilot big data initiative that is thoroughly informed by the business context.
3.1 Identify big data use cases at the industry and/or departmental levels.
3.2 Conduct big data brainstorming sessions in collaboration with business stakeholders to refine use cases.
3.3 Revisit the variety dimension framework to scope your big data initiative in further detail.
3.4 Create an organizational 4-column data flow model with your big data sources/elements.
3.5 Evaluate data sources by considering business value and risk.
3.6 Perform a value-effort assessment to prioritize your initiatives.
Potential big data use cases
Potential initiatives rooted in the business context and identification of valuable data sources
Identification of specific data sources and data elements
Characterization of data sources/elements by value and risk
Prioritization of big data use cases
Put together the core components of the pilot project and set the stage for enterprise-wide support.
A repeatable framework for implementing subsequent big data initiatives.
4.1 Construct a work breakdown structure for the pilot project.
4.2 Determine your project’s need for a data scientist.
4.3 Establish the staffing model for your pilot project.
4.4 Perform a detailed cost/benefit analysis.
4.5 Make architectural considerations for supporting the big data initiative.
Comprehensive list of tasks for implementing the pilot project
Decision on whether or not a data scientist is needed, and where data science capabilities will be sourced
RACI chart for the project
Big data pilot cost/benefit summary
Customized, high-level architectural model that incorporates technologies that support big data
CIOs are facing these challenges in 2023:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand the five priorities that will help navigate the opportunities and risks of the year ahead.

In our Tech Trends 2023 report, we called on CIOs to think of themselves as chess grandmasters. To view strategy as playing both sides of the board, simultaneously attacking the opponent's king while defending your own. In our CIO Priorities 2023 report, we'll continue with that metaphor as we reflect on IT's capability to respond to trends.
If the trends report is a study of the board state that CIOs are playing with, the priorities report is about what move they should make next. We must consider all the pieces we have at our disposal and determine which ones we can afford to use to seize on opportunity. Other pieces are best used by staying put to defend their position.
In examining the different capabilities that CIOs will require to succeed in the year ahead, it's apparent that a siloed view of IT isn't going to work. Just like a chess player in a competitive match would never limit themselves to only using their knights or their rooks, a CIO's responsibility is to deploy each of their pieces to win the day. While functional leaders may only see their next move, as head of the organization with a complete view of all the pieces, the CIO has full awareness of the board state.
It's up to them to assess their gaps, consider the present scenario, and then make their next move.

Brian Jackson
Principal Research Director, Research – CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
Info-Tech's Tech Trends 2023 report and State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report inform the externalities faced by organizations in the year ahead. They imply opportunities and risks that organizations face. Leadership must determine if they will respond and how to do so. CIOs then determine how to support those responses by creating or improving their IT capabilities. The priorities are the initiatives that will deliver the most value across the capabilities that are most in demand. The CIO Priorities 2023 report draws on data from several different Info-Tech surveys and diagnostic benchmarks.
2023 Tech Trends and Priorities Survey; N=813 (partial), n=521 (completed)
Info-Tech's Trends and Priorities 2023 Survey was conducted between August 9 and September 9, 2022. We received 813 total responses with 521 completed surveys. More than 90% of respondents work in IT departments. More than 84% of respondents are at a manager level of seniority or higher.
2023 The State of Hybrid Work in IT Survey; N=518
The State of Hybrid Work in IT Survey was conducted between July 11 and July 29 and received 518 responses. Nine in ten respondents were at a manager level of seniority or higher.
Every organization will have its own custom list of priorities based on its internal context. Organizational goals, IT maturity level, and effectiveness of capabilities are some of the important factors to consider. To provide CIOs with a starting point for their list of priorities for 2023, we used aggregate data collected in our diagnostic benchmark tools between August 1, 2021, and October 31, 2022.
Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program is intended to be completed by CIOs and their supervisors (CEO or other executive position [CxO]) and will provide the average maturity level and budget expectations (N=107). The IT Management and Governance Diagnostic will provide the average capability effectiveness and importance ranking to CIOs (N=271). The CIO Business Vision Diagnostic will provide stakeholder satisfaction feedback (N=259).
The 2023 CIO priorities are based on that data, internal collaboration sessions at Info-Tech, and external interviews with CIOs and subject matter experts.
Slightly more than half of CIOs using Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program rated themselves at a Support level of maturity in 2022. That aligns with IT professionals' view of their organizations from our Tech Trends and Priorities Survey, where organizations are rated at the Support level on average. At this level, IT departments can provide reliable infrastructure and support a responsive IT service desk that reasonably satisfies stakeholders.
In the future, CIOs aspire to attain the Transform level of maturity. Nearly half of CIOs select this future state in our diagnostic, indicating a desire to deliver reliable innovation and lead the organization to become a technology-driven firm. However, we see that fewer CxOs aspire for that level of maturity from IT. CxOs are more likely than CIOs to say that IT should aim for the Optimize level of maturity. At this level, IT will help other departments become more efficient and lower costs across the organization.
Whether a CIO is aiming for the top of the maturity scale in the future or not, IT maturity is achieved one step at a time. Aiming for outcomes at the Optimize level will be a realistic goal for most CIOs in 2023 and will satisfy many stakeholders.

Trends imply new opportunities and risks that an organization must decide on. Organizational leadership determines if action will be taken to respond to the new external context based on its importance compared to current internal context. To support their organizations, IT must use its capabilities to deliver on initiatives. But if a capability's effectiveness is poor, it could hamper the effort.
To determine what capabilities IT departments may need to improve or create to support their organizations in 2023, we conducted an analysis of our trends data. Using the opportunities and risks implied by the Tech Trends 2023 report and the State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report, we've determined the top capabilities IT will need to respond. Capabilities are defined by Info-Tech's IT Management and Governance Framework.
|
Enterprise Application Selection & Implementation Manage the selection and implementation of enterprise applications, off-the-shelf software, and software as a service to ensure that IT provides the business with the most appropriate applications at an acceptable cost. |
![]() |
|
Leadership, Culture, and Values Ensure that the IT department reflects the values of your organization. Improve the leadership skills of your team to generate top performance. |
![]() |
|
Data Architecture Manage the business' databases, including the technology, the governance processes, and the people that manage them. Establish the principles, policies, and guidelines relevant to the effective use of data within the organization. |
![]() |
|
Organizational Change Management Implement or optimize the organization's capabilities for managing the impact of new business processes, new IT systems, and changes in organizational structure or culture. |
![]() |
|
External Compliance Ensure that IT processes and IT-supported business processes are compliant with laws, regulations, and contractual requirements. |
![]() |
Info-Tech's Management and Diagnostic Benchmark
Ten more capabilities surfaced as important compared to others but not as important as the capabilities in tier 1.
|
Asset Management Track IT assets through their lifecycle to make sure that they deliver value at optimal cost, remain operational, and are accounted for and physically protected. Ensure that the assets are reliable and available as needed. |
![]() |
|
Business Intelligence and Reporting Develop a set of capabilities, including people, processes, and technology, to enable the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for the purpose of business analysis. |
![]() |
|
Business Value Secure optimal value from IT-enabled initiatives, services, and assets by delivering cost-efficient solutions and services and by providing a reliable and accurate picture of costs and benefits. |
![]() |
|
Cost and Budget Management Manage the IT-related financial activities and prioritize spending through the use of formal budgeting practices. Provide transparency and accountability for the cost and business value of IT solutions and services. |
![]() |
|
Data Quality Put policies, processes, and capabilities in place to ensure that appropriate targets for data quality are set and achieved to match the needs of the business. |
![]() |
|
Enterprise Architecture Establish a management practice to create and maintain a coherent set of principles, methods, and models that are used in the design and implementation of the enterprise's business processes, information systems, and infrastructure. |
![]() |
|
IT Organizational Design Set up the structure of IT's people, processes, and technology as well as roles and responsibilities to ensure that it's best meeting the needs of the business. |
![]() |
|
Performance Measurement Manage IT and process goals and metrics. Monitor and communicate that processes are performing against expectations and provide transparency for performance and conformance. |
![]() |
|
Stakeholder Relations Manage the relationship between the business and IT to ensure that the stakeholders are satisfied with the services they need from IT and have visibility into IT processes. |
![]() |
|
Vendor Management Manage IT-related services provided by all suppliers, including selecting suppliers, managing relationships and contracts, and reviewing and monitoring supplier performance. |
![]() |
Understand the CIO priorities by analyzing both how CIOs respond to trends in general and how a specific CIO responded in the context of their organization.

Recognize the relative impact of higher inflation on IT's spending power and adjust accordingly.
Two-thirds of IT professionals are expecting their budgets to increase in 2023, according to our survey. But not every increase is keeping up with the pace of inflation. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that global inflation rose to 8.8% in 2022. It projects it will decline to 6.5% in 2023 and 4.1% by 2024 (IMF, 2022).
CIOs must account for the impact of inflation on their IT budgets and realize that what looks like an increase on paper is effectively a flat budget or worse. Applied to our survey takers, an IT budget increase of more than 6.5% would be required to keep pace with inflation in 2023. Only 40% of survey takers are expecting that level of increase. For the 27% expecting an increase between 1-5%, they are facing an effective decrease in budget after the impact of inflation. Those expecting no change in budget or a decrease will be even worse off.

| 2022 | 8.8% |
| 2023 | 6.5% |
| 2024 | 4.1% |
International Monetary Fund, 2022
Data from Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic benchmark also shows that CIOs and their supervisors are planning for increases to the budget. This diagnostic is designed for a CIO to use with their direct supervisor, whether it's the CEO or otherwise (CxO). Results show that on average, CIOs are more optimistic than their supervisors that they will receive budget increases and headcount increases in the years ahead.
While 14% of CxOs estimated the IT budget would see no change or a decrease in the next three to five years, only 3% of CIOs said the same. A larger discrepancy is seen in headcount, where nearly one-quarter of CXOs estimated no change or decrease in the years ahead, versus only 10% of CIOs estimating the same.
When we account for the impact of inflation in 2023, this misalignment between CIOs and their supervisors increases. When adjusting for inflation, we need to view the responses projecting an increase of between 1-5% as an effective decrease. With the inflation adjustment, 26% of CXOs are predicting IT budgets to stay flat or see a decrease compared to only 10% of CIOs.
CIOs should consider how inflation has affected their projected spending power over the past year and take into account projected inflation rates over the next couple of years. Given that the past decade has seen inflation rates between 2-3%, the higher rates projected will have more of an impact on organizational budgets than usual.
Expect headcount to stay flat or decline over 3-5 years

IT budget expectations to stay flat or decrease before inflation

IT budget expectations to stay flat or decrease adjusted for inflation

Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program
Organizations that migrated from on-premises data centers to infrastructure as a service shifted their capital expenditures on server racks to operational expenditures on paying the monthly service bill. Managing that monthly bill so that it is in line with desired performance levels now becomes crucial. The expected benefit of the cloud is that an organization can turn the dial up to meet higher demand and turn it down when demand slows. In practice this is sometimes more difficult to execute than anticipated. Some IT departments realize their cloud-based data flows aren't always connected to the revenue-generating activity seen in the business. As a result, a "cloud economist" is needed to closely monitor cloud usage and adjust it to financial expectations. Especially during any recessionary period, IT departments will want to avoid a "bill shock" incident.
Keep your friends close and your vendors closer. Look for opportunities to create leverage with your strategic vendors to unlock new opportunities. Identify if a vendor you work with is not entrenched in your industry and offer them the credibility of working with you in exchange for a favorable contract. Offering up your logo for a website listing clients or giving your own time to speak in a customer session at a conference can go a long way to building up some goodwill with your vendors. That's goodwill you'll need when you ask for a new multi-year contract on your software license without annual increases built into the structure.
An IT department that operates at the Optimize level of Info-Tech's maturity scale can deliver outcomes that lower costs for other departments. IT can defend its own budget if it's able to demonstrate that its initiatives will automate or augment business activities in a way that improves margins. The argument becomes even more compelling if IT can demonstrate it is supporting a revenue-generating initiative or customer-facing experience. CIOs will need to find business champions to vouch for the important contributions IT is making to their area.
In some jurisdictions, the largest companies will be required to start collecting information on carbon emissions emitted as a result of business activities by the end of next year. Smaller sized organizations will be next on the list to determine how to meet new requirements issued by various regulators. Risks of failure include facing fines or being shunned by investors. CIOs will need to support their financial reporting teams in collecting the new required data accurately. This will incur new costs as well.
Acquiring IT equipment is becoming more expensive due to overall inflation and specific pressures around semiconductor supply chains. As a result, more CIOs are extending their device refresh policies to last another year or two. Still, demands for new devices to support new hybrid work models could put pressure on budgets as IT teams are asked to modernize conferencing rooms. For organizations adopting mixed reality headsets, cutting-edge capabilities will come at a premium. Operating costs of devices may also increase as inflation increases costs of the electricity and bandwidth they depend on.
Denise Cornish, Associate VP of IT and Deputy COO,
Western University of Health Sciences
Since taking on the lead IT role at Western University in 2020, Denise Cornish has approached vendor management like an auditable activity. She evaluates the value she gets from each vendor relationship and creates a list of critical vendors that she relies upon to deliver core business services. "The trick is to send a message to the vendor that they also need us as a customer that's willing to act as a reference," she says. Cornish has managed to renegotiate a contract with her ERP vendor, locking in a multi-year contract with a very small escalator in exchange for presenting as a customer at conferences. She's also working with them on developing a new integration to another piece of software popular in the education space.
Western University even negotiated a partnership approach with Apple for a program run with its College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP) called the Digital Doctor Bag. The partnership saw Apple agree to pre-package a customer application developed by Western that delivered the curriculum to students and facilitated communications across students and faculty. Apple recognized Western as an Apple Distinguished School, a program that recognizes innovative schools that use Apple products.
"I like when negotiations are difficult.
I don't necessarily expect a zero-sum game. We each need to get something out of this and having the conversation and really digging into what's in it for you and what's in it for me, I enjoy that. So usually when I negotiate a vendor contract, it's rare that it doesn't work out."
As an online publisher and a digital marketing platform for technology products and services companies, IT World Canada (ITWC) has observed that there are differences in how small and large companies adopt the cloud as their computing infrastructure. For smaller companies, even though adoption is accelerating, there may still be some reluctance to fully embrace cloud platforms and services. While larger companies often have a multi-cloud approach, this might not be practical for smaller IT shops that may struggle to master the skills necessary to effectively manage one cloud platform. While Love acknowledges that the cloud is the future of corporate computing, he also notes that not all applications or workloads may be well suited to run in the cloud. As well, moving data into the cloud is cheap but moving it back out can be more expensive. That is why it is critical to understand your applications and the data you're working with to control costs and have a successful cloud implementation.
"Standardization is the friend of IT. So, if you can standardize on one platform, you're going to do better in terms of costs."
Go deeper on pursuing your priorities by improving the associated capabilities.
Take control of your cloud costs by providing central financial oversight on the infrastructure-as-a-service provider your organization uses. Create visibility into your operational costs and define policies to control them. Right-size the use of cloud services to stay within organizational budget expectations.
Take Control of Cloud Costs on AWS
Take Control of Cloud Costs on Microsoft Azure
Reduce the funds allocated to ongoing support and impose tougher discipline around change requests to lighten your maintenance burden and make room for investment in net-new initiatives to support the business.
Free up funds for new initiatives
Lay the foundation for a vendor management process with long-term benefits. Position yourself as a valuable client with your strategic vendors and leverage your position to improve your contract terms.
Keep pace as the market adopts AI capabilities, and be ready to create competitive advantage.
During 2022, some compelling examples of generative-AI-based products took the world by storm. Images from AI-generating bots Midjourney and Stable Diffusion went viral, flooding social media and artistic communities with images generated from text prompts. Exchanges with OpenAI's ChatGPT bot also caught attention, as the bot was able to do everything from write poetry, to provide directions on a cooking recipe and then create a shopping list for it, to generate working code in a variety of languages. The foundation models are trained with AI techniques that include generative adversarial networks, transformers, and variational autoencoders. The end result is an algorithm that can produce content that's meaningful to people based on some simple direction. The industry is only beginning to come to grips with how this sort of capability will disrupt the enterprise.
Slightly more than one-third of IT professionals say their organization has already invested in AI or machine learning. It's the sixth-most popular technology to have already invested in after cloud computing (82%), application programming interfaces (64%), workforce management solutions (44%), data lakes (36%), and next-gen cybersecurity (36%). It's ahead of 12 other technologies that IT is already invested in.
When we asked what technologies organizations planned to invest in for next year, AI rocketed up the list to second place, as it's selected by 44% of IT professionals. It falls behind only cloud computing. This jump up the list makes AI the fastest growing technology for new investment from organizations.
Many AI capabilities seem cutting edge now, but organizations are prioritizing it as a technology investment. In a couple of years, access to foundational models that produce images, text, or code will become easy to access with a commercial license and an API integration. AI will become embedded in off-the-shelf software and drive many new features that will quickly become commonplace.
To stay even with the competition and meet customer expectations, organizations will have to work to at least adopt these AI-enhanced products and services. For those that want to create a competitive advantage, they will have to build a data pipeline that is capable of training their own custom AI models based on their unique data sets.


Tech Trends 2023 Survey
Data collection and analysis are on the minds of both CIOs and their supervisors. When asked what technologies the business should adopt in the next three to five years, big data (analytics) ranked as most critical to adopt among CIOs and their supervisors. Big data (collection) ranked fourth out of 11 options.
Organizations that want to drive a competitive advantage from generative AI will need to train these large, versatile models on their own data sets. But at the same time, IT organizations are struggling to provide clean data. The second-most critical gap for IT organizations on average is data quality, behind only organizational change management. Organizations know that data quality is important to support analytics goals, as algorithms can suffer in their integrity if they don't have reliable data to work with. As they say, garbage in, garbage out.
Another challenge to overcome is the gap seen in IT governance, the sixth largest gap on average. Using data toward training custom generative models will hold new compliance and ethical implications for IT departments to contend with. How user data can be leveraged is already the subject of privacy legislation in many different jurisdictions, and new AI legislation is being developed in various places around the world that could create further demands. In some cases, users are reacting negatively to AI-generated content.

IT Management and Governance Diagnostic

CEO-CIO Alignment Program
Many organizations still cobble together knowledgebases in SharePoint or some other shared corporate drive, full of resources that no one quite knows how to find. A generative AI chatbot holds potential to be trained on an organization's content and produce content based on an employee's queries. Trained properly, it could point employees to the right resource they need to answer their question or just provide the answer directly.
After Hurricane Ian shut down a Walmart distribution hub, the retailer used AI to simulate the effects on its supply chain. It rerouted deliveries from other hubs based on the predictions and planned for how to respond to demand for goods and services after the storm. Such forecasts would typically take a team of analysts days to compose, but thanks to AI, Walmart had it done in a matter of hours (The Economist, 2022).
New generative AI models of sufficient scale offer advantages over previous AI models in their versatility. Just as ChatGPT can write poetry or dialogue for a play or perhaps a section of a research report (not this one, this human author promises), large models can be deployed for multiple use cases in the enterprise. One AI researcher says this could reduce the costs of an AI project by 20-30% (The Economist, 2022).
Multiple jurisdictions around the world are pursuing new legislation that imposes requirements on organizations that use AI, including the US, Europe, and Canada. Some uses of AI will be banned outright, such as the real-time use of facial recognition in public spaces, while in other situations people can opt out of using AI and work with a human instead. Regulations will take the risk of the possible outcomes created by AI into consideration, and organizations will often be required to disclose when and how AI is used to reach decisions (Science | Business, 2022). Questions around whether creators can prevent their content from being used for training AI are being raised, with some efforts already underway to collect a list of those who want to opt out. Organizations that adopt a generative AI model today may find it needs to be amended for copyright reasons in the future.
Organizations using a large AI model trained by a third party to complete their tasks or as a foundation to further customize it with their own data will have to contend with the inherent bias of the algorithm. This can lead to unintended negative experiences for users, as it did for MIT Technology Review journalist Melissa Heikkilä when she uploaded her images to AI avatar app Lensa, only to have it render a collection of sexualized portraits. Heikkilä contends that her Asian heritage overly influenced the algorithm to associate her with video-game characters, anime, and adult content (MIT Technology Review, 2022).
Many of the generative AI bots released so far often create very good responses to user queries but sometimes create nonsense that at first glance might seem to be accurate. One example is Meta's Galactica bot – intended to streamline scientific research discovery and aid in text generation – which was taken down only three days after being made available. Scientists found that it generated fake research that sounded convincing or failed to do math correctly (Spiceworks, 2022).
At the Toronto Raptors practice facility, the OVO Athletic Centre, a new 120-foot custom LG video screen towers over the court. The video board is used to playback game clips so coaches can use them to teach players, but it also displays analytics from algorithmic models that are custom-made for each player. Data on shot-making or defensive deflections are just a couple examples of what might inform the players.
Vice President of Digital Technology Christian Magsisi leads a functional Digital Labs technical group at MLSE. The in-house team builds the specific data models that support the Raptors in their ongoing efforts to improve. The analytics are fed by Noah Analytics, which uses cognitive vision to provide real-time feedback on shot accuracy. SportsVU is a motion capture system that represents how players are positioned on the court, with detail down to which way they are facing and whether their arms are up or down. The third-party vendors provide the solutions to generate the analytics, but it's up to MLSE's internal team to shape them to be actionable for players during a practice.
"All the way from making sure that a specific player is achieving the results that they're looking for and showing that through data, or finding opportunities for the coaching staff. This is the manifestation of it in real life. Our ultimate goal with the coaches was to be able to take what was on emails or in a report and sometimes even in text message and actually implement it into practice."
MLSE's Digital Labs team architects its data insights pipeline on top of cloud services. Amazon Web Services Rekognition provides cognitive vision analysis from video and Amazon Kinesis provides the video processing capabilities. Beyond the court, MLSE uses data to enhance the fan experience, explains CTO Humza Teherany. It begins with having meaningful business goals about where technology can provide the most value. He starts by engaging the leadership of the organization and considering the "art of the possible" when it comes to using technology to unlock their goals.
Humza Teherany (left) and Christian Magsisi lead MLSE's digital efforts for the pro sports teams owned by the group, including the Toronto Raptors, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Toronto Argonauts. (Photo by Brian Jackson).
Read the full story on Spiceworks Insights.
"Our first goal in the entire buildup of the Digital Labs organization has been to support MLSE and all of our teams. We like to do things first. We leverage our own technology to make things better for our fans and for our teams to complete and find incremental advantages where possible."
Humza Teherany,
Chief Technology Officer, MLSE
The performance of AI-assisted tools depends on mature IT operations processes and reliable data sets. Standardize service management processes and build a knowledgebase of structured content to prepare for AI-assisted IT operations.
Prepare for Cognitive Service Management
Explore the enterprise chatbots that are available to not only assist with customer interactions but also help your employees find the resources they need to do their jobs and retrieve data in real time.
Explore the best chatbots software
Understand if you are ready to embark on the AI journey and what business use cases are appropriate for AI. Plan around the organization's maturity in people, tools, and operations for delivering the correct data, model development, and model deployment and managing the models in the operational areas.
Adopt zero-trust architecture as the new security paradigm across your IT stack and from an organizational risk management perspective.
The push toward a zero-trust security framework is becoming necessary for organizations for several different reasons over the past couple of years. As the pandemic forced workers away from offices and into their homes, perimeter-based approaches to security were challenged by much wider network footprints and the need to identify users external to the firewall. Supply-chain security became more of a concern with notable attacks affecting many thousands of firms, some with severe consequences. Finally, the regulatory pressure to implement zero trust is rising following President Joe Biden's 2021 Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity. It directs federal agencies to implement zero trust. That will impact any company doing business with the federal government, and it's likely that zero trust will propagate through other government agencies in the years ahead. Zero-trust architecture can also help maintain compliance around privacy-focused regulations concerned about personal data (CSO Online, 2022).
IT professionals are modestly confident that they can meet new government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements. When asked to rank their confidence on a scale of one to five, the most common answer was 3 out of 5 (38.5%). The next most common answer was 4 out of 5 (33.3%).
Out of a list of challenges, IT professionals are most concerned with talent shortages leading to capacity constraints in cybersecurity. Fifty-four per cent say they are concerned or very concerned with this issue. Implementing a new zero-trust framework for security will be difficult if capacity only allows for security teams to respond to incidents.
The next most pressing concern is that cyber risks are not on the radar of executive leaders or the board of directors, with 46% of IT pros saying they are concerned or very concerned. Since zero-trust requires that organizations take an enterprise risk management approach to cybersecurity and involve top decision makers, this reveals another area where organizations may fall short of achieving a zero-trust environment.
| How confident are you that your organization is prepared to meet current and future government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements? | ![]() |
![]() |
|
| 54% |
of IT professionals are concerned with talent shortages leading to capacity constraints in cybersecurity. |
|---|---|
| 46% |
of IT professionals are concerned that cyber risks are not on the radar of executive leaders or the board of directors. |
A zero-trust approach to security requires organizations to view cybersecurity risk as part of its overall risk framework. Both CIOs and their supervisors agree that IT-related risks are a pain point. When asked to rate the severity of pain points, 58% of CIOs rated IT-related business risk incidents as a minor pain or major pain. Their supervisors were more concerned, with 61% rating it similarly. Enterprises can mitigate this pain point by involving top levels of leadership in cybersecurity planning.
Organizations can be wary about implementing new security measures out of concern it will put barriers between employees and what they need to work. Through a zero-trust approach that focuses on identity verification, friction can be avoided. Overall, IT organizations did well to provide security without friction for stakeholders over the past 18 months. Results from Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision Diagnostic shows that stakeholders almost all agree friction due to security practices are acceptable. The one area that stands to be improved is remote/mobile device access, where 78.3% of stakeholders view the friction as acceptable.
A zero-trust approach treats user identity the same regardless of device and whether it is inside or outside of the corporate network. This can remove friction when workers are looking to connect remotely from a mobile device.
| CXO | 61% |
|---|---|
| CIO | 58% |

CIO Business Vision Diagnostic, N=259
Today's approach to access control on the network is to allow every device to exchange data with every other device. User endpoints and servers talk to each other directly without any central governance. In a zero-trust environment, a centralized zero-trust network access broker provides one-to-one connectivity. This allows servers to rest offline until needed by a user with the right access permissions. Users verify their identity more often as they move throughout the network. The user can access the resources and data they need with minimal friction while protecting servers from unauthorized access. Log files are generated for analysis to raise alerts about when an authorized identity has been compromised.
Many organizations put process in place to make sure data at rest is encrypted, but often when users copy that data to their own devices, it becomes unencrypted, allowing attackers opportunities to exfiltrate sensitive data from user endpoints. Moving to a zero-trust environment where each data access is brokered by a central broker allows for encryption to be preserved. Parties accessing a document must exchange keys to gain access, locking out unauthorized users that don't have both sets of keys to decrypt the data (MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 2022).
IT teams may not be seeing a budget infusion to invest in a new approach to security. By making use of the many free and open-source tools available, they can bootstrap their strategy into reality. Here's a list to get started:
PingCastle Wrangle your Active Directory and find all the domains that you've long since forgotten about and manage the situation appropriately. Also builds a spoke-and-hub map of your Active Directory.
OpenZiti Create an overlay network to enable programmable networking that supports zero trust.
Snyk Developers can automatically find and fix vulnerabilities before they commit their code. This vendor offers a free tier but users that scale up will need to pay.
sigstore Open-source users and maintainers can use this solution to verify the code they are running is the code the developer intended. Works by stitching together free services to facilitate software signing, verify against a transparent ledger, and provide auditable logs.
Microsoft's SBOM generation tool A software bill of materials is a requirement in President Biden's Executive Order, intended to provide organizations with more transparency into their software components by providing a comprehensive list. Microsoft's tool will work with Windows, Linux, and Mac and auto-detect a longlist of software components, and it generates a list organized into four sections that will help organizations comprehend their software footprint.
Zero trust requires that top decision makers get involved in cybersecurity by treating it as an equal consideration of overall enterprise risk. Not all boards will have the cybersecurity expertise required, and some executives may not prioritize cybersecurity despite the warnings. Organizations that don't appoint a chief information security officer (CISO) role to drive the cybersecurity agenda from the top will be at risk of cybersecurity remaining an afterthought.
No matter what industry you're in or what type of organization you run, you need cybersecurity. The demand for talent is very high and organizations are finding it difficult to hire in this area. Without the talent needed to mature cybersecurity approaches to a zero-trust model, the focus will remain on foundational principles of patch management to eliminate vulnerabilities and intrusion prevention. Smaller organizations may want to consider a "virtual CISO" that helps shape the organizational strategy on a part-time basis.
Many enterprise security postures remain vulnerable to an attack that commandeers an employee's identity to infiltrate the network. Hosted single sign-on models provide low friction and continuity of identity across applications but also offer a single point of failure that hackers can exploit. Phishing scams that are designed to trick an employee into providing their credentials to a fake website or to just click on a link that delivers a malware payload are the most common inroads that criminals take into the corporate network. Being aware of how user behavior influences security is crucial.
Brosnan provides private security services to high-profile clients and is staffed by security experts with professional backgrounds in intelligence services and major law enforcement agencies. Safe to say that security is taken seriously in this culture and CIO Serge Suponitskiy makes sure that extends to all back-office staff that support the firm's activities. He's aware that people are often the weakest link in a cybersecurity posture and are prone to being fooled by a phishing email or even a fraudulent phone call. So cybersecurity training is an ongoing activity that takes many forms. He sends out a weekly cybersecurity bulletin that features a threat report and a story about the "scam of the week." He also uses KnowBe4, a tool that simulates phishing attacks and trains employees in security awareness. Suponitskiy advises reaching out to Marketing or HR for help with engaging employees and finding the right learning opportunities.
"What is financially the best solution to protect yourself? It's to train your employees. … You can buy all of the tools and it's expensive. Some of the prices are going up for no reason. Some by 20%, some by 50%, it's ridiculous. So, the best way is to keep training, to keep educating, and to reimagine the training. It's not just sending this video that no one clicks on or posting a poster no one looks at. … Given the fact we're moving into this recession world, and everyone is questioning why we need to spend more, it's time to reimagine the training approach."
David Senf, National Cybersecurity Strategist, Bell
As a cybersecurity analyst and advisor that works with Bell's clients, David Senf sees zero-trust security as an opportunity for organizations to put a strong set of mitigating controls in place to defend against the thorny challenge of reducing vulnerabilities in their software supply chain. With major breaches being linked to widely used software in the past couple of years, security teams might find it effective to focus on a different layer of security to prevent certain breaches. With security policy being enforced at a narrow point/perimeter, attacks are in essence blocked from exploiting application vulnerabilities (e.g. you can't exploit what you can see). Organizations must still ensure there is a solid vulnerability management program in place, but surrounding applications with other controls is critical. One aspect of zero trust, micro-segmentation, which is an approach to network management, can limit the damage caused by a breach. The solutions help to map out and protect the different connections between applications that could otherwise be abused for discovery or lateral movement. Senf advises that knowing your inventory of software and the interdependencies between applications is the first step on a zero-trust journey, before putting protection and detection in place.
"Next year will be a year of a lot more ZTNA, zero-trust network access, being deployed. So, I think that will give organizations more of an understanding of what zero trust is as well, from a really basic perspective. If I can just limit what applications you can see and no one can even see that application, it's undiscoverable because I've got that ZTNA solution in place. … I would see that as a leading area of deployment and coming to understand what zero trust is in 2023."
Enable reduced friction in the remote user experience by underpinning it with a hardware asset management program. Creating an inventory of devices and effectively tracking them will aid in maintaining compliance, result in stronger policy enforcement, and reduce the harm of a lost or stolen device.
Implement Hardware Asset Management
Communicate the transition from a perimeter-based security approach to an "Always Verify" approach with a clear roadmap toward implementation. Map key protect surfaces to business goals to demonstrate the importance of zero-trust security in helping the organization succeed. Help the organization's top leadership build awareness of cybersecurity risk.
Manage the challenge of meeting new government requirements to implement zero-trust security and other data protection and cybersecurity regulations with a compliance program. Create a control environment that aligns multiple compliance regimes, and be prepared for IT audits.
Lead a strong culture through digital means to succeed in engaging the hybrid workforce.
The pandemic's disruption for non-essential workers looks to have a long-lasting, if not permanent, effect on the relationship between employer and employee. The new bargain for almost all organizations is a hybrid work reality, with employees splitting time between the office and working remotely, if not working remotely full-time. IT is in a unique position in the organization as it must not only contend with the shift to this new deal with its own employees but facilitate it for the entire organization.
With 90% of organizations embracing some form of hybrid work, IT leaders have an opportunity to shift from coping with the new work reality to finding opportunities to improve productivity. Organizations that embrace a hybrid model for their IT departments see a more effective IT department. Organizations that offered no remote work for IT rated their IT effectiveness on average 6.2 out of 10, while organizations with at least 10% of IT roles in a hybrid model saw significantly higher effectiveness. At minimum, organizations with between 50%-70% of IT roles in a hybrid model rated their effectiveness at 6.9 out of 10.
IT achieved this increase in effectiveness during a disruptive time that often saw IT take on a heavier burden. Remote work required IT to support more users and be involved in facilitating more work processes. Thriving through this challenging time is a win that's worth sharing with the rest of the organization.
| 90% | of organizations are embracing some form of hybrid work. |

Despite IT's success with hybrid work, CIOs are more concerned about their staff sufficiency, skill, and engagement than their supervisors. Among clients using our CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic, 49% of CIOs considered this issue a major pain point compared to only 32% of CXOs. While IT staff are more effective than ever, even while carrying more of a burden in the digital age, CIOs are still looking to improve staff engagement.
Info-Tech's State of Hybrid Work Survey illuminates further details about where IT leaders are concerned for their employee engagement. About four in ten IT leaders say they are concerned for employee wellbeing, and almost the same amount say they are concerned they are not able to see signs that employees are demotivated (N=518).
Boosting IT employees' engagement levels to match their effectiveness will require IT leaders to harness all the tools at their disposal. Communicating culture and effectively managing organizational change in the digital age is a real test of leadership.
| CXO | 32% |
|---|---|
| CIO | 49% |
CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic
IT leaders concerned about the erosion of culture and connectedness due to hybrid work can mitigate those effects with increased and improved communication. Among highly effective IT departments, 55% of IT leaders made themselves highly available through instant messaging chat. Another 54% of highly effective leaders increased team meetings (State of Hybrid Work Survey, n=213). The ability to adapt to the team's needs and use a number of tactics to respond is the most important factor. The greater the number of tactics used to overcome communication barriers, the more effective the IT department (State of Hybrid Work Survey, N=518).
A hybrid work approach emphasizes the importance of not only the technology in the office conference room but the process around how meetings are conducted. Creating an equal footing for all participants regardless of how they join is the goal. In pursuit of that, 63% of organizations say they have made changes or upgrades to their conference room technology (n=496). The conferencing experience can influence employee engagement and work culture and enhance collaboration. IT should determine if the business case exists for upgrades and work to decrease the pain of using legacy solutions where possible (State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report).
Map out the value chain from the customer perspective and then determine the organizational capabilities involved in delivering on that experience. It is a useful tool for helping IT staff understand how they're connected to the customer experience and organizational mission. It's crucial to identify opportunities to resolve pain points and create more efficiency throughout the organization.
Many employees that experienced hybrid work over the past couple of years are finding it's a positive development for work/life balance and aren't interested in a full-time return to the office. Organizations that insist on returning all employees to the office all the time may find that employees choose to leave the organization. Similarly, it could be hard to hire IT talent in a competitive market if the position is required to be onsite every day. Most organizations are providing flexible options to employees and finding ways to manage work in the new digital age.
Organizations may choose to keep their physical office only to later realize that no one is going to work there. While providing an office space can help foster positive culture through valuable face time, it has to be used intentionally. Managers should plan for specific days that their teams will meet in the office and make sure that work activities take advantage of everyone being in the same place at the same time. Asking everyone to come in so that they can be on a videoconference meeting in their cubicle isn't the point.
Studies on a remote work environment show it has an impact on how many connections each employee maintains within the company. Employees still interact well within their own teams but have fewer interactions across departments. Overall, workers are likely to collaborate just as often as they did when working in the office but with fewer other individuals at the company. Keep the isolating effect of remote work in mind and foster collaboration and networking opportunities across different departments (BBC News, 2022).
Working in the legislature of the Ontario provincial government, CIO Roberto Eberhardt's staff went from a fully onsite model to a fully remote model at the outset of the pandemic. Today he's navigating his path to a hybrid model that's somewhere in the middle. His approach is to allow his business colleagues to determine the work model that's needed but to support a technology environment that allows employees to work from home or in the office equally. Every new process that's introduced must meet that paradigm, ensuring it will work in a hybrid environment. For his IT staff, he sees a culture of accountability and commitment to metrics to drive performance measurement as key to the success of this new reality.
"While it's good in a way, the challenge for us is it became a little more complex because you have to account for all those things in the office environment and in the remote work approach. Everything you do now, you have to say OK well how is this going to work in this world and how will it work in the other world?"
At the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), CIO Mike Russell's IT team supports an organization that governs and delivers services to all community colleges in the state. Russell sees his IT team's purpose as being driven by the organization's mission to ensure success throughout the entire student journey, from enrolment to becoming employed after graduation. That customer-focused mindset starts from the top-level leadership, the chancellor, and the state governor. The VCCS maintains a six-year business plan that informs IT's strategic plan and aligns IT with the mission, and both plans are living documents that get refreshed every two years. Updating the plans provides opportunities for the chancellor to engage the organization and remind everyone of the purpose of their work.
"The outcome isn't the degree. The outcome we're trying to measure is the job. Did you get the job that you wanted? Whether it's being re-employed or first-time employment, did you get what you were after?"
Help leaders manage their teams effectively in a hybrid environment by providing them with the right tools and tactics to manage the challenges of hybrid work. Focus on promoting teamwork and fostering connection.
Prepare People Leaders for the Hybrid Work Environment
Assign accountability for managing the changes that the organization is experiencing in the digital age. Make a people-centric approach that takes human behavior into account and plans to address different needs in different ways. Be proactive about change.
Master Organizational Change Management Practices
Develop a foundation for aligning IT's activities with business value by creating a right-sized enterprise architecture approach that isn't heavy on bureaucracy. Drive IT's purpose by illustrating how their work contributes to the overall mission and the customer experience.
Create a Right-Sized Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework
Tightly align the IT organization with the organization's value chain from a customer perspective.
The pandemic motivated organizations to accelerate their digital transformation efforts, digitalizing more of their tasks and organizing the company's value chain around satisfying the customer experience. Now we see organizations taking their foot off the gas pedal of digitalization and shifting their focus to extracting the value from their investments. They want to execute on the digital transformation in their operations and realize the vision they set out to achieve.
In our Trends Report we compared the emphasis organizations are putting on digitalization to last year. Overall, we see that most organizations shifted fewer of their processes to digital in the past year.
We also asked organizations what motivated their push toward automation. The most common drivers are to improve efficiency, with almost seven out of ten organizations looking to increase staff on high-level tasks by automating repetitive tasks, 67% also wanting to increase productivity without increasing headcount, and 59% wanting to reduce errors being made by people. In addition, more than half of organizations pursued automation to improve customer satisfaction.

Tech Trends 2023 Survey

With the shift in focus from implementing new applications to support digital transformation to operating in the new environment, IT must shift its own focus to help realize the value from these systems. At the same time, IT must reorganize itself around the new value chain that's defined by a customer perspective.
Many current IT departments are structured around legacy processes that hinder their ability to deliver business value. CIOs are trying to grapple with the misalignment between the modern business structure and keep up with the demands for innovation and agility.
Almost nine in ten CIOs say that business frustration with IT's failure to deliver value is a pain point. Their supervisors have a slightly more favorable opinion, with 76% agreeing that it is a pain point.
Similarly, nine in ten CIOs say that IT limits affecting business innovation and agility is a pain point, while 81% of their supervisors say the same.
Supervisors say that IT should "ensure benefits delivery" as the most important process (CEO-CIO Alignment Program). This underlines the need to achieve alignment, optimize service delivery, and facilitate innovation. The pain points identified here will need to be resolved to make this possible.
IT departments will need to contend with a tight labor market and economic volatility in the year ahead. If this drives down resource capacity, it will be even more critical to tightly align with the organization.
| CXO | 76% |
|---|---|
| CIO | 88% |
| CXO | 81% |
|---|---|
| CIO |
90% |
CEO-CIO Alignment Program
Communicate the performance of IT to stakeholders by attributing positive changes in enterprise value to IT initiatives. For example, if a digital channel helped increase sales in one area, then IT can claim some portion of that revenue. If optimization of another process resulted in cost savings, then IT can claim that as a contribution toward the bottom line. CIOs should develop their handle on how KPIs influence revenues and costs. Keeping tabs on normalized year-over-year revenue comparisons can help demonstrate that IT contributions are making an impact on driving profitability.
Most back-office functions common to operating a company can be provided by cloud-based applications accessed through a web browser. There's no value in having IT spend time maintaining on-premises applications that require hosting and ongoing maintenance. Organizations that are still accruing technical debt and are unable to modernize will increasingly find it is negatively impacting employee experience, as users expect their working experience to be similar to their experience with consumer applications. In addition, IT will continue to have capacity challenges as resources will be consumed by maintenance. As they seek to outsource some applications, IT will need to consider the geopolitical risk of certain jurisdictions in selecting a provider.
The concept of "clocking in" for a shift and spending eight hours a day on the job doesn't help guide IT toward its objectives or create any higher sense of purpose. Leaders must work to create a true sense of accountability by reaching consensus on what key performance indicators are important and tasking staff to improve them. Metrics should clearly link back to business outcomes and IT should understand the role they play in delivering a good customer experience.
CIOs are finding it difficult to hire the talent needed to create the capacity they need as digital demands of their organizations increase. This could slow the pace of change as new positions created in IT go unfilled. CIOs may need to consider reskilling and rebalancing workloads of existing staff in the short term and tap outsourcing providers to help make up shortfalls.
New processes may have been given the official rubber stamp, but that doesn't mean staff are adhering to them. Organizations that reorganize themselves must take steps to audit their processes to ensure they're executed the way they intend. Some employees may feel they are being made obsolete or pushed out of their jobs and become disengaged.
Restructuring the organization can come with the need for new tools and more training. It may be necessary to operate with redundant staff for the transitional period. Some additional expenses might be incurred for a brief period as the new structure is being put in place.
As the new CIO to McDonald's Germany, Salman Ali came on board with an early mandate to reorganize the IT department. The challenge is to merge two organizations together: one that delivers core technology services of infrastructure, security, service desk, and compliance and one that delivers customer-facing technology such as in-store touchscreen kiosks and the mobile app for food delivery. He is looking to organize this new-look department around the technology in the hands of both McDonald's staff and its customers. In conversations with his stakeholders, Ali emphasizes the value that IT is driving rather than discussing the costs that go into it. For example, there was a huge cost in integrating third-party meal delivery apps into the point-of-sales system, but the seamless experience it delivers to customers looking to place an order helps to drive a large volume of sales. He plans to reorganize his department around this value-driven approach. The organization model will be executed with clear accountability in place and key performance indicators to measure success.
"Technology is no longer just an enabler. It's now a strategic business function. When they talk about digital, they are really talking about what's in the customers' hands and what do they use to interact with the business directly? Digital transformation has given technology a new front seat that's really driving the business."
LAWPRO is a provider of professional liability insurance and title insurance in Canada. The firm is moving its back-office applications from a build approach to a buy approach and focusing its build efforts on customer-facing systems tied to revenue generation. CIO Ernest Solomon says his team has been developing on a legacy platform for two decades, but it's time to modernize. The firm is replacing its legacy platform and moving to a cloud-based system to address technical debt and improve the experience for staff and customers. The claims and policy management platform, the "heartbeat" of the organization, is moving to a software-as-a-service model. At the same time, the firm's customer-facing Title Plus application is being moved to a cloud-native, serverless architecture. Solomon doesn't see the need for IT to spend time building services for the back office, as that doesn't align with the mission of the organization. Instead, he focuses his build efforts on creating a competitive advantage.
"We're redefining the customer experience, which is how do we move the needle in a positive direction for all the lawyers that interact with us? How do we generate that value-based proposition and improve their interactions with our organization?"
Go deeper on pursuing your priorities by improving the associated capabilities.
Help leaders manage their teams effectively in a hybrid environment by providing them with the right tools and tactics to manage the challenges of hybrid work. Focus on promoting teamwork and fostering connection.
Embrace Business-Managed Applications
Drive the most important IT process in the eyes of supervisors by defining business value and linking IT spend to it. Make benefits realization part of your IT governance.
Maximize Business Value From IT Through Benefits Realization
Showcase IT's value to the business by aligning IT spending and staffing to business functions. Provide transparency into business consumption of IT and compare your spending to your peers'.
Denise Cornish, Associate VP of IT and Deputy COO, Western University of Health Sciences
Jim Love, CIO, IT World Canada
Christian Magsisi, Vice President of Venue and Digital Technology, MLSE
Humza Teherany, Chief Technology Officer, MLSE
Serge Suponitskiy, CIO, Brosnan Risk Consultants
David Senf, National Cybersecurity Strategist, Bell
Roberto Eberhardt, CIO, Ontario Legislative Assembly
Mike Russell, Virginia Community College System
Salman Ali, CIO, McDonald's Germany
Ernest Solomon, Former CIO, LAWPRO
Anderson, Brad, and Seth Patton. "In a Hybrid World, Your Tech Defines Employee Experience." Harvard Business Review, 18 Feb. 2022. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.
"Artificial Intelligence Is Permeating Business at Last." The Economist, 6 Dec. 2022. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.
Badlani, Danesh Kumar, and Adrian Diglio. "Microsoft Open Sources Its Software Bill
of Materials (SBOM) Generation Tool." Engineering@Microsoft, 12 July 2022. Accessed
12 Dec. 2022.
Birch, Martin. "Council Post: Equipping Employees To Succeed In Digital Transformation." Forbes, 9 Aug. 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Bishop, Katie. "Is Remote Work Worse for Wellbeing than People Think?" BBC News,
17 June 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Carlson, Brian. "Top 5 Priorities, Challenges For CIOs To Recession-Proof Their Business." The Customer Data Platform Resource, 19 July 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
"CIO Priorities: 2020 vs 2023." IT PRO, 23 Sept. 2022. Accessed 2 Nov. 2022.
cyberinsiders. "Frictionless Zero Trust Security - How Minimizing Friction Can Lower Risks and Boost ROI." Cybersecurity Insiders, 9 Sept. 2021. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Garg, Sampak P. "Top 5 Regulatory Reasons for Implementing Zero Trust."
CSO Online, 27 Oct. 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Heikkilä, Melissa. "The Viral AI Avatar App Lensa Undressed Me—without My Consent." MIT Technology Review, 12 Dec. 2022. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.
Jackson, Brian. "How the Toronto Raptors Operate as the NBA's Most Data-Driven Team." Spiceworks, 1 Dec. 2022. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.
Kiss, Michelle. "How the Digital Age Has Transformed Employee Engagement." Spiceworks,16 Dec. 2021. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Matthews, David. "EU Hopes to Build Aligned Guidelines on Artificial Intelligence with US." Science|Business, 22 Nov. 2022. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.
Maxim, Merritt. "New Security & Risk Planning Guide Helps CISOs Set 2023 Priorities." Forrester, 23 Aug. 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Miller, Michael J. "Gartner Surveys Show Changing CEO and Board Concerns Are Driving a Different CIO Agenda for 2023." PCMag, 20 Oct. 2022. Accessed 2 Nov. 2022.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory. "Overview of Zero Trust Architectures." YouTube,
2 March 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
MIT Technology Review Insights. "CIO Vision 2025: Bridging the Gap between BI and AI." MIT Technology Review, 20 Sept. 2022. Accessed 1 Nov. 2022.
Paramita, Ghosh. "Data Architecture Trends in 2022." DATAVERSITY, 22 Feb. 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Rosenbush, Steven. "Cybersecurity Tops the CIO Agenda as Threats Continue to Escalate - WSJ." The Wall Street Journal, 17 Oct. 2022. Accessed 2 Nov. 2022.
Sacolick, Isaac. "What's in the Budget? 7 Investments for CIOs to Prioritize." StarCIO,
22 Aug. 2022. Accessed 2 Nov. 2022.
Singh, Yuvika. "Digital Culture-A Hurdle or A Catalyst in Employee Engagement." International Journal of Management Studies, vol. 6, Jan. 2019, pp. 54–60. ResearchGate, https://doi.org/10.18843/ijms/v6i1(8)/08.
"Talent War Set to Become Top Priority for CIOs in 2023, Study Reveals." CEO.digital,
8 Sept. 2022. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Tanaka, Rodney. "WesternU COMP and COMP-Northwest Named Apple Distinguished School." WesternU News. 10 Feb. 2022. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.
Wadhwani, Sumeet. "Meta's New Large Language Model Galactica Pulled Down Three Days After Launch." Spiceworks, 22 Nov. 2022. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.
"World Economic Outlook." International Monetary Fund (IMF), 11 Oct. 2022. Accessed
14 Dec. 2022.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand how the basic operational framework of CLM will ensure cost savings, improved collaboration, and constant CLM improvement.
Understand the two phases of CLM and the ten stages that make up the entire 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.
Identify current CLM processes.
Learn the CLM operational framework.
Documented overview of current processes and stakeholders.
1.1 Review and capture your current process.
1.2 Identify current stakeholders.
1.3 Learn the operational framework of CLM.
1.4 Identify current process gaps.
Existing CLM Process Worksheet
Dive into the two phases of CLM and the ten stages of a robust system.
A deep understanding of the required components/stages of a CLM system.
2.1 Understand the two phases of CLM.
2.2 Learn the ten stages of CLM.
2.3 Assess your CLM maturity state.
2.4 Identify and assign stakeholders.
CLM Maturity Assessment
CLM RASCI Diagram
"Contract lifecycle management (CLM) is a vital process for small and enterprise organizations alike. Research shows that all organizations can benefit from a contract management process, whether they have as few as 25 contracts or especially if they have contracts numbering in the hundreds.
A CLM system will:
If you’re not managing your contracts, you aren’t capitalizing on your investment with your vendors and are potentially exposing your organization to contract and monetary risk."
- Ted Walker
Principal Research Advisor, Vendor Management Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
FIS’ business groups were isolated across the organization and used different agreements, making contract creation a long, difficult, and manual process.
The Solution: Automating and Streamlining the Contract Management Process
A robust CLM system solved FIS’ various contract management needs while also providing a solution that could expand into full quote-to cash in the future.
Dollars Saved |
Upfront dollars saved
|
|---|---|
Time Saved |
Time saved, which can be done in several areas
|
Pitfalls Avoided |
Number of pitfalls found and avoided, such as
|
of companies can’t locate up to 10% of their contracts.
Source: TechnologyAdvice, 2019
of companies’ annual revenue is lost because of poor contract management practices.
Source: IACCM, 2019
still track contracts in shared drives or email folders.
Source: “State of Contract Management,” SpringCM, 2018
"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."
1. Master the Operational Framework |
2. Understand the Ten Stages of CLM |
|
|---|---|---|
| Best-Practice Toolkit |
1.1 Understand the operational framework components. 1.2 Review your current framework. 1.3 Create a plan to implement or enhance existing processes. |
2.1 Understand the ten stages of CLM. 2.2 Review and document your current processes. 2.3 Review RASCI chart and assign internal ownership. 2.4 Create an improvement plan. 2.5 Track changes for measurable ROI. |
| Guided Implementations |
|
|
| Onsite Workshop | Module 1: Review and Learn the Basics
|
Module 2 Results:
|
Phase 1 Outcome:
|
Phase 2 Outcome:
|
Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
| Workshop Day 1 | Workshop Day 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Activities | Task – Review and Learn the Basics |
Task – Learn More and Plan |
1.1 Review and capture your current process. 1.2 Identify current stakeholders. 1.3 Learn the operational framework of contract lifecycle management. 1.4 Identify current process gaps. |
2.1 Understand the two phases of CLM. 2.2 Learn the ten stages of CLM. 2.3 Assess your CLM maturity. 2.4 Identify and assign stakeholders. 2.5 Discuss ROI. 2.6 Summarize and next steps. |
|
| Deliverables |
|
|
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: Master the Operational Framework of Contract Lifecycle Management |
||
|---|---|---|
Step 1.1: Document your Current CLM Process |
Step 1.2: Read and Understand the Operational Framework |
Step 1.3: Review Solution Options |
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
|
Review findings with analyst:
|
Finalize phase deliverable:
|
Then complete these activities…
|
||
With these tools & templates:
|
||
Phase 1 Results:
|
||
That’s where contract lifecycle management (CLM) comes in.
Putting a contract manager in place to manage the CLM project will accelerate the improvements and provide faster returns to the organizations. Reference Info-Tech’s Contract Manager Job Description template as needed.
Paper is still alive and doing very well at slowing down the many stages of the contract process.
Most organizations analyze their contracts in two ways:
This is the ultimate goal of a robust contract management system!
Goal: Document your existing CLM processes (if any) and who owns them, who manages them, etc.
Interview internal business unit decision makers, stakeholders, Finance, Legal, CIO, VMO, Sales, and/or Procurement to understand what’s currently in place.
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: Understand the Ten Stages of Contract Lifecycle Management Proposed Time to Completion: 1-10 weeks | |
|---|---|
Step 2.1: Assess CLM Maturity | Step 2.2: Complete a RASCI Diagram |
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
| Review findings with analyst:
|
Then complete these activities…
| Then complete these activities…
|
With these tools & templates:
| With these tools & templates:
|
Phase 2 Results & Insights:
| |
The steps are divided into two phases, pre-execution and post-execution.
Contract lifecycle management begins with the contract requesting process, where one party requests for or initiates the contracting process and subsequently uses that information for drafting or authoring the contract document. This is usually the first step in CLM.
Requests for contracts can come from various sources:
At this stage, you need to validate if a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is currently in place with the other party or is required before moving forward. At times, adequate NDA components could be included within the contract or agreement to satisfy corporate confidentiality requirements.
For a comprehensive list of terms and conditions, see our Software Terms & Conditions Evaluation Tool within Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements.
The importance of risk review can not be understated. The contract or agreement must be reviewed by several stakeholders who can identify risks to the organization within the contract.
Collectively, this is known as contract visibility.
The approval stage can be a short process if policies and procedures are already in place. Most organizations will have defined delegation of authority or approval authority depending on risk, value of the contract, and other corporate considerations.
Saving the different versions of a contract during negotiations will save time, provide reassurance of agreed terms as you move through the process, and provide reference for future negotiations with the vendor.
Process flow provisions should made for potential rejection of the contract by signatories, looping the contract back to the appropriate stage for rework or revision.
Most repositories are some type of database:
Several important features of an electronic repository should be considered:
Establishing an effective repository will be key to providing measurable value to the organization and saving large amounts of time for the business unit.
Planning for future needs by investing a little more money into a better, more robust repository could pay bigger dividends to the VMO and organization while providing a higher ROI over time as advanced functionality is deployed.
Additional optimization tactics:
Use the CLM Maturity Assessment Tool to outline where your organization is at each stage of the process.
Goal: Identify and measure your existing CLM processes, if any, and provide a maturity value to each stage. The resulting scores will provide a maturity assessment of your CLM.
Goal: Identify who in your organization is primarily accountable and involved in each stage of the CLM process.
Engage internal business unit decision makers, stakeholders, Finance, Legal, CIO, VMO, Sales, and Procurement as required to validate who should be involved in each stage.
Decision-maker concerns arise from a common misunderstanding – that is, a fundamental failure to appreciate the true source of contract management value. This misunderstanding goes back many years to the time when analysts first started to take an interest in contract management and its automation. Their limited experience (primarily in retail and manufacturing sectors) led them to think of contract management as essentially an administrative function, primarily focused on procurement of goods. In such environments, the purpose of automation is focused on internal efficiency, augmented by the possibility of savings from reduced errors (e.g. failing to spot a renewal or expiry date) or compliance (ensuring use of standard terms).
Today’s CLM systems and processes can provide ROI in several areas in the business.
Research on ROI of CLM software shows significant hard cost savings to an organization. For example, a $10 million company with 300 contracts valued at $3 million could realize savings of $83,400 and avoid up to $460,000 in lost revenues. (Derived from: ACCDocket, 2018)
This is an often-discussed question. Research suggests that there is no definitive answer, as there are several variables.
Organizations needs to review what makes the best business sense for them based on several considerations and then decide where CLM belongs.
35% of law professionals feel contract management is a legal responsibility, while 45% feel it’s a business responsibility and a final 20% are unsure where it belongs. (Source: “10 Eye-Popping Contract Management Statistics,” Apttus, 2018)
This too is a difficult question to answer definitively. Again, there are several variables to consider. As well, several solutions are available, and this is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.
As with who should own the CLM process, organizations must review the various CLM software solutions available that will meet their current and future needs and then ask, “What do we need the system to do?”
When considering what type of solution to choose, prioritize what needs to been done or improved. Sometimes solutions can be deployed in phases as an “add-on” type modules.
This project can fit your organization’s schedule:
Master Contract Review and Negotiation
Optimize spend with significant cost savings and negotiate from a position of strength.
Manage Your Vendors Before They Manage You
Maximize the value of vendor relationships.
Burla, Daniel. “The Must Know Of Transition to Dynamics 365 on Premise.” Sherweb, 14 April 2017. Web.
Anand, Vishal, “Strategic Considerations in Implementing an End-to-End Contract Lifecycle Management Solution.” DWF Mindcrest, 20 Aug. 2016. Web.
Alspaugh, Zach. “10 Eye-Popping Contract Management Statistics from the General Counsel’s Technology Report.” Apttus, 23 Nov. 2018. Web.
Bishop, Randy. “Contract Management is not just a cost center.” ContractSafe, 9 Sept. 2019. Web.
Bryce, Ian. “Contract Management KPIs - Measuring What Matters.” Gatekeeper, 2 May 2019. Web.
Busch, Jason. “Contract Lifecycle Management 101.” Determine. 4 Jan. 2018. Web.
“Contract Management Software Buyer's Guide.” TechnologyAdvice, 5 Aug. 2019. Web.
Dunne, Michael. “Analysts Predict that 2019 will be a Big Year for Contract Lifecycle Management.” Apttus, 19 Nov. 2018. Web.
“FIS Case Study.” Apttus, n.d. Web.
Gutwein, Katie. “3 Takeaways from the 2018 State of Contract Management Report.” SpringCM, 2018. Web.
“IACCM 2019 Benchmark Report.” IAACM, 4 Sept. 2019. Web.
Linsley, Rod. “How Proverbial Wisdom Can Help Improve Contract Risk Mitigation.” Gatekeeper, 2 Aug. 2019. Web.
Mars, Scott. “Contract Management Data Extraction.” Exari, 20 June 2017. Web.
Rodriquez, Elizabeth. “Global Contract Life-Cycle Management Market Statistics and Trends 2019.” Business Tech Hub, 17 June 2017. Web.
“State of Contract Management Report.” SpringCM, 2018. Web.
Teninbaum, Gabriel, and Arthur Raguette. “Realizing ROI from Contract Management Technology.” ACCDocket.com, 29 Jan. 2018. Web.
Wagner, Thomas. “Strategic Report on Contract Life cycle Management Software Market with Top Key Players- IBM Emptoris, Icertis, SAP, Apttus, CLM Matrix, Oracle, Infor, Newgen Software, Zycus, Symfact, Contract Logix, Coupa Software.” Market Research, 21 June 2019. Web.
“What is Your Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) Persona?” Spend Matters, 19 Oct. 2017. Web.
Don’t architect for normal situations. That is a shallow approach and leads to decisions that may seem “right” but will not be able to stand up to system elasticity needs.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Translate stakeholder objectives into architecture requirements, solutions, and changes. Incorporate architecture quality attributes in decisions to increase your architecture’s life. Evaluate your solution architecture from multiple views to obtain a holistic perspective of the range of issues, risks, and opportunities.
Identify and detail the value maps that support the business, and discover the architectural quality attribute that is most important for the value maps. Brainstorm solutions for design decisions for data, security, scalability, and performance.
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.
Document a vision statement for the solution architecture practice (in general) and/or a specific vision statement, if using a single project as an example.
Document business architecture and capabilities.
Decompose capabilities into use cases.
Provide a great foundation for an actionable vision and goals that people can align to.
Develop a collaborative understanding of business capabilities.
Develop a collaborative understanding of use cases and personas that are relevant for the business.
1.1 Develop vision statement.
1.2 Document list of value stream maps and their associated use cases.
1.3 Document architectural quality attributes needed for use cases using SRME.
Solution Architecture Template with sections filled out for vision statement canvas and value maps
Map value stream to required architectural attributes.
Prioritize architecture decisions.
Discuss and document data architecture.
An understanding of architectural attributes needed for value streams.
Conceptual understanding of data architecture.
2.1 Map value stream to required architectural attributes.
2.2 Prioritize architecture decisions.
2.3 Discuss and document data architecture.
Solution Architecture Template with sections filled out for value stream and architecture attribute mapping; a prioritized list of architecture design decisions; and data architecture
Discuss security and threat assessment.
Discuss resolutions to threats via security architecture decisions.
Discuss system’s scalability needs.
Decisions for security architecture.
Decisions for scalability architecture.
3.1 Discuss security and threat assessment.
3.2 Discuss resolutions to threats via security architecture decisions.
3.3 Discuss system’s scalability needs.
Solution Architecture Template with sections filled out for security architecture and scalability design
Discuss performance architecture.
Compile all the architectural decisions into a solutions architecture list.
A complete solution architecture.
A set of principles that will form the foundation of solution architecture practices.
4.1 Discuss performance architecture.
4.2 Compile all the architectural decisions into a solutions architecture list.
Solution Architecture Template with sections filled out for performance and a complete solution architecture
Application architecture is a critical foundation for supporting the growth and evolution of application systems. However, the business is willing to exchange the extension of the architecture’s life with quality best practices for the quick delivery of new or enhanced application functionalities. This trade-off may generate immediate benefits to stakeholders, but it will come with high maintenance and upgrade costs in the future, rendering your system legacy early.
Technical teams know the importance of implementing quality attributes into architecture but are unable to gain approval for the investments. Overcoming this challenge requires a focus of architectural enhancements on specific problem areas with significant business visibility. Then, demonstrate how quality solutions are vital enablers for supporting valuable application functionalities by tracing these solutions to stakeholder objectives and conducting business and technical risk and impact assessments through multiple business and technical perspectives.
Andrew Kum-Seun
Research Manager, Applications
Info-Tech Research Group
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Well-received applications can have poor architectural qualities. Functional needs often take precedence over quality architecture. Quality must be baked into design, execution, and decision-making practices to ensure the right tradeoffs are made.
A well-thought-through and strategically designed solution architecture is essential for the long-term success of any software system, and by extension, the organization because:
In its need for speed, a business often doesn’t see the value in making sure architecture is maintainable, reusable, and scalable. This demand leads to an organizational desire for development practices and the procurement of vendors that favor time-to-market over long-term maintainability. Unfortunately, technical teams are pushed to omit design quality and validation best practices.
Poor quality application architecture impedes business growth opportunities, exposes enterprise systems to risks, and consumes precious IT budgets in maintenance that could otherwise be used for innovation and new projects.
Previous estimations indicate that roughly 50% of security problems are the result of software design. […] Flaws in the architecture of a software system can have a greater impact on various security concerns in the system, and as a result, give more space and flexibility for malicious users.(Source: IEEE Software)
Errors in software requirements and software design documents are more frequent than errors in the source code itself according to Computer Finance Magazine. Defects introduced during the requirements and design phase are not only more probable but also more severe and more difficult to remove. (Source: iSixSigma)
… describes the dependencies, structures, constraints, standards, and development guidelines to successfully deliver functional and long-living applications. This artifact lays the foundation to discuss the enhancement of the use and operations of your systems considering existing complexities.
Lowers maintenance costs by revealing key issues and risks early. The Systems Sciences Institute at IBM has reported that the cost to fix an error found after product release was 4 to 5 times as much as one uncovered during design.
(iSixSigma)
Supports the design and implementation activities by providing key insights for project scheduling, work allocation, cost analysis, risk management, and skills development.(IBM: developerWorks)
Eliminates unnecessary creativity and activities on the part of designers and implementers, which is achieved by imposing the necessary constraints on what they can do and making it clear that deviation from constraints can break the architecture.(IBM: developerWorks)
Solution architecture is not a one-size-fits-all conversation. There are many design considerations and trade-offs to keep in mind as a product or services solution is conceptualized, evaluated, tested, and confirmed. The following is a list of good practices that should inform most architecture design decisions.
Principle 1: Design your solution to have at least two of everything.
Principle 2: Include a “kill switch” in your fault-isolation design. You should be able to turn off everything you release.
Principle 3: If it can be monitored, it should be. Use server and audit logs where possible.
Principle 4: Asynchronous is better than synchronous. Asynchronous design is more complex but worth the processing efficiency it introduces.
Principle 5: Stateless over stateful: State data should only be used if necessary.
Principle 6: Go horizonal (scale out) over vertical (scale up).
Principle 7: Good architecture comes in small packages.
Principle 8: Practice just-in-time architecture. Delay finalizing an approach for as long as you can.
Principle 9: X-ilities over features. Quality of an architecture is the foundation over which features exist. A weak foundation can never be obfuscated through shiny features.
Principle 10: Architect for products not projects. A product is an ongoing concern, while a project is short lived and therefore only focused on what is. A product mindset forces architects to think about what can or should be.
Principle 11: Design for rollback: When all else fails, you should be able to stand up the previous best state of the system.
Principle 12: Test the solution architecture like you test your solution’s features.
Solution architecture is a technical response to a business need, and like all complex evolutionary systems, must adapt its design for changing circumstances.
The triggers for changes to existing solution architectures can come from, at least, three sources:
A solution’s architecture is cross-cutting and multi-dimensional and at the minimum includes:
along with several qualitative attributes (also called non-functional requirements).
Integrate Portfolios to Create Exceptional Customer Value
Deliver on Your Digital Portfolio Vision
Build a Data Architecture Roadmap
Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics
Optimize Application Release Management
Build Your Infrastructure Roadmap
Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture
Solution Architecture Template
Record the results from the exercises to help you define, detail, and make real your digital product vision.
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
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 are used throughout all four options
Contact your account representative for more information. workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exercises |
|
|
|
|
| Outcomes |
|
|
|
|
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?
A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
This GI is between 8 to 10 calls over the course of approximately four to six months.
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Call #1: Articulate an architectural vision. |
Call #4: Continue discussion on value stream mapping and related use cases. |
Call #6: Document security design decisions. |
| Call #2: Discuss value stream mapping and related use cases. |
Call #5:
|
Call #7:
|
| Call #3: Continue discussion on value stream mapping and related use cases. |
Call #8: Bring it all together. |
1.1 Articulate an Architectural Vision
1.2 Develop Dynamic Value Stream Maps
1.3 Map Value Streams, Use Cases, and Required Architectural Attributes
1.4 Create a Prioritized List of Architectural Attributes
2.1 Develop a Data Architecture That Supports Transactional and Analytical Needs
2.2 Document Security Architecture Risks and Mitigations
3.1 Document Scalability Architecture
3.2 Document Performance Enhancing Architecture
3.3 Combine the Different Architecture Design Decisions Into a Unified Solution Architecture
Enhance Your Solution Architecture Practice
If you start off by saying I want to architect a system,
you’ve already lost.
Remember what a vision is for!
Your product vision serves as the single fixed point for product development and delivery.
It gets everyone on the same page.
There is no pride in being a rudderless ship. It can also be very expensive.
We know where to go, we know who to bring along, and we know the steps to get there. Let’s plan this out.
Who is the target customer (or customers)?
What is the key benefit a customer can get from using our service or product?
Why should they be engaged with you?
What makes our service or product better than our competitors?
(Adapted from Crossing the Chasm)
It doesn’t matter if you are delivering value to internal or external stakeholders, you need a product vision to ensure everyone understands the “why.”
The solution architecture canvas provides a single dashboard to quickly define and communicate the most important information about the vision. A canvas is an effective tool for aligning teams and providing an executive summary view.
There are different statement templates available to help form your product vision statements. Some include:
We believe (in) a [noun: world, time, state, etc.] where [persona] can [verb: do, make, offer, etc.], for/by/with [benefit/goal].
Our vision is to [verb: build, design, provide] the [goal, future state] to [verb: help, enable, make it easier to...] [persona].
(Adapted from Crossing the Chasm)
Download the Solution Architecture Template and document your vision statement.
Sets and communicates the direction of the entire organization.
Segments, groups, and creates a coherent narrative as to how an organization creates value.
Decomposes an organization into its component parts to establish a common language across the organization.
Implements the business strategy through capability building or improvement projects.
Revenue Growth
Stream 1- Product Purchase
Stream 2- Customer Acquisition
stream 3- Product Financing
There are many techniques that help with constructing value streams and their capabilities.
Domain-driven design is a technique that can be used for hypothesizing the value maps, their capabilities, and associated solution architecture.
Read more about domain-driven design here.
Value chains set a high-level context, but architectural decisions still need to be made to deal with the dynamism of user interaction and their subsequent expectations. User stories (and/or use cases) and themes are great tools for developing such decisions.

The use case Confirming Customer’s Online Order has four actors:
Each use case theme links back to a feature(s) in the product backlog.
Deliver on Your Digital Portfolio Vision
Document Your Business Architecture
*Refer to the next slide for an example of a dynamic value stream map.
Download the Solution Architecture Template for documentation of dynamic value stream map
*Value Stream Name: Usually has the same name as the capability it illustrates.
**Value Stream Components: Specific functions that support the successful delivery of a value stream.
The use case Disbursement of Funds has three actors:
| Loan Provision: Disbursement of Funds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Use Case | Actors | Expectation |
| Deposit Loan Into Applicant’s Bank Account |
|
|
Quality attributes can be viewed as the -ilities (e.g. scalability, usability, reliability) that a software system needs to provide. A system not meeting any of its quality attribute requirements will likely not function as required. Examples of quality attributes are:
| Examples of Qualitative Attributes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | Compatibility | Usability | Reliability | Security | Maintainability |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Focus on quality attributes that are architecturally significant.
*Abstract since attributes like performance and reliability are not directly measurable by a user.
For applicable use cases: (*Adapted from S Carnegie Mellon University, 2000)
Three out of four is bad. Don’t architect for normal situations because the solution will be fragile and prone to catastrophic failure under unexpected events.
Read article: Retail sites crash under weight of online Black Friday shoppers.
Assume analysis is being done for a to-be developed system.
| User | Loan Applicant | |
|---|---|---|
| Expectations | On login to the web system, should be able to see accurate bank balance after loan funds are deposited. | |
| User signs into the online portal and opens their account balance page. | ||
| Expected Response From System | System creates a connection to the data source and renders it on the screen in under 10ms. | |
| Measurement | Under Normal Loads:
|
Under Peak Loads:
|
| Quality Attribute Required | Required Attribute # 1: Performance
|
|
Use cases developed in Phase 1.2 should be used here. (Adapted from the ATAM Utility Tree Method for Quality Attribute Engineering)
Assume analysis is being done for a to-be developed system.
| User | Loan Applicant | |
|---|---|---|
| Expectations | On login to the web system, should be able to see accurate bank balance after loan funds are deposited. | |
| User signs into the online portal and opens their account balance page. | ||
| Expected Response From System | System creates a connection to the data source and renders it on the screen in under 10ms. | |
| Measurement | Under Normal Loads:
| Under Peak Loads:
|
| Quality Attribute Required | Required Attribute # 1: Performance
Required Attribute # 2: Data Reliability
Required Attribute # 3: Scalability
| |
Loan Application → Disbursement of Funds → Risk Management → Service Accounts
| Value Stream Component | Use Case | Required Architectural Attribute |
|---|---|---|
| Loan Application | UC1: Submit Loan Application UC2: Review Loan Application UC3: Approve Loan Application UCn: …….. |
UC1: Resilience, Data Reliability UC2: Data Reliability UC3: Scalability, Security, Performance UCn: ….. |
| Disbursement of Funds | UC1: Deposit Funds Into Applicant’s Bank Account UCn: …….. |
UC1: Performance, Scalability, Data Reliability |
| Risk Management | ….. | ….. |
| Service Accounts | ….. | ….. |
*Refer to the next slide for an example of a dynamic value stream map.
Download the Solution Architecture Template for documentation of dynamic value stream map
*Value Stream Name: Usually has the same name as the capability it illustrates.
**Value Stream Components: Specific functions that support the successful delivery of a value stream.
The use case Disbursement of Funds has three actors:
| Loan Provision: Disbursement of Funds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Use Case | Actors | Expectation |
| Deposit Loan Into Applicant’s Bank Account |
|
|
Quality attributes can be viewed as the -ilities (e.g. scalability, usability, reliability) that a software system needs to provide. A system not meeting any of its quality attribute requirements will likely not function as required. Examples of quality attributes are:
| Examples of Qualitative Attributes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | Compatibility | Usability | Reliability | Security | Maintainability |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Focus on quality attributes that are architecturally significant.
*Abstract since attributes like performance and reliability are not directly measurable by a user.
For applicable use cases: (*Adapted from S Carnegie Mellon University, 2000)
Three out of four is bad. Don’t architect for normal situations because the solution will be fragile and prone to catastrophic failure under unexpected events.
Read article: Retail sites crash under weight of online Black Friday shoppers.
Assume analysis is being done for a to-be developed system.
| User | Loan Applicant | |
|---|---|---|
| Expectations | On login to the web system, should be able to see accurate bank balance after loan funds are deposited. | |
| User signs into the online portal and opens their account balance page. | ||
| Expected Response From System | System creates a connection to the data source and renders it on the screen in under 10ms. | |
| Measurement | Under Normal Loads:
|
Under Peak Loads:
|
| Quality Attribute Required | Required Attribute # 1: Performance
|
|
Use cases developed in Phase 1.2 should be used here. (Adapted from the ATAM Utility Tree Method for Quality Attribute Engineering)
Assume analysis is being done for a to-be developed system.
| User | Loan Applicant | |
|---|---|---|
| Expectations | On login to the web system, should be able to see accurate bank balance after loan funds are deposited. | |
| User signs into the online portal and opens their account balance page. | ||
| Expected Response From System | System creates a connection to the data source and renders it on the screen in under 10ms. | |
| Measurement | Under Normal Loads:
| Under Peak Loads:
|
| Quality Attribute Required | Required Attribute # 1: Performance
Required Attribute # 2: Data Reliability
Required Attribute # 3: Scalability
| |
Trade-offs are inherent in solution architecture. Scaling systems may impact performance and weaken security, while fault-tolerance and redundancy may improve availability but at higher than desired costs. In the end, the best solution is not always perfect, but balanced and right-engineered (versus over- or under-engineered).
Loan Application → Disbursement of Funds → Risk Management → Service Accounts
In our example, the prioritized list of architectural attributes are:
Download the Solution Architecture Template and document the list of architectural attributes by priority.
1.1 Articulate an Architectural Vision
1.2 Develop Dynamic Value Stream Maps
1.3 Map Value Streams, Use Cases, and Required Architectural Attributes
1.4 Create a Prioritized List of Architectural Attributes
2.1 Develop a Data Architecture That Supports Transactional and Analytical Needs
2.2 Document Security Architecture Risks and Mitigations
3.1 Document Scalability Architecture
3.2 Document Performance Enhancing Architecture
3.3 Combine the Different Architecture Design Decisions Into a Unified Solution Architecture
Enhance Your Solution Architecture Practice
Source: Flexera
In addition, companies are faced with:
A robust and reliable integrated data architecture is essential for any organization that aspires to be relevant and impactful in its industry.
Data used to be the new oil. Now it’s the life force of any organization that has serious aspirations of providing profit-generating products and services to customers. Architectural decisions about managing data have a significant impact on the sustainability of a software system as well as on quality attributes such as security, scalability, performance, and availability.
Storage and Processing go hand in hand and are the mainstay of any data architecture. Due to their central position of importance, an architecture decision for storage and processing must be well thought through or they become the bottleneck in an otherwise sound system.
Ingestion refers to a system’s ability to accept data as an input from heterogenous sources, in different formats, and at different intervals.
Dissemination is the set of architectural design decisions that make a system’s data accessible to external consumers. Major concerns involve security for the data in motion, authorization, data format, concurrent requests for data, etc.
Orchestration takes care of ensuring data is current and reliable, especially for systems that are decentralized and distributed.
Most companies have a combination of data. They have data they own using on-premises data sources and on the cloud. Hybrid data management also includes external data, such as social network feeds, financial data, and legal information amongst many others.
| Application to Application Integration (or “speed matters”) | Analytical Data Integrations (or “send it to me when its all done”) |
|---|---|
|
|
Data ingestion/dissemination frameworks capture/share data from/to multiple data sources.
What is the mode for data movement?
What is the ingestion/dissemination architecture deployment strategy?
How many different and disparate data sources are sending/receiving data?
What are the different formats flowing through?
What are expected performance SLAs as data flow rate changes?
What are the security requirements for the data being stored?
… but that’s a good thing because the range of data formats that organizations must deal with is also richer than in the past.
The data processing tool to use may depend upon the workloads the system has to manage.
Expanding upon the Risk Management use case (as part of the Loan Provision Capability), one of the outputs for risk assessment is a report that conducts a statistical analysis of customer profiles and separates those that are possibly risky. The data for this report is spread out across different data systems and will need to be collected in a master data management storage location. The business and data architecture team have discussed three critical system needs, noted below:
| Data Management Requirements for Risk Management Reporting | Data Design Decision |
|---|---|
| Needs to query millions of relational records quickly |
|
| Needs a storage space for later retrieval of relational data |
|
| Needs turnkey geo-replication mechanism with document retrieval in milliseconds |
|
A task or application may periodically fail, and therefore, as a part of our data architecture strategy, there must be provisions for scheduling, rescheduling, replaying, monitoring, retrying, and debugging the entire data pipeline in a holistic way.
Some of the functionality provided by orchestration frameworks are:
| Data Orchestration Has Three Stages | ||
|---|---|---|
| Organize | Transform | Publicize |
| Organizations may have legacy data that needs to be combined with new data. It’s important for the orchestration tool to understand the data it deals with. | Transform the data from different sources into one standard type. | Make transformed data easily accessible to stakeholders. |
Download the Solution Architecture Template for documenting data architecture decisions.
| Data Management Requirements for Risk Management Reporting | Data Design Decision |
|---|---|
| Needs to query millions of relational records quickly |
|
| Needs a storage space for later retrieval of relational data |
|
| Needs turnkey geo-replication mechanism with document retrieval in milliseconds |
|
Ensuring that any real system is secure is a complex process involving tradeoffs against other important quality attributes (such as performance and usability). When architecting a system, we must understand:
Authentication mechanisms help systems verify that a user is who they claim to be.
Examples of authentication mechanisms are:
Authorization helps systems limit access to allowed features, once a user has been authenticated.
Examples of authentication mechanisms are:
Securely recording security events through auditing proves that our security mechanisms are working as intended.
Auditing is a function where security teams must collaborate with software engineers early and often to ensure the right kind of audit logs are being captured and recorded.
Defects in your application software can compromise privacy and integrity even if cryptographic controls are in place. A security architecture made after thorough TRA does not override security risk introduced due to irresponsible software design.
STRIDE is a threat modeling framework and is composed of:
| Example of using STRIDE for a TRA on a solution using a payment system |
|
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Spoofing | PayPal | Bad actor can send fraudulent payment request for obtaining funds. | |
| Tampering | PayPal | Bad actor accesses data base and can resend fraudulent payment request for obtaining funds. | |
| Repudiation | PayPal | Customer claims, incorrectly, their account made a payment they did not authorize. | |
| Disclosure | PayPal | Private service database has details leaked and made public. | |
| Denial of Service | PayPal | Service is made to slow down through creating a load on the network, causing massive build up of requests | |
| Elevation of Privilege | PayPal | Bad actor attempts to enter someone else’s account by entering incorrect password a number of times. | |
Download the Solution Architecture Template for documenting data architecture decisions.
| Example of using STRIDE for a TRA on a solution using a payment system | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Threat | System Component | Description | Quality Attribute Impacted | Resolution |
| Spoofing | PayPal | Bad actor can send fraudulent payment request for obtaining funds. | Confidentiality | Authorization |
| Tampering | PayPal | Bad actor accesses data base and can resend fraudulent payment request for obtaining funds. | Integrity | Authorization |
| Repudiation | PayPal | Customer claims, incorrectly, their account made a payment they did not authorize. | Integrity | Authentication and Logging |
| Disclosure | PayPal | Private service database has details leaked and made public. | Confidentiality | Authorization |
| Denial of Service | PayPal | Service is made to slow down through creating a load on the network, causing massive build up of requests | Availability | N/A |
| Elevation of Privilege | PayPal | Bad actor attempts to enter someone else’s account by entering incorrect password a number of times. | Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability | Authorization |
1.1 Articulate an Architectural Vision
1.2 Develop Dynamic Value Stream Maps
1.3 Map Value Streams, Use Cases, and Required Architectural Attributes
1.4 Create a Prioritized List of Architectural Attributes
2.1 Develop a Data Architecture That Supports Transactional and Analytical Needs
2.2 Document Security Architecture Risks and Mitigations
3.1 Document Scalability Architecture
3.2 Document Performance Enhancing Architecture
3.3 Combine the Different Architecture Design Decisions Into a Unified Solution Architecture
Enhance Your Solution Architecture Practice
Scale and scope of workloads are more important now than they were, perhaps, a decade and half back. Architects realize that scalability is not an afterthought. Not dealing with it at the outset can have serious consequences should an application workload suddenly exceed expectations.
… the ability of a system to handle varying workloads by either increasing or decreasing the computing resources of the system.
An increased workload could include:
… not easy since organizations may not be able to accurately judge, outside of known circumstances, when and why workloads may unexpectedly increase.
A scalable architecture should be planned at the:
… balancing the demands of the system with the supply of attributes.
If demand from system > supply from system:
If supply from system > demand from system:
The best input for an effective scaling strategy is previously gathered traffic data mapped to specific circumstances.
In some cases, either due to lack of monitoring or the business not being sure of its needs, scalability requirements are hard to determine. In such cases, use stated tactical business objectives to design for scalability. For example, the business might state its desire to achieve a target revenue goal. To accommodate this, a certain number of transactions would need to be conducted, assuming a particular conversion rate.
| Scaling strategies can be based on Vertical or Horizontal expansion of resources. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pros | Cons | |
| Vertical Scale up through use of more powerful but limited number of resources |
|
|
| Horizontal Scale out through use of similarly powered but larger quantity of resources |
|
|
Through this mechanism, incoming traffic is partitioned around a characteristic of the workload flowing in. Examples of partitioning characteristics are user groups, geo-location, and transaction type.
Beware of:
As the name suggests, clone the compute resources along with the underlying databases. The systems will use a load balancer as the first point of contact between itself and the workload flowing in.
This involves breaking up the system into specific functions and services and bundling their business rules/databases into deployable containers.
To know where to go, you must know where you are. Before introducing architectural changes to database designs, use the right metrics to get an insight into the root cause of the problem(s).
In a nutshell, the purpose of scaling solutions is to have the technology stack do less work for the most requested services/features or be able to effectively distribute the additional workload across multiple resources.
For databases, to ensure this happens, consider these techniques:
A non-scalable architecture has more than just technology-related ramifications. Hoping that load balancers or cloud services will manage scalability-related issues is bound to have economic impacts as well.
Database Caching
Fetches and stores result of database queries in memory. Subsequent requests to the database for the same queries will investigate the cache before making a connection with the database.
Tools like Memcached or Redis are used for database caching.
Precompute Database Caching
Unlike database caching, this style of caching precomputes results of queries that are popular and frequently used. For example, a database trigger could execute several predetermined queries and have them ready for consumption. The precomputed results may be stored in a database cache.
Application Object Caching
Stores computed results in a cache for later retrieval. For data sources, which are not changing frequently and are part of a computation output, application caching will remove the need to connect with a database.
Proxy Caching
Caches retrieved web pages on a proxy server and makes them available for the next time the page is requested.
A synchronous request (doing one thing at a time) means that code execution will wait for the request to be responded to before continuing.
Asynchronous requests (doing many things at the same time) do not block the system they are targeting.
| STATELESS SERVICES | VERSUS | STATEFUL SERVICES |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
| It is generally accepted that stateless services are better for system scalability, especially if vertical scaling is costly and there is expectation that workloads will increase. | ||
| MICROSERVICES | VERSUS | SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS |
|
|
|
| Serverless function is an evolving technology and tightly controlled by the vendor. As and when vendors make changes to their serverless products, your own systems may need to be modified to make the best use of these upgrades. | ||
A critical aspect of any system is its ability to monitor and report on its operational outcomes.
Any system, however well architected, will break one day. Strategically place kill-switches to counter any failures and thoroughly test their functioning before releasing to production.
include kill-switchesand
architect for x-ilities over features), introduce tactics at the code and higher levels that can be used to put a system in its previous best state in case of failure.
(International Organization for Standardization, 2011)
Measurement Category 1: System performance in terms of end-user experience during different load scenarios.
Measurement Category 2: System performance in terms of load managed by computational resources.
Good architecture comes in small packages) and Principle 10 (
Architect for products, not projects), a microservices architecture based on domain-driven design helps process performance. Microservices use lightweight HTTP protocols and have loose coupling, adding a degree of resilience to the system as well. *An overly-engineered microservices architecture can become an orchestration challenge.
Performance modeling and testing helps architecture teams predict performance risks as the solution is being developed.
(CSA Principle 12: Test the solution architecture like you test your solution’s features)
Create a model for your system’s hypothetical performance testing by breaking an end-to-end process or use case into its components. *Use the SIPOC framework for decomposition.
Performance testing process should be fully integrated with software development activities and as automated as possible. In a fast-moving Agile environment, teams should attempt to:
*In a real production scenario, a combination of these tests are executed on a regular basis to monitor the performance of the system over a given period.
Download the Solution Architecture Template for documenting data architecture decisions.
| Value Stream Component | Design Decision for User Interface Layer | Design Decisions for Middle Processing Layer |
|---|---|---|
| Loan Application | Scalability: N/A Resilience: Include circuit breaker design in both mobile app and responsive websites. Performance: Cache data client. |
Scalability: Scale vertically (up) since loan application processing is very compute intensive. Resilience: Set up fail-over replica. Performance: Keep servers in the same geo-area. |
| Disbursement of Funds | *Does not have a user interface | Scalability: Scale horizontal when traffic reaches X requests/second. Resilience: Create microservices using domain-driven design; include circuit breakers. Performance: Set up application cache; synchronous communication since order of data input is important. |
| …. | …. | …. |
Download the Solution Architecture Template for documenting data architecture decisions.
This blueprint covered the domains tagged with the yellow star.
The right design decision is never the same for all perspectives. Along with varying opinions, comes the “at odds with each other set” of needs (scalability vs. performance, or access vs. security).
An evidence-based decision-making approach using a domain-driven design strategy is a good mix of techniques for creating the best (right?) solution architecture.
Ambysoft Inc. “UML 2 Sequence Diagrams: An Agile Introduction.” Agile Modeling, n.d. Web.
Bass, Len, Paul Clements, and Rick Kazman. Software Architecture in Practices: Third Edition. Pearson Education, Inc. 2003.
Eeles, Peter. “The benefits of software architecting.” IBM: developerWorks, 15 May 2006. Web.
Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud Report. Flexera, 2020. Web. 19 October 2021.
Furdik, Karol, Gabriel Lukac, Tomas Sabol, and Peter Kostelnik. “The Network Architecture Designed for an Adaptable IoT-based Smart Office Solution.” International Journal of Computer Networks and Communications Security, November 2013. Web.
Ganzinger, Matthias, and Petra Knaup. “Requirements for data integration platforms in biomedical research networks: a reference model.” PeerJ, 5 February 2015. (https://peerj.com/articles/755/).
Garlan, David, and Mary Shaw. An Introduction to Software Architecture. CMU-CS-94-166, School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University, January 1994.
Gupta, Arun. “Microservice Design Patterns.” Java Code Geeks, 14 April 2015. Web.
How, Matt. The Modern Data Warehouse in Azure. O’Reilly, 2020.
ISO/IEC 17788:2014: Information technology – Cloud computing, International Organization for Standardization, October 2014. Web.
ISO/IEC 18384-1:2016: Information technology – Reference Architecture for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA RA), International Organization for Standardization, June 2016. Web.
ISO/IEC 25010:2011(en) Systems and software engineering — Systems and software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) — System and software quality models. International Organization for Standardization, March 2011. Web.
Kazman, R., M. Klein, and P. Clements. ATAM: Method for Architecture Evaluation. S Carnegie Mellon University, August 2000. Web.
Microsoft Developer Network. “Chapter 16: Quality Attributes.” Microsoft Application Architecture Guide. 2nd Ed., 13 January 2010. Web.
Microsoft Developer Network. “Chapter 2: Key Principles of Software Architecture.” Microsoft Application Architecture Guide. 2nd Ed., 13 January 2010. Web.
Microsoft Developer Network. “Chapter 3: Architectural Patterns and Styles.” Microsoft Application Architecture Guide. 2nd Ed., 14 January 2010. Web.
Microsoft Developer Network. “Chapter 5: Layered Application Guidelines.” Microsoft Application Architecture Guide. 2nd Ed., 13 January 2010. Web.
Mirakhorli, Mehdi. “Common Architecture Weakness Enumeration (CAWE).” IEEE Software, 2016. Web.
Moore, G. A. Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers (Collins Business Essentials) (3rd ed.). Harper Business, 2014.
OASIS. “Oasis SOA Reference Model (SOA RM) TC.” OASIS Open, n.d. Web.
Soni, Mukesh. “Defect Prevention: Reducing Costs and Enhancing Quality.” iSixSigma, n.d. Web.
The Open Group. TOGAF 8.1.1 Online, Part IV: Resource Base, Developing Architecture Views. TOGAF, 2006. Web.
The Open Group. Welcome to the TOGAF® Standard, Version 9.2, a standard of The Open Group. TOGAF, 2018. Web.
Watts, S. “The importance of solid design principles.” BMC Blogs, 15 June 2020. 19 October 2021.
Young, Charles. “Hexagonal Architecture–The Great Reconciler?” Geeks with Blogs, 20 Dec 2014. Web.
Many solutions exist for improving the layers of the application stack that may address architecture issues or impact your current architecture. Solutions range from capability changes to full stack replacement.
| Method | Description | Potential Benefits | Risks | Related Blueprints |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Capabilities: Enablement and enhancement |
|
|
|
Use Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture blueprint to gain better understanding of business and IT alignment. |
| Removal |
|
|
|
Use Info-Tech’s Build an Application Rationalization Framework to rationalize your application portfolio. |
| Business Process: Process integration and consolidation |
|
|
|
|
| Business Process (continued): Process automation |
|
|
|
|
| Lean business processes |
|
|
|
|
| Outsource the process |
|
|
|
|
| Business Process (continued): Standardization |
|
|
|
|
| User Interface: Improve user experience (UX) |
|
|
|
|
| Code: Update coding language |
Translate legacy code into modern coding language. |
|
|
|
| Code (continued): Open source code |
|
|
|
|
| Update the development toolchain |
|
|
|
|
| Update source code management |
|
|
|
|
| Data: Outsource extraction |
|
|
|
|
| Update data structure |
|
|
|
|
| Update data mining and data warehousing tools |
|
|
|
|
| Integration: Move from point-to-point to enterprise service bus (ESB) |
|
|
|
|
| Leverage API integration |
|
|
|
|
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Create strategic alignment between the CoE and the organization’s goals, objectives, and vision.
Build an engagement plan based on a standardized adoption model to ensure your CoE service offerings are accessible and consistent across the organization.
Operate the CoE to provide service offerings to Agile teams, identify improvements to optimize the function of your Agile teams, and effectively manage and communicate change.
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.
Create strategic alignment between the CoE and the organization’s goals, objectives, and vision.
Understand how your key stakeholders will impact the longevity of your CoE.
Determine your CoE structure and staff.
Top-down alignment with strategic aims of the organization.
A set of high-level use cases to form the CoE’s service offerings around.
Visualization of key stakeholders, with their current and desired power and involvement documented.
1.1 Identify and prioritize organizational business objectives.
1.2 Form use cases for the points of alignment between your Agile Center of Excellence (ACE) and business objectives.
1.3 Prioritize your ACE stakeholders.
Prioritized business objectives
Business-aligned use cases to form CoE’s service offerings
Stakeholder map of key influencers
Document the functional expectations of the Agile teams.
Refine your business-aligned use cases with your collected data to achieve both business and functional alignment.
Create a capability map that visualizes and prioritizes your key service offerings.
Understanding of some of the identified concerns, pain points, and potential opportunities from your stakeholders.
Refined use cases that define the service offerings the CoE provides to its customers.
Prioritization for the creation of service offerings with a capability map.
2.1 Classified pains and opportunities.
2.2 Refine your use cases to identify your ACE functions and services.
2.3 Visualize your ACE functions and service offerings with a capability map.
Classified pains and opportunities
Refined use cases based on pains and opportunities identified during ACE requirements gathering
ACE Capability Map
Align service offerings with an Agile adoption model so that teams have a structured way to build their skills.
Standardize the way your organization will interact with the Center of Excellence to ensure consistency in best practices.
Mechanisms put in place for continual improvement and personal development for your Agile teams.
Interaction with the CoE is standardized via engagement plans to ensure consistency in best practices and predictability for resourcing purposes.
3.1 Further categorize your use cases within the Agile adoption model.
3.2 Create an engagement plan for each level of adoption.
Adoption-aligned service offerings
Role-based engagement plans
Develop a set of metrics for the CoE to monitor business-aligned outcomes with.
The foundations of continuous improvement are established with a robust set of Agile metrics.
4.1 Define metrics that align with your Agile business objectives.
4.2 Define target ACE performance metrics.
4.3 Define Agile adoption metrics.
4.4 Assess the interaction and communication points of your Agile team.
4.5 Create a communication plan for change.
Business objective-aligned metrics
CoE performance metrics
Agile adoption metrics
Assessment of organizational design
CoE communication plan
"Inconsistent processes and practices used across Agile teams is frequently cited as a challenge to adopting and scaling Agile within organizations. (VersionOne’s 13th Annual State of Agile Report [N=1,319]) Creating an Agile Center of Excellence (ACE) is a popular way to try to impose structure and improve performance. However, simply establishing an ACE does not guarantee you will be successful with Agile. When setting up an ACE you must: Define ACE services based on identified stakeholder needs. Staff the ACE with respected, “hands on” people, who deliver identifiable value to your Agile teams. Continuously evolve ACE service offerings to maximize stakeholder satisfaction and value delivered."
Alex Ciraco, Research Director, Applications Practice Info-Tech Research Group
Implement Agile Practices That Work
Begin your Agile transformation with a comprehensive readiness assessment and a pilot project to adopt Agile development practices and behaviors that fit.
YOU ARE HERE
Spread Best Practices with an Agile Center of Excellence
Form an ACE to support Agile development at all levels of the organization with thought leadership, strategic development support & process innovation.
Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile
Extend the benefits of your Agile pilot project into your organization by strategically scaling Agile initiatives that will meet stakeholders’ needs.
Transition to Product Delivery Introduce product-centric delivery practices to drive greater benefits and better delivery outcomes.
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives
Remodel the stages of your lifecycle to standardize your definition of a successful product.
Build a Strong Foundation for Quality
Instill quality assurance practices and principles in each stage of your software development lifecycle.
Implement DevOps Practices That Work
Fix, deploy, and support applications quicker though development and operations collaboration.
NOTE: Organizational change is hard and prone to failure. Determine your organization’s level of readiness for Agile transformation (and recommended actions) by completing Info-Tech’s Agile Transformation Readiness Tool.
An ACE amplifies good practices that have been successfully employed within your organization, effectively allowing you to extend the benefits obtained from your Agile pilot(s) to a wider audience.
From the viewpoint of the business, members of the ACE provide expertise and insights to the entire organization in order to facilitate Agile transformation and ensure standard application of Agile good practices.
From the viewpoint of your Agile teams, it provides a community of individuals that share experiences and lessons learned, propagate new ideas, and raise questions or concerns so that delivering business value is always top of mind.
Some organizations prefer Communities of Practice (CoP) to Centers of Excellence (CoE). CoPs are different from CoEs:
“A CoP is an affiliation of people who share a common practice and who have a desire to further the practice itself … and of course to share knowledge, refine best practices, and introduce standards. CoPs are defined by their domain of interest, but the membership is a social structure comprised of volunteer practitioners”
– Wenger, E., R. A. McDermott, et al. (2002) Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge, Harvard Business Press.
“CoPs differ from a CoE mainly in that they tend to have no geographical boundaries, they hold no hierarchical power within a firm, and they definitely can never have structure determined by the company. However, one of the most obvious and telling differences lies in the stated motive of members – CoPs exist because they have active practitioner members who are passionate about a specific practice, and the goals of a CoP are to refine and improve their chosen domain of practice – and the members provide discretionary effort that is not paid for by the employer”
– Matthew Loxton (June 1, 2011) CoP vs CoE – What’s the difference, and Why Should You Care?, Wordpress.com
List based on reported impediments from VersionOne’s 13th Annual State of Agile Report (N=1,319)
Provide services designed to inject evolving good practices into workflows and remove impediments or roadblocks from your Agile team’s ability to deliver value.
Maintain alignment with corporate objectives without impeding business agility in the long term. The ACE functions as an interface layer so that changing expectations can be adapted without negatively impacting Agile teams.
Avoid the risk of innovation and subject-matter expertise being lost or siloed by facilitating knowledge transfer and fostering a continuous learning environment.
Set baselines, monitor metrics, and run retrospectives to help govern process improvements and ensure that Agile teams are delivering expected benefits.
Instill Agile thinking and behavior into the organization. The ACE must encourage innovation and be an effective agent for change.
Being Prescriptive
Doing Agile
Being Agile
“(‘Doing Agile’ is) just some rituals but without significant change to support the real Agile approach as end-to-end, business integration, value focus, and team empowerment.” - Arie van Bennekum
Simply establishing a Center of Excellence for any discipline does not guarantee its success:
The 2019 State of DevOps Report found that organizations which had established DevOps CoEs underperformed compared to organizations which adopted other approaches for driving DevOps transformation. (Accelerate State of DevOps Report 2019 [N=~1,000])
Still, Agile Centers of Excellence can and do successfully drive Agile adoption in organizations. So what sets the successful examples apart from the others? Here’s what some have to say:
“The ACE must be staffed with qualified people with delivery experience! … [It is] effectively a consulting practice, that can evolve and continuously improve its services … These services are collectively about ‘enablement’ as an output, more than pure training … and above all, the ability to empirically measure the progress” – Paul Blaney, TD Bank
“When leaders haven’t themselves understood and adopted Agile approaches, they may try to scale up Agile the way they have attacked other change initiatives: through top-down plans and directives. The track record is better when they behave like an Agile team. That means viewing various parts of the organization as their customers.” – HBR, “Agile at Scale”
“the Agile CoE… is truly meant to be measured by the success of all the other groups, not their own…[it] is meant to be serving the teams and helping them improve, not by telling them what to do, but rather by listening, understanding and helping them adapt.” - Bart Gerardi, PMI
“The CoE must also avoid becoming static, as it’s crucial the team can adjust as quickly as business and customer needs change, and evolve the technology as necessary to remain competitive.” – Forbes, “RPA CoE (what you need to know)”
"The best CoEs are formed from thought leaders and change agents within the CoE domain. They are the process and team innovators who will influence your CoE roadmap and success. Select individuals who feel passionate about Agile." – Hans Eckman, InfoTech
Simply establishing an Agile Center of Excellence does not guarantee its success. When setting up your ACE, optimize its impact on the organization by doing the following 3 things:
Create strategic alignment between the CoE and the organization’s goals, objectives, and vision. This alignment translates into the CoE mandate intended to enhance the way Agile will enable teams to meet business objectives.
Build an engagement plan based on a standardized adoption model to ensure your CoE service offerings are accessible and consistent across the organization. Create and consolidate key performance indicators to measure the CoEs utility and whether or not the expected value is being translated to tangible results.
Operate the CoE to provide service offerings to Agile teams, identify improvements to optimize the function of your Agile teams, and effectively manage and communicate change so that teams can grow within the Agile adoption model and optimize value delivery both within your Agile environment and across functions.
Use Info-Tech’s Practice Adoption Journey model to establish your ACE. Building social capital (stakeholders’ trust in your ability to deliver positive outcomes) incrementally is vital to ensure that everyone is aligned to new mindsets and culture as your Agile practices scale.
Begin to document your development workflow or value chain, implement a tracking system for KPIs, and start gathering metrics and reporting them transparently to the appropriate stakeholders.
Use collected metrics and retrospectives to stabilize team performance by reducing areas of variability in your workflow and increasing the consistency at which targets are met.
Use information to support changes and adopt appropriate practices to make incremental improvements to the existing environment.
Drive behavioral and cultural changes that will empower teams to be accountable for their own success and learning.
Use your built-up trust and support practice innovation, driving the definition and adoption of new practices.
Business justification to continue to fund a Center of Excellence can be a challenge, especially with traditional thinking and rigid stakeholders. Hit the ground running and show value to your key influencers through business alignment and metrics that will ensure that the ACE is worth continuous investment.
The pace of change in customer expectations, competitive landscapes, and business strategy is continuously increasing. It is critical to develop a method to facilitate ongoing alignment to shifting business and development expectations seamlessly and ensure that your Agile teams are able to deliver expected business value.

Monitor your metrics to ensure desired benefits are being realized. The ACE is responsible for ensuring that expected Agile benefits are achievable and on track. Monitor against your defined baselines to create transparency and accountability for desired outcomes.
Run retrospectives to drive improvements and fixes into Agile projects and processes. Metrics falling short of expectations must be diagnosed and their root causes found, and fixes need to be communicated and injected back into the larger organization.
Define metrics and set targets that align with the goals of the ACE. These metrics represent the ACEs expected value to the organization and must be measured against on a regular basis to demonstrate value to your key stakeholders.
Culture clash between Agile teams and larger organization
Agile leverages empowered teams, meritocracy, and broad collaboration for success, but typical organizations are siloed and hierarchical with top down decision making. There needs to be a plan to enable a smooth transition from the current state towards the Agile target state.
Persistence of tribal knowledge
Agile relies on easy and open knowledge sharing, but organizational knowledge can sit in siloes. Employees may also try to protect their expertise for job security. It is important to foster knowledge sharing to ensure that critical know-how is accessible and doesn’t leave the organization with the individual.
Rigid management structures
Rigidity in how managers operate (performance reviews, human resource management, etc.) can result in cultural rejection of Agile. People need to be assessed on how they enable their teams rather than as individual contributors. This can help ensure that they are given sufficient opportunities to succeed. More support and less strict governance is key.
Breakdown due to distributed teams
When face-to-face interactions are challenging, ensure that you invest in the right communication technologies and remove cultural and process impediments to facilitate organization-wide collaboration. Alternative approaches like using documentation or email will not provide the same experience and value as a face-to-face conversation.
Industry - Government
Source - Cathy Novak, Agile Government Leadership
“The Agile CoE in the State of Maine is completely focused on the discipline of the methodology. Every person who works with Agile, or wants to work with Agile, belongs to the CoE. Every member of the CoE tells the same story, approaches the methodology the same way, and uses the same tools. The CoE also functions as an Agile research lab, experimenting with different standards and tools.
The usual tools of project management – mission, goals, roles, and a high-level definition of done – can be found in Maine’s Agile CoE. For story mapping, teams use sticky notes on a large wall or whiteboard. Demonstrating progress this way provides for positive team dynamics and a psychological bang. The State of Maine uses a project management framework that serves as its single source of truth. Everyone knows what’s going on at all times and understands the purpose of what they are doing. The Agile team is continually looking for components that can be reused across other agencies and programs.”
“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.”
| 1. Strategically align the Center of Excellence | 2. Standardize the CoEs service offerings | 3. Operate the Center of Excellence | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best-Practice Toolkit | 1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE. 1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE. |
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams. 2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan. 2.3 Define metrics to measure success. |
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE. 3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives. 3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE. |
| Guided Implementations |
|
|
|
| Onsite Workshop | Module 1: Strategically align the ACE | Module 2: Standardize the offerings of the ACE | Module 3: Prepare for organizational change |
| Phase 1 Outcome: Create strategic alignment between the CoE and organizational goals. | Phase 2 Outcome: Build engagement plans and key performance indicators based on a standardized Agile adoption plan. |
Phase 3 Outcome: Operate the CoEs monitoring function, identify improvements, and manage the change needed to continuously improve. |
Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
| Workshop Module 1 | Workshop Module 2 | Workshop Module 3 | Workshop Module 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Activities | Determine vision of CoE 1.1 Identify and prioritize organizational business objectives. 1.2 Form use cases for the points of alignment between your ACE and business objectives. 1.3 Prioritize your ACE stakeholders. |
Define service offerings of CoE 2.1 Form a solution matrix to organize your pain points and opportunities. 2.2 Refine your use cases to identify your ACE functions and services. 2.3 Visualize your ACE functions and service offerings with a capability map. |
Define engagement plans 3.1 Further categorize your use cases within the Agile adoption model. 3.2 Create an engagement plan for each level of adoption. |
Define metrics and plan communications 4.1 Define metrics that align with your Agile business objectives. 4.2 Define target ACE performance metrics. 4.3 Define Agile adoption metrics. 4.4 Assess the interaction and communication points of your Agile team. 4.5 Create a communication plan for change. |
| Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
The first step to creating a high-functioning ACE is to create alignment and consensus amongst your key stakeholders regarding its purpose. Engage in a set of activities to drill down into the organization’s goals and objectives in order to create a set of high-level use cases that will evolve into the service offerings of the ACE.
Create strategic alignment between the CoE and the organization’s goals, objectives, and vision. This alignment translates into the CoE mandate intended to enhance the way Agile will enable teams to meet business objectives.
Build an engagement plan based on a standardized adoption model to ensure your CoE service offerings are accessible and consistent across the organization. Create and consolidate key performance indicators to measure the CoEs utility and whether or not the expected value is being translated to tangible results.
Operate the CoE to provide service offerings to Agile teams, identify improvements to optimize the function of your Agile teams, and effectively manage and communicate change so that teams can grow within the Agile adoption model and optimize value delivery both within your Agile environment and across functions.
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.
Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1
Start with an analyst kick off call:
Then complete these activities…
1.1.1 Optional: Baseline your ACE maturity.
1.1.2 Identify and prioritize organizational business objectives.
1.1.3 Form use cases for the points of alignment between your ACE and business objectives.
1.1.4 Prioritize your ACE stakeholders.
1.1.5 Select a centralized or decentralized model for your ACE.
1.1.6 Staff your ACE strategically.
Start with an analyst kick off call:
Then complete these activities…
1.2.1 Form the Center of Excellence.
1.2.2 Gather and document your existing Agile practices for the CoE.
1.2.3 Interview stakeholders to align ACE requirements with functional expectations.
1.2.4 Form a solution matrix to organize your pain points and opportunities.
1.2.5 Refine your use cases to identify your ACE functions and services.
1.2.6 Visualize your ACE functions and service offerings with a capability map.
Phase 1 Results & Insights:
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
1.1.1 Optional: Baseline your ACE maturity.
1.1.2 Identify and prioritize organizational business objectives.
1.1.3 Form use cases for the points of alignment between your ACE and business objectives.
1.1.4 Prioritize your ACE stakeholders.
1.1.5 Select a centralized or decentralized model for your ACE.
1.1.6 Staff your ACE strategically.
If you already have established an ACE, use Info-Tech’s CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool to baseline its current maturity level (this will act as a baseline for comparison after you complete this Blueprint). Assessing your ACEs maturity lets you know where you currently are, and where to look for improvements.
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

Download the CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool.
| Stakeholder | Role | Why they are essential players |
|---|---|---|
| CIO/ Head of IT | Program sponsor: Champion and set the tone for the Agile program. Critical in gaining and maintaining buy-in and momentum for the spread of Agile service offerings. | The head of IT has insight and influence to drive buy-in from executive stakeholders and ensure the long-term viability of the ACE. |
| Applications Director | Program executor: Responsible for the formation of the CoE and will ensure the viability of the initial CoE objectives, use cases, and service offerings. | Having a coordinator who is responsible for collating performance data, tracking results, and building data-driven action plans is essential to ensuring continuous success. |
| Agile Subject-Matter Experts | Program contributor: Provide information on the viability of Agile practices and help build capabilities on existing best practices. | Agile’s success relies on adoption. Leverage the insights of people who have implemented and evangelized Agile within your organization to build on top of a working foundation. |
| Functional Group Experts | Program contributor: Provide information on the functional group’s typical processes and how Agile can achieve expected benefits. | Agile’s primary function is to drive value to the business – it needs to align with the expected capabilities of existing functional groups in order to enhance them for the better. |
Business justification to continue to fund a Center of Excellence can be a challenge, especially with traditional thinking and rigid stakeholders. Hit the ground running and show value to your key influencers through business alignment and metrics that will ensure that the ACE is worth continuous investment.
The pace of change in customer expectations, competitive landscapes, and business strategy is continuously increasing. It is critical to develop a method to facilitate ongoing alignment to shifting business and development expectations seamlessly and ensure that your Agile teams are able to deliver expected business value.
1.1.2 2 Hours
While there is tremendous pressure to align IT functions and the business due to the accelerating pace of change and technology innovation, you need to be aware that there are limitations in achieving this goal. Keep these challenges at the top of mind as you bring together your stakeholders to position the service offerings of your ACE. It is beneficial to make your stakeholders self-aware of these biases as well, so they come to the table with an open mind and are willing to find common ground.
There are a plethora of moving pieces within an organization and total alignment is not a plausible outcome.
The aim of a group should not be to achieve total alignment, but rather reframe and consider ways to ensure that stakeholders are content with the ways they interact and that misalignment does not occur due to transparency or communication issues.
While it may seem like the business is one unified body, the reality is that the business can include individuals or groups (CEO, CFO, IT, etc.) with conflicting priorities. While there are shared business goals, these entities may all have competing visions of how to achieve them. Alignment means compromise and agreement more than it means accommodating all competing views.
There is a political component to alignment, and sometimes individual aspirations can impede collective gain.
While the business side may be concerned with cost, those on the IT side of things can be concerned with taking on career-defining projects to bolster their own credentials. This conflict can lead to serious breakdowns in alignment.
Industry Food Services
Source Scott Ambler and Associates, Case Study
Being in an industry with high competition, Panera Bread needed to improve its ability to quickly deliver desired features to end customers and adapt to changing business demands from high internal growth.
Panera Bread engaged in an Agile transformation through a mixture of Agile coaching and workshops, absorbing best practices from these engagements to drive Agile delivery frameworks across the enterprise.
Adopting Agile delivery practices resulted in increased frequency of solution delivery, improving the relationship between IT and the business. Business satisfaction increased both with the development process and the outcomes from delivery.
The transparency that was needed to achieve alignment to rapidly changing business needs resulted in improved communication and broad-scale reduced risk for the organization.
"Agile delivery changed perception entirely by building a level of transparency and accountability into not just our software development projects, but also in our everyday working relationships with our business stakeholders. The credibility gains this has provided our IT team has been immeasurable and immediate."
– Mike Nettles, VP IT Process and Architecture, Panera Bread

Input arrows represent functional group needs, feedback from Agile teams, and collaboration with other CoEs and CoPs
Output arrows represent the services the CoE delivers and the benefits realized across the organization.
Governance & Metrics involves enabling success through the management of the ACEs resources and services, and ensuring that organizational structures evolve in concert with Agile growth and maturity. Your focus should be on governing, measuring, implementing, and empowering improvements.
Effective governance will function to ensure the long-term effectiveness and viability of your ACE. Changes and improvements will happen continuously and you need a way to decide which to adopt as best practices.
"Organizations have lengthy policies and procedures (e.g. code deployment, systems design, how requirements are gathered in a traditional setting) that need to be addressed when starting to implement an Agile Center of Excellence. Legacy ideas that end up having legacy policy are the ones that are going to create bottlenecks, waste resources, and disrupt your progress." – Doug Birgfeld, Senior Partner, Agile Wave
Services refers to the ability to deliver resourcing, guidance, and assistance across all Agile teams. By creating a set of shared services, you enable broad access to specialized resources, knowledge, and insights that will effectively scale to more teams and departments as Agile matures in your organization.
A Services model:
Technology refers to a broad range of supporting tools to enable employees to complete their day-to-day tasks and effectively report on their outcomes. The key to technological support is to strike the right balance between flexibility and control based on your organization's internal and external constraints (policy, equipment, people, regulatory, etc.).
"We sometimes forget the obvious truth that technology provides no value of its own; it is the application of technology to business opportunities that produces return on investment." – Robert McDowell, Author, In Search of Business Value
Staff is all about empowerment. The ACE should support and facilitate the sharing of ideas and knowledge sharing. Create processes and spaces where people are encouraged to come together, learn from, and share with each other. This setting will bring up new ideas to enhance productivity and efficiency in day-to-day activities while maintaining alignment with business objectives.
"An Agile CoE is legitimized by its ability to create a space where people can come together, share, and learn from one another. By empowering teams to grow by themselves and then re-connect with each other you allow the creativity of your employees to flow back into the CoE." – Anonymous, Founder, Agile consultancy group
A use case tells a story about how a system will be used to achieve a goal from the perspective of a user of that system. The people or other systems that interact with the use case are called “actors.” Use cases describe what a system must be able to do, not how it will do it.
Use cases are used to guide design by allowing you to highlight the intended function of a service provided by the Center of Excellence while maintaining a business focus. Jumping too quickly to a solution without fully understanding user and business needs leads to the loss of stakeholder buy-in and the Centers of Excellence rejection by teams.
Hypothesized ACE user needs →Use Case←Business objective
1.1.3 2 Hours
| AGILE CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FUNCTIONS: | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guiding | Learning | Tooling | Supporting | Governing | Monitoring | ||
| BUSINESS OBJECTIVES | Reduce time-to-market of product releases | ||||||
| Reduce product delivery costs | |||||||
| Effectively integrate teams from a merger | |||||||
1.1.3 2 Hours

Your goal should be to keep these as high level and generally applicable as possible as they provide an initial framework to further develop your service offerings. Begin to talk about the ways in which the ACE can support the realization of your business objectives and what those interactions may look like to customers of the ACE.
Avoid the rifts in stakeholder representation by ensuring you involve the relevant parties. Without representation and buy-in from all interested parties, your ACE may omit and fail to meet long-term organizational goals.
By ensuring every group receives representation, your service offerings will speak for the broad organization and in turn meet the needs of the organization as a whole.
Organization
1.1.4 1 Hour
1.1.4 1 Hour

An ACE can be organized differently depending on your organization’s specific needs and culture.
The SAFe Model:©
“For smaller enterprises, a single centralized [ACE] can balance speed with economies of scale. However, in larger enterprises—typically those with more than 500 – 1,000 practitioners—it’s useful to consider employing either a decentralized model or a hub-and-spoke model.”

© Scaled Agile, Inc.
The Spotify Model:
Spotify avoids using an ACE and instead spreads agile practices using Squads, Tribes, Chapters, Guilds, etc.
It can be a challenging model to adopt because it is constantly changing, and must be fundamentally supported by your organization’s culture. (Linders, Ben. “Don't Copy the Spotify Model.” InfoQ.com. 6 Oct. 2016.)
Detailed analysis of The Spotify Model is out of scope for this Blueprint.

1.1.5 30 minutes
| Centralized ACE | Decentralized ACE | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons | ||
| Centralize Vs De-centralize Considerations | Prioritized Business Objectives |
|
|
||
| ACE Use Cases |
|
|
|||
| Organization Size |
|
|
|||
| Organization Structure |
|
|
|||
| Organization Culture |
|
|
|||
SELECTED MODEL: Centralized ACE
1.1.6 1 Hour
| Candidate: Jane Doe | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rating Criteria | Criteria Weighting | Candidate's Score (1-5) |
| Candidate has strong theoretical knowledge of Agile. | 8% | 4 |
| Candidate has strong hands on experience with Agile. | 18% | 5 |
| Candidate has strong hands on experience with Agile. | 10% | 4 |
| Candidate is highly respected by the Agile teams. | 18% | 5 |
| Candidate is seen as a thought leader in the organization. | 18% | 5 |
| Candidate is seen as a change agent in the organization. | 18% | 5 |
| Candidate has strong desire to be member of ACE staff. | 10% | 3 |
| Total Weighted Score | 4.6 | |
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
1.2.1 Form the Center of Excellence.
1.2.2 Gather and document your existing Agile practices for the CoE.
1.2.3 Interview stakeholders to align ACE requirements with functional expectations.
1.2.4 Form a solution matrix to organize your pain points and opportunities.
1.2.5 Refine your use cases to identify your ACE functions and services.
1.2.6 Visualize your ACE functions and service offerings with a capability map.
By operating within a group of your key players, you can legitimize your Center of Excellence by propagating the needs and interests of those who interface and evangelize the CoE within the larger organization.
The group of key stakeholders will extend the business alignment you achieved earlier by refining your service offerings to meet the needs of the ACEs customers. Multiple representations at the table will generate a wide arrangement of valuable insights and perspectives.
While holistic representation is necessary, ensure that the list is not too comprehensive and will not lead to progress roadblocks. The goal is to ensure that all factors relevant to the organization are represented; too many conflicting opinions may create an obstruction moving forward.
ACE
Choose the ACE funding model which is most aligned to your current system based on the scenarios provided below. Both models will offer the necessary support to ensure the success of your Agile program going forward.
| Funding Model | Funding Scenario I | Funding Scenario II |
|---|---|---|
| Funded by the CIO | Funded by the CIO office and a stated item within the general IT budget. | Charged back to supported functional groups with all costs allocated to each functional group’s budget. |
| Funded by the PMO | Charged back to supported functional groups with all costs allocated to each functional group’s budget. | Charged back to supported functional groups with all costs allocated to each functional group’s budget. |
Your funding model may add additional key influencers into the mix. After you choose your funding model, ensure that you review your stakeholder map and add anyone who will have a direct impact in the viability and stability of your ACE.
An Agile Center of Excellence is unique in the way you must govern the actions of its customers. Enable “flexible governance” to ensure that Agile teams have the ability to locally optimize and innovate while still operating within expected boundaries.
ACE Governing Body
↑ Agile Team → ACE ← Agile Team ↑
The governing body can be the existing executive or standing committees, or a newly formed committee involving your key ACE influencers and stakeholders.
Flexible governance means that your ACE set boundaries based on your cultural, regulatory, and compliance requirements, and your governance group monitors your Agile teams’ adherence to these boundaries.
There is no right answer to how your Center of Excellence should be resourced. Consider your existing organizational structure and culture, the quality of relationships between functional groups, and the typical budgetary factors that would weigh on choosing between a virtual and dedicated CoE structure.
| COE | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| Virtual |
|
|
| Dedicated |
|
|


1.2.1 1 Hour
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
The synergy between Agile and CoE relies on its ability to build on existing best practices. Agile cannot grow without a solid foundation. ACE gives you the way to disseminate these practices and facilitate knowledge transfer from a centralized sharing environment. As part of defining your service offerings, engage with stakeholders across the organization to evaluate what is already documented so that it can be accommodated in the ACE.
Info-Tech Insight
When considering existing practices, it is important to evaluate the level of adherence to these practices. If they have been efficiently utilized, injecting them into ACE becomes an obvious decision. If they have been underutilized, however, it is important to understand why this occurred and discuss how you can drive higher adherence.
The success of your Center of Excellence relies on the ability to build sound best practices within your organization’s context. Use your previous lessons learned and growing pains as shared knowledge of past Agile implementations within the ACE.
Draw on the experiences of your initial pilot where you learned how to adapt the Agile manifesto and practices to your specific context. These lessons will help onboard new teams to Agile since they will likely experience some of the same challenges.
Documents for review include:
Draw on previous scaling Agile experiences to help understand how to interface, facilitate, and orchestrate cross-functional teams and stakeholders for large and complex projects. These lessons will help your ACE teams develop collaboration and problem-solving techniques involving roles with different priorities and lines of thinking.
Documents for review include:
1.2.2 Variable time commitment based on current documentation state
| Name | Type | Adherence Level | CoE Best Fit | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tailored Scrum process | Process | High | Shared Services | Internal Wiki |
| 2 | |||||
| 3 |
1.2.3 30-60 Minutes per interview
Interview Stakeholders (from both Agile teams and functional areas) on their needs from the ACE. Ensure you capture both pain points and opportunities. Capture these as either Common Agile needs or Functional needs. Document using the tables below:
| Common Agile Needs | |
|---|---|
| Common Agile Needs |
|
| Functional Needs | Ent Arch Needs |
|---|---|
|
PMO Needs
Operations Needs
1.2.4 Half day
| Governance | Shared Services | Technology | People | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pain Points | ||||
| Opportunities |
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
1.2.5 1 Hour
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
1.2.6 1 Hour
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
Policy Management (Medium Potential)
Change Management (High Potential)
Risk Management (High Potential)
Stakeholder Management (High Potential)
Metrics/Feedback Monitoring (High Potential)
Engagement Planning (High Potential)
Knowledge Management (High Potential)
Subject-Matter Expertise (High Potential)
Agile Team Evaluation (High Potential)
Operations Support (High Potential)
Onboarding (Medium Potential)
Coaching (High Potential)
Learning Facilitation (High Potential)
Internal Certification Program (Low Potential)
Communications Training (Medium Potential)
Vendor Management (Medium Potential)
Application Support (Low Potential)
Tooling Standards (High Potential)
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
Our analyst team will help you organize and prioritize your business objectives for the year in order to ensure that the service offerings the ACE offers are delivering consistent business value.
Our analyst team will help you turn your prioritized business objectives into a set of high-level use cases that will provide the foundation for defining user-aligned services.
Our analysts will walk you through an exercise of mapping and prioritizing your Centers of Excellence stakeholders based on impact and power within so you can ensure appropriate presentation of interests within the organization.
Our analyst team will help you solidify the direction of your Center of Excellence by overlaying your identified needs, pain points, and potential opportunities in a matrix guided by Info-Tech’s CoE operating model.
Our analyst team will help you further refine your business-aligned use cases with the functional expectations from your Agile teams and stakeholders, ensuring the ACEs long-term utility.
Our analysts will walk you through creating your Agile Centers of Excellence capability map and help you to prioritize which service offerings are critical to the success of your Agile teams in meeting their objectives.
Now that you have aligned the CoE to the business and functional expectations, you need to ensure its service offerings are consistently accessible. To effectively ensure accessibility and delegation of shared services in an efficient way, the CoE needs to have a consistent framework to deliver its services.
Create strategic alignment between the CoE and the organization’s goals, objectives, and vision. This alignment translates into the CoE mandate intended to enhance the way Agile will enable teams to meet business objectives.
Build an engagement plan based on a standardized adoption model to ensure your CoE service offerings are accessible and consistent across the organization. Create and consolidate key performance indicators to measure the CoEs utility and whether or not the expected value is being translated to tangible results.
Operate the CoE to provide service offerings to Agile teams, identify improvements to optimize the function of your Agile teams, and effectively manage and communicate change so that teams can grow within the Agile adoption model and optimize value delivery both within your Agile environment and across functions.
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.
Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 2
Start with an analyst kick off call:
Then complete these activities…
2.1.1 Further categorize your use cases within the Agile adoption model.
Start with an analyst kick off call:
Then complete these activities…
2.2.1 Create an engagement plan for each level of adoption.
Finalize phase deliverable:
Then complete these activities…
2.3.1 Collect existing team-level metrics.
2.3.2 Define metrics that align with your Agile business objectives.
2.3.3 Define target ACE performance metrics.
2.3.4 Define Agile adoption metrics.
2.3.5 Consolidate metrics for stakeholder impact.
2.3.6 Use Info-Tech’s ACE Benefits Tracking Tool to monitor, evaluate, refine, and ensure continued business value.
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
2.1.1 Further categorize your use cases within the Agile adoption model.
Culture clash between ACE and larger organization
It is important to carefully consider the compatibility between the current organizational culture and Agile moving forward. Agile compels empowered teams, meritocracy, and broad collaboration for success; while typical organizational structures are siloed and hierarchical and decisions are delegated from the top down.
This is not to say that the culture of the ACE has to match the larger organizational culture; part of the overarching aim of the ACE is to evolve the current organizational culture for the better. The point is to ensure you enable a smooth transition with sufficient management support and a team of Agile champions.
The changing role of middle management
Very similar to the culture clash challenge, cultural rigidity in how middle managers operate (performance review, human resource management, etc.) can cause cultural rejection. They need to become enablers for high performance and give their teams the sufficient tools, skills, and opportunities to succeed and excel.
Based on a global survey of Agile practitioners (N=1,319)*:
52% Organizational culture at odds with agile values
44% Inadequate management support and sponsorship
48% General organization resistance to change
*Respondents were able to make multiple selections
(13th Annual State of Agile Report, VersionOne, 2019)
The reality of cultural incompatibility between Agile and traditional organization structures necessitates a structured adoption plan. Systematically build competency so teams can consistently achieve project success and solidify trust in your teams’ ability to meet business needs with Agile.
By incrementally gaining the trust of management as you build up your Agile capabilities, you enable a smooth cultural transition to an environment where teams are empowered, adapt quickly to changing needs, and are trusted to innovate and make successes out of their failures.
Optimized value delivery occurs when there is a direct relationship between competency and trust. There will be unrealized value when competency or trust outweigh the other. That value loss increases as either dimension of adoption continues to grow faster than the other.

Agile adoption at its core, is about building social capital. Your level of trust with key influencers increases as you continuously enhance your capabilities, enabling the necessary cultural changes away from traditional organizational structures.
Begin to document your development workflow or value chain, implement a tracking system for KPIs, and start gathering metrics and reporting them transparently to the appropriate stakeholders.
Use collected metrics and retrospectives to stabilize team performance by reducing areas of variability in your workflow and increasing the consistency at which targets are met.
Use information to support changes and adopt appropriate practices to make incremental improvements to the existing environment.
Drive behavioral and cultural changes that will empower teams to be accountable for their own success and learning.
Use your built-up trust and support practice innovation, driving the definition and adoption of new practices.
Team Organization
Considers the degree to which teams are able to self-organize based on internal organizational structures (hierarchy vs. meritocracy) and inter-team capabilities.
Team Coordination
Considers the degree to which teams can coordinate, both within and across functions.
Business Alignment
Considers the degree to which teams can understand and/or map to business objectives.
Coaching
Considers what kind of coaching/training is offered and how accessible the training is.
Empowerment
Considers the degree to which teams are able and capable to address project, process, and technical challenges without significant burden from process controls and bureaucracy.
Failure Tolerance
Considers the degree to which stakeholders are risk tolerant and if teams are capable of turning failures into learning outcomes.
These key attributes function as qualities or characteristics that, when improved, will successively increase the degree to which the business trusts your Agile teams’ ability to meet their objectives.
Systematically improving these attributes as you graduate levels of the adoption model allows the business to acclimatize to the increased capability the Agile team is offering, and the risk of culture clash with the larger organization decreases.
Start to consider at what level of adoption each of your service offerings become useful. This will allow you to standardize the way your Agile teams interact with the CoE.
2.1.1 1.5 Hours
The same service offering could be offered at different levels of adoption. In these cases, you will need to re-visit the use case and differentiate how the service (if at all) will be delivered at different levels of adoption.
2.1.1 1.5 Hours
| Service Offerings | |
|---|---|
| Level 5: Innovate | |
| Level 4: Empower | |
| Level 3: Collaborate | Coaching -- Communications Training |
| Level 2: Iterate | Tooling Standards |
| Level 1: Conceptualize |
Learning Facilitation
Draw on the service offerings identified in activity 1.2.4
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
2.2.1 Create an engagement plan for each level of adoption.
A Center of Excellence aligned with your service offerings is only valuable if your CoEs customers can effectively access those services. At this stage, you have invested in ensuring that your CoE aligns to your business objectives and that your service offerings align to its customers. Now you need to ensure that these services are accessible in the day-to-day operation of your Agile teams.
Use backwards induction from your delivery method to the service offering. This is an effective method to determine the optimal engagement action for the CoE, as it considers the end customer as the driver for best action for every possible situation.
Info-Tech Insight
Your engagement process should be largely informed by your ACE users. Teams have constraints as well as in-the-trenches concerns and issues. If your service offerings don’t account for these, it can lead to rejection of the culture you are trying to inspire.
A primary function of your ACE is to transfer knowledge to Agile teams to increase their capability to achieve desired outcomes.
While this can take the form of coaching, training sessions, libraries, and wikis, a critical component of ACE is creating interactions where individuals from Agile teams can come together and share their knowledge.
Ideas come from different experiences. By creating communities of practice (CoP) around topics that the ACE is tasked with supporting (e.g. Agile business analysts), you foster social learning and decrease the likelihood that change will result in some sort of cultural rejection.
Consider whether creating CoPs would be beneficial in your organization’s context.
"Communities of practice are a practical way to frame the task of managing knowledge. They provide a concrete organizational infrastructure for realizing the dream of a learning organization." – Etienne Wenger, Digital Habitats: Stewarding technology for communities
Top-down support is critical to validate the CoE to its customers and ensure they feel compelled to engage with its services. Relevancy is a real concern for the long-term viability of a CoE and championing its use from a position of authority will legitimize its function and deter its fading from relevancy of day-to-day use for Agile teams.
Although you are aligning your engagement processes to the customers of your Agile Center of Excellence, you still need your key influencers to champion its lasting organizational relevancy. Don’t let your employees think the ACE is just a coordinating body or a committee that is convenient but non-essential – make sure they know that it drives their own personal growth and makes everyone better as a collective.
"Even if a CoE is positioned to meet a real organizational need, without some measure of top-down support, it faces an uphill battle to remain relevant and avoid becoming simply one more committee in the eyes of the wider organization. Support from the highest levels of the organization help fight the tendency of the larger organization to view the CoE as a committee with no teeth and tip the scales toward relevancy for the CoE." – Joe Shepley, VP and Practice Lead, Doculabs
Info-Tech Insight
Stimulate top-down support with internal certifications. This allows your employees to gain accreditation while at the same time encouraging top-down support and creating a compliance check for the continual delivery and acknowledgement of your evolving best practices.
For your employees to continuously improve, so must the Center of Excellence. Ensure the ACE has the appropriate mechanisms to absorb and disseminate best practices that emerge from knowledge transfer facilitation events.
While facilitating knowledge transfer is key, it is even more important that the Center of Excellence can take localized adaptations from Agile teams and standardize them as best practices when well received. If an individual were to leave without sharing their knowledge, the CoE and the larger organization will lose that knowledge and potential innovation opportunities.
To organically grow your ACE and be cost effective, you want your teams to continuously improve and to share that knowledge. As individual team members develop and climb the adoption model, they should participate as coaches and champions for less experienced groups so that their knowledge is reaching the widest audience possible.
Industry Digital Media
Source Henrik Kniberg & Anders Ivarsson, 2012
Spotify has continuously introduced innovative techniques to facilitate learning and ensure that that knowledge gets injected back into the organization. Some examples are the following:

"As an example of guild work, we recently had a ‘Web Guild Unconference,’ an open space event where all web developers at Spotify gathered up in Stockholm to discuss challenges and solutions within their field."
2.2.1 30 Minutes per role
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
2.2.1 30 Minutes per role
| Role: Developer | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | |
| Service Offering |
|
|
|
|
|
| Engagement Process |
|
|
|
|
|
2.2.1 30 Minutes per role
| Role: Tester | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | |
| Service Offering |
|
|
|
|
|
| Engagement Process |
|
|
|
|
|
2.2.1 30 Minutes per role
| Role: Product Owner | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | |
| Service Offering |
|
|
|
|
|
| Engagement Process |
|
|
|
|
|
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
2.3.1 Define existing team-level metrics.
2.3.2 Define metrics that align with your Agile business objectives.
2.3.3 Define target ACE performance metrics.
2.3.4 Define Agile adoption metrics.
2.3.5 Consolidate your metrics for stakeholder impact.
2.3.6 Use Info-Tech’s ACE Benefits Tracking Tool to monitor, evaluate, refine, and ensure continued business value.
Quantify measures that demonstrate the effectiveness of your ACE by establishing distinct metrics for each of your service offerings. This will ensure that you have full transparency over the outputs of your CoE and that your service offerings maintain relevance and are utilized.
Specific
Measureable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
Follow the SMART framework when developing metrics for each service offering.
Adhering to this methodology is a key component of the lean management methodology. This framework will help you avoid establishing general metrics that aren’t relevant.
"It’s not about telling people what they are doing wrong. It’s about constantly steering everyone on the team in the direction of success, and never letting any individual compromise the progress of the team toward success." – Mary Poppendieck, qtd. in “Questioning Servant Leadership”
For important advice on how to avoid the many risks associated with metrics, refer to Info-Tech’s Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively.
There will be a degree of overlap between the metrics from your business objectives, service offerings, and existing Agile teams. This is a positive thing. If a metric can speak to multiple benefits it is that much more powerful in commuting successes to your key stakeholders.
Existing metrics
Business objective metrics
Service offering metrics
Agile adoption metrics
Finding points of overlap means that you have multiple stakeholders with a vested interest in the positive trend of a specific metric. These consolidated metrics will be fundamental for your CoE as they will help build consensus through communicating the success of the ACE in a common language for a diverse audience.
2.3.1 1 Hour
| Team Objective | Expected Benefits | Metrics |
|---|---|---|
| Improve productivity |
|
|
| Increase team morale and motivation |
|
|
| Improve transparency with business decisions |
|
|
2.3.2 1 Hour
| Business Objectives | Expected Benefits | Metrics |
|---|---|---|
| Decrease time-to-market of product releases |
|
|
| Decrease time-to-market of product releases |
|
|
2.3.3 1 Hour
| Service Offering | Expected Benefits | Metrics |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge management |
|
|
| Tooling standards |
|
|
2.3.4 1 Hour
| Adoption attributes | Expected Benefits | Metrics |
|---|---|---|
| Team organization |
|
|
| Team coordination |
|
|
| Business alignment |
|
|
| Coaching |
|
|
| Empowerment |
|
|
| Failure tolerance |
|
|
2.3.5 30 Minutes
2.3.6 1 Hour
The CoE governance team can use this tool to take ownership of the project’s benefits, track progress, and act on any necessary changes to address gaps. In the long term, it can be used to identify whether the team is ahead, on track, or lagging in terms of benefits realization.
INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE
Download the ACE Benefits Tracking Tool.
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
↓
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
Our analyst team will help you categorize the Centers of Excellence service offerings within Info-Tech’s Agile adoption model to help standardize the way your organization engages with the Center of Excellence.
Our analyst team will help you structure engagement plans for each role within your Agile environment to provide a standardized pathway to personal development and consistency in practice.
Our analysts will walk you through defining a set of metrics that align with your Agile business objectives identified in Phase 1 of the blueprint so the CoEs monitoring function can ensure ongoing alignment during operation.
Our analysts will walk you through defining a set of metrics that monitors how successful the ACE has been at providing its services so that business and IT stakeholders can ensure the effectiveness of the ACE.
Our analyst team will help you through defining a set of metrics that aligns with your organization’s fit of the Agile adoption model in order to provide a mechanism to track the progress of Agile teams maturing in capability and organizational trust.
The final step is to engage in monitoring of your metrics program to identify areas for improvement. Using metrics as a driver for operating your ACE will allow you to identify and effectively manage needed change, as well as provide you with the data necessary to promote outcomes to your stakeholders to ensure the long-term viability of the ACE within your organization.
Create strategic alignment between the CoE and the organization’s goals, objectives, and vision. This alignment translates into the CoE mandate intended to enhance the way Agile will enable teams to meet business objectives.
Build an engagement plan based on a standardized adoption model to ensure your CoE service offerings are accessible and consistent across the organization. Create and consolidate key performance indicators to measure the CoEs utility and whether or not the expected value is being translated to tangible results.
Operate the CoE to provide service offerings to Agile teams, identify improvements to optimize the function of your Agile teams, and effectively manage and communicate change so that teams can grow within the Agile adoption model and optimize value delivery both within your Agile environment and across functions.
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.
Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): Variable depending on communication plan
Start with an analyst kick off call:
Then complete these activities…
3.1.1 Use Info-Tech’s ACE Satisfaction Survey to help establish your baseline.
3.1.2 Use Info-Tech’s CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool to measure the maturity level of your ACE.
3.1.3 Prioritize ACE actions by monitoring your metrics.
Start with an analyst kick off call:
Then complete these activities…
3.2.1 Assess the interaction and communication points of your Agile teams.
3.2.2 Determine the root cause of each metric falling short of expectations.
3.2.3 Brainstorm solutions to identified issues.
3.2.4 Review your metrics program.
3.2.5 Create a communication plan for change.
Finalize phase deliverable:
Then complete these activities…
3.3.1 Use the outputs from your metrics tracking tool to communicate progress.
3.3.2 Summarize adjustments in areas where the ACE fell short.
3.3.3 Review the effectiveness of your service offerings.
3.3.4 Evaluate your ACE Maturity.
3.3.5 Use Info-Tech’s ACE Communications Deck to deliver your outcomes to the key stakeholders.
Phase 3 Results & Insights:
Inject improvements into your Agile environment with operational excellence. Plan changes and communicate them effectively, monitor outcomes on a regular basis, and keep stakeholders in the loop to ensure that their interests are being looked after to ensure long-term viability of the CoE.
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
3.1.1 Use Info-Tech’s ACE Satisfaction Survey to help establish your baseline.
3.1.2 Use Info-Tech’s CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool to measure the maturity level of your ACE.
3.1.3 Prioritize ACE actions by monitoring your metrics.
Establish your collection process to ensure that the CoE has the necessary resources to collect metrics and monitor progress, that there is alignment on what data sources are to be used when collecting data, and that you know which stakeholder is interested in the outcomes of that metric.
Establishing the baseline performance of the ACE allows you to have a reasonable understanding of the impact it is having on meeting business objectives. Use user satisfaction surveys, stakeholder interviews, and any current metrics to establish a concept of how you are performing now. Setting new metrics can be a difficult task so it is important to collect as much current data as possible. After the metrics have been established and monitored for a period of time, you can revisit the targets you have set to ensure they are realistic and usable.
Without a baseline, you cannot effectively:
Info-Tech Insight
Invest the needed time to baseline your activities. These data points are critical to diagnose successes and failures of the CoE moving forward, and you will need them to be able to refine your service offerings as business conditions or user expectations change. While it may seem like something you can breeze past, the investment is critical.
What to do:
Benefits:
Challenges:
What to do:
Benefits:
Challenges:
What to do:
Benefits:
Challenges:
3.1.1 Baseline satisfaction survey
Conduct a user satisfaction survey prior to setting your baseline for your ACE. This will include high-level questions addressing your overall Agile environment and questions addressing teams’ current satisfaction with their processes and technology.
INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE
Download the ACE Satisfaction Survey.
3.1.2 CoE maturity assessment
Assessing your ACEs maturity lets you know where they currently are and what to track to get them to the next step. This will help ensure your ACE is following good practices and has the appropriate mechanisms in place to serve your stakeholders.
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE
Download the CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool.
3.1.3 Variable time commitment
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
3.2.1 Assess the interaction and communication points of your Agile teams.
3.2.2 Determine the root cause of each metric falling short of expectations.
3.2.3 Brainstorm solutions to identified issues
3.2.4 Review your metrics program.
3.2.5 Create a communication plan for change.
As Agile spreads, be cognizant of your cultural tolerance to change and its ability to deliver on such change. Change will happen more frequently and continuously, and there may be conceptual (change tolerance) or capability (delivery tolerance) roadblocks along the way that will need to be addressed.
The Agile adoption model will help to graduate both the tolerance to change and tolerance to deliver over time. As your level of competency to deliver change increases, organizational tolerance to change, especially amongst management, will increase as well. Remember that optimized value delivery comes from this careful balance of aptitude and trust.
Tolerance to change refers to the conceptual capacity of your people to consume and adopt change. Change tolerance may become a barrier to success because teams might be too engrained with current structures and processes and find any changes too disruptive and uncomfortable.
Tolerance to deliver refers to the capability to deliver on expected change. While teams may be tolerant, they may not have the necessary capacity, skills, or resources to deliver the necessary changes successfully. The ACE can help solve this problem with training and coaching, or possibly by obtaining outside help where necessary.
As the ACE absorbs best practices and identifies areas for improvement, a change management process should be established to address the implementation and sustainability of change without introducing significant disruptions and costs.
To manage a continuously changing environment, your ACE will need to align and coordinate with organizational change management processes. This process should be capable of evaluating and incorporating multiple change initiatives continuously.
Desired changes will need to be validated, and localized adaptations will need to be disseminated to the larger organization, and current state policy and procedures will need to be amended as the adoption of Agile spreads and capabilities increase.
The goal here is to have the ACE governance group identify and interface with parties relevant to successfully implementing any specific change.
Strategy and Leadership: Optimize Change Management
Optimize your stakeholder management process to identify, prioritize, and effectively manage key stakeholders.
Changes to the services, structure, or engagement model of your ACE can be triggered from various sources in your organization. You will see that proposed changes may be requested with the best intentions; however, the potential impacts they may have to other areas of the organization can be significant. Consult all sources of ACE change requests to obtain a consensus that your change requests will not deteriorate the ACEs performance and use.
Note: Each source of ACE change requests may require a different change management process to evaluate and implement the change.
3.2.1 1.5 Hours
| Agile Team n | ||
|---|---|---|
| Group | Type of Interaction | Potential challenges |
| Operations |
|
|
| PMO |
|
|
3.2.2 30 Minutes per metric
3.2.3 30 Minutes per metric
| SOLUTION CATEGORY | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| People | Process | Technology | ||
| ISSUES | Poor face-to-face communication | |||
| Lack of best-practice documentation | ||||
Strategically managing change is an essential component to ensure that the ACE achieves its desired function. If the change that comes with adopting Agile best practices is going to impact other functions and change their expected workflows, ensure they are well prepared and the benefits for said changes are clearly communicated to them.
Necessary change may be identified proactively (dependency assessments, system integrity, SME indicates need, etc.) or reactively (through retrospectives, discussions, completing root-cause analyses, etc.), but both types need to be handled the same way – through proper planning and communication with the affected parties.
Understand the points where other groups will be affected by the adoption of Agile practices and recognize the potential challenges they may face. Plan changes to accommodate interactions between these groups without roadblocks or impediments.
Structure a communication plan based on your identified challenges and proposed changes so that groups are well prepared to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate Agile workflows.
Consider the possible limitations that will exist from environmental complexities when measuring your Agile teams. Dependencies and legacy policies and procedures that pose a bottleneck to desired outcomes will need to be changed before teams can be measured justifiably. Take the time to ensure the metrics you crafted earlier are plausible in your current environment and there is not a need for transitional metrics.
Specific
Measureable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
Info-Tech Insight
Use metrics as diagnostics, not as motivation. Teams will find ways to meet metrics they are measured by making sacrifices and taking unneeded risk to do so. To avoid dysfunction in your monitoring, use metrics as analytical tools to inform decision making, not as a yardstick for judgement.
3.2.4 Variable time commitment
Industry Government
Source Navin Vembar, Agile Government Leadership
The GSA is tasked with completed management of the Integrated Award Environment (IAE).
The IAE staff had to find a way to break down the problem of modernization into manageable chunks that would demonstrate progress, but also had to be sure to capture a wide variety of user needs with the ability to respond to those needs throughout development.
Had to work out the logistics of executing Agile change within the GSA, an agency that relies heavily on telework. In the case of modernization, they had a product owner in Florida while the development team was spread across the metro Washington, DC area.
Agile provided the ability to build incremental successes that allowed teams successful releases and built enthusiasm around the potential of adopting Agile practices offered.
Communication is key to avoid surprises and lost productivity created by the implementation of changes.
User groups and the business need to be given sufficient notice of an impending change. Be concise, be comprehensive, and ensure that the message is reaching the right audience so that no one is blindsided and unable to deliver what is needed. This will allow them to make appropriate plans to accept the change, minimizing the impact of the change on productivity.
Communicating change
(Cornelius & Associates, The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change)
3.2.5 1.5 Hours
Note: It is important to establish a feedback mechanism to ensure that the communication has been effective in communicating the change to the intended audiences. This can be incorporated into your ACE satisfaction surveys.
| Audience | Messenger | Format | Timing | Message |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operations | Development team |
|
Build ready for release | |
| Key stakeholders | CIO | Meeting |
|
Updates on outcomes from past two sprint cycles |
1.1 Determine the vision of your ACE
1.2 Define the service offerings of your ACE
2.1 Define an adoption plan for your Agile teams
2.2 Create an ACE engagement plan
2.3 Define metrics to measure success
3.1 Optimize the success of your ACE
3.2 Plan change to enhance your Agile initiatives
3.3 Conduct ongoing retrospectives of your ACE
3.3.1 Use the outputs from your metrics tracking tool to communicate progress.
3.3.2 Summarize adjustments in areas where the ACE fell short.
3.3.3 Re-conduct satisfaction surveys and compare against your baseline.
3.3.4 Use Info-Tech’s CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool to baseline current practices
3.3.5 Use Info-Tech’s ACE Communications Deck to deliver your outcomes to the key stakeholders.
After functioning for a period of time, it is imperative to review the function of your ACE to ensure its continual alignment and see in what ways it can improve.
At the end of the year, take the time to deliberately review and discuss:
The overlying purpose of your ACE is to effectively align your Agile teams with corporate objectives. This means that there have to be communicable benefits that point to the effort and resources invested being valuable to the organization. Re-visit your prioritized stakeholder list and get ready to show them the impact the ACE has had on business outcomes.
Communication with stakeholders is the primary method of building and developing a lasting relationship. Correct messaging can build bridges and tear down barriers, as well as soften opposition and bolster support.
This section will help you to prepare an effective communication piece that summarizes the metrics stakeholders are interested in, as well as some success stories or benefits that are not communicable through metrics to provide extra context to ongoing successes of the ACE.
Strategy and Leadership: Manage Stakeholder Relations
Optimize your stakeholder management process to identify, prioritize, and effectively manage key stakeholders.
Those who fund the ACE have a large influence on the long-term success of your ACE. If you have not yet involved your stakeholders, you need to re-visit your organizational funding model for the ACE and ensure that your key stakeholders include the key decision makers for your funding. While they may have varying levels of interest and desires for granularity of data reporting, they need to at least be informed on a high level and kept as champions of the ACE so that there are no roadblocks to the long-term viability of this program.
Keep this in mind as the ACE begins to demonstrate success, as it is not uncommon to have additional members added to your funding model as your service scales, especially in the chargeback models.
As new key influencers are included, the ACEs governing group must ensure that collective interests may align and that more priorities don’t lead to derailment.

3.3.1 1 Hour
Use the ACE Benefits Tracking Tool to track the progress of your Agile environment to monitor whether or not the ACE is having a positive impact on the business’ ability to meet its objectives. The outputs will allow you to communicate incremental benefits that have been realized and point towards positive trends that will ensure the long-term buy-in of your key influencers.
For communication purposes, use this tool to:
![]()

Part of communicating the effectiveness of your ACE is to demonstrate that it is able to remedy projects and processes when they fall short of expectations and brainstorm solutions that effectively address these challenges. Take the opportunity to summarize where results were not as expected, and the ways in which the ACE used its influence or services to drive a positive outcome from a problem diagnosis. Stakeholders do not want a sugar-coated story – they want to see tangible results based on real scenarios.
Summarizing failures will demonstrate to key influencers that:
3.3.2 15 Minutes per metric
| Name of metric that fell short | |
|---|---|
| Baseline measurement | 65% of users satisfied with ACE services. |
| Goal measurement | 80% of users satisfied with ACE services. |
| Actual measurement | 70% of users satisfied with ACE services. |
| Results of root-cause analysis | Onboarding was not extensive enough; teams were unaware of some of the services offered, rendering them unsatisfied. |
| Proposed solution | Revamp onboarding process to include capability map of service offered. |
| Summary of success | TBD |
3.3.3 Re-conduct satisfaction surveys and compare against your baseline
This satisfaction survey will give you a template to follow to monitor the effectiveness of your ACEs defined service offerings. The goal is to understand what worked, and what did not, so you can add, retract, or modify service offerings where necessary.
INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE
Download the ACE Satisfaction Survey.
3.3.4 ACE Maturity Assessment
Assess your ACEs maturity by using Info-Tech’s CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool. Assessing your ACEs maturity lets you know where you currently are, and where to look for improvements. Note that your optimal Maturity Level will depend on organizational specifics (e.g. a small organization with a handful of Agile Teams can be less mature than a large organization with hundreds of Agile Teams).
Document results in the ACE Communications Deck.
INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE
Download the CoE Maturity Diagnostic Tool.
3.3.5 Structure communications to each of your key stakeholders
The ACE Communications Deck will give you a template to follow to effectively communicate with your stakeholders and ensure the long-term viability of your Agile Center of Excellence. Fill in the slides as instructed and provide each stakeholder with a targeted view of the successes of the ACE.
INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE
Download the ACE Communications Deck.
Paul has been an Agile practitioner since the manifesto emerged some 20 years ago, applying and refining his views through real life experience at several organizations from startups to large enterprises. He has recently completed the successful build out of the inaugural Agile Delivery Centre of Excellence at TD bank in Toronto.
John Munro is the President of Scrum Masters Inc., a software optimization professional services firm using Agile, Scrum, and Lean to help North American firms “up skill” their software delivery people and processes. Scrum Masters’ unique, highly collaborative “Master Mind” consulting model leverages Agile/Lean experts on a biweekly basis to solve clients’ technical and process challenges.
Doug has been a leader in building great teams, Agile project management, and business process innovation for over 20 years. As Senior Partner and Chief Evangelist at Agile Wave, his mission is to educate and to learn from all those who care about effective government delivery, nationally.
Implement Agile Practices That Work
Agile is a cultural shift. Don't just do Agile, be Agile.
Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile
Execute a disciplined approach to rolling out Agile methods in the organization.
Improve Application Development Throughput
Drive down your delivery time by eliminating development inefficiencies and bottlenecks while maintaining high quality.
Implement DevOps Practices That Work
Accelerate software deployment through Dev and Ops collaboration.
Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence
Optimize your organization’s enterprise application capabilities with a refined and scalable methodology.
Drive Efficiency and Agility with a Fit-for-Purpose Quality Management Program
Be proactive; it costs exponentially more to fix a problem the longer it goes unnoticed.
Optimize the Change Management Process
Right-size your change management process.
Improve Requirements Gathering
Back to basics: great products are built on great requirements.
Ambler, Scott. “Agile Requirements Change Management.” Agile Modeling. Scott Amber + Associates, 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Ambler, Scott. “Center of Excellence (CoEs).” Disciplined Agile 2.0: A Process Decision Framework for Enterprise I.T. Scott Amber + Associates. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.
Ambler, Scott. “Transforming From Traditional to Disciplined Agile Delivery.” Case Study: Disciplined Agile Delivery Adoption. Scott Amber + Associates, 2013. Web.
Beers, Rick. “IT – Business Alignment Why We Stumble and the Path Forward.” Oracle Corporation, July 2013. Web.
Cornelius & Associates. “The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, n.d. Web.
Craig, William et al. “Generalized Criteria and Evaluation Method for Center of Excellence: A Preliminary Report.” Carnegie Mellon University Research Showcase @ CMU – Software Engineering Institute. Dec. 2009. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Forsgren, Dr. Nicole et al (2019), Accelerate: State of DevOps 2019, Google, https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/state-of-devops-2019.pdf
Gerardi, Bart (2017), Agile Centers of Excellence, PMI Projectmanagement.com, https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/405819/Agile-Centers-of-Excellence
Gerardi, Bart (2017), Champions of Agile Adoption, PMI Projectmanagement.com, https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/418151/Champions-of-Agile-Adoption
Gerardi, Bart (2017), The Roles of an Agile COE, PMI Projectmanagement.com, https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/413346/The-Roles-of-an-Agile-COE
Hohl, P. et al. “Back to the future: origins and directions of the ‘Agile Manifesto’ – views of the originators.” Journal of Software Engineering Research and Development, vol. 6, no. 15, 2018. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40411-0...
Kaltenecker, Sigi and Hundermark, Peter. “What Are Self-Organising Teams?” InfoQ. 18 July 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.
Kniberg, Henrik and Anderson Ivarsson. “Scaling Agile @ Spotify with Tribes, Squads, Chapters & Guilds.” Oct. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2016.
Kumar, Alok et al. “Enterprise Agile Adoption: Challenges and Considerations.” Scrum Alliance. 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 30 May 2016.
Levison, Mark. “Questioning Servant Leadership.” InfoQ, 4 Sept. 2008. Web. https://www.infoq.com/news/2008/09/servant_leadership/
Linders, Ben. “Don't Copy the Spotify Model.” InfoQ.com. 6 Oct. 2016.
Loxton, Matthew (June 1, 2011), CoP vs CoE – What’s the difference, and Why Should You Care?, Wordpress.com
McDowell, Robert, and Bill Simon. In Search of Business Value: Ensuring a Return on Your Technology Investment. SelectBooks, 2010
Novak, Cathy. “Case Study: Agile Government and the State of Maine.” Agile Government Leadership, n.d. Web.
Pal, Nirmal and Daniel Pantaleo. “Services are the Language and Building Blocks of an Agile Enterprise.” The Agile Enterprise: Reinventing your Organization for Success in an On-Demand World. 6 Dec. 2015. Springer Science & Business Media.
Rigby, Darrell K. et al (2018), Agile at Scale, Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2018/05/agile-at-scale
Scaledagileframework.com, Create a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence, Scaled Agile, Inc, https://www.scaledagileframework.com/lace/
Shepley, Joe. “8 reasons COEs fail (Part 2).” Agile Ramblings, 22 Feb. 2010. https://joeshepley.com/2010/02/22/8-reasons-coes-fail-part-2/
Stafford, Jan. “How upper management misconceptions foster Agile failures.” TechTarget. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.
Taulli, Tom (2020), RPA Center Of Excellence (CoE): What You Need To Know For Success, Forbes.com, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2020/01/25/rpa-center-of-excellence-coe-what-you-need-to-know-for-success/#24364620287a
Telang, Mukta. “The CMMI Agile Adoption Model.” ScrumAlliance. 29 May 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.
VersionOne. “13th Annual State of Agile Report.” VersionOne. 2019. Web.
Vembar, Navin. “Case Study: Agile Government and the General Services Administration (Integrated Award Environment).” Agile Government Leadership, n.d. Web.
Wenger, E., R. A. McDermott, et al. (2002), Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge, Harvard Business Press.
Wenger, E., White, N., Smith, J.D. Digital Habitats; Stewarding Technology for Communities. Cpsquare (2009).
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Start by documenting your recovery workflow. Create supporting documentation in the form of checklists, flowcharts, topology diagrams, and contact lists. Finally, summarize your DR capabilities in a DRP Summary Document for stakeholders and auditors.
Select criteria for assessing DRP tools, and evaluate whether a business continuity management tool, document management solution, wiki site, or manually distributing documentation is best for your DR team.
Learn how to integrate DRP maintenance into core IT processes, and learn what to look for during testing and during annual reviews of your DRP.
Model your DRP after the XMPL case study disaster recovery plan documentation.
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.
Teach your team how to create visual-based documentation.
Learn how to create visual-based DR documentation.
1.1 Conduct a table-top planning exercise.
1.2 Document your high-level incident response plan.
1.3 Identify documentation to include in your playbook.
1.4 Create an initial collection of supplementary documentation.
1.5 Discuss what further documentation is necessary for recovering from a disaster.
1.6 Summarize your DR capabilities for stakeholders.
Documented high-level incident response plan
List of documentation action items
Collection of 1-3 draft checklists, flowcharts, topology diagrams, and contact lists
Action items for ensuring that the DRP is executable for both primary and backup DR personnel
DRP Summary Document
Learn the considerations for publishing your DRP.
Identify the best strategy for publishing your DRP.
2.1 Select criteria for assessing DRP tools.
2.2 Evaluate categories for DRP tools.
Strategy for publishing DRP
Address the common pain point of unmaintained DRPs.
Create an approach for maintaining your DRP.
3.1 Alter your project intake considerations.
3.2 Integrate DR considerations into change management.
3.3 Integrate documentation into performance measurement and performance management.
3.4 Learn best practices for maintaining your DRP.
Project Intake Form Addendum Template
Change Management DRP Checklist Template
“This blueprint outlines the following key tactics to streamline your documentation effort and produce a better result:
Missing a component? Start here. ➔ Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan
This blueprint walks you through building these inputs.
Our approach saves clients on average US$16,825.22. (Clients self-reported an average saving of US$16,869.21 while completing the Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan blueprint through advisory calls, guided implementations, or workshops (Info-Tech Research Group, 2017, N=129).)
The impact of downtime increases significantly over time, not just in terms of lost revenue (as illustrated here) but also goodwill/reputation and health/safety. An effective DR solution and overall resiliency that mitigate a wide range of potential outages are critical to minimizing the impact of downtime.
Without an effective DRP, your organization is gambling on being able to define and implement a recovery strategy during a time of crisis. At the very least, this means extended downtime – potentially weeks – and substantial impact.
Why are so many living with either an incomplete or ineffective DRP? For the same reasons that IT documentation in general continues to be a pain point:
![]() (Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=165) |
![]() (Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=69 (includes only those who indicated DRP is mostly completed or completed)) |
If you need a three-inch binder to hold your DRP, imagine having to flip through it to determine next steps during a crisis.
DR documentation needs to be concise, scannable, and quickly understood to be effective. Visual-based documentation meets these requirements, so it’s no surprise that it also leads to higher DR success.
DR success scores are based on:
(Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=95)
“Without question, 300-page DRPs are not effective. I mean, auditors love them because of the detail, but give me a 10-page DRP with contact lists, process flows, diagrams, and recovery checklists that are easy to follow.” (Bernard Jones, MBCI, CBCP, CORP, Manager Disaster Recovery/BCP, ActiveHealth Management)
| Organizations using a visual-based approach were 30% more likely to find that DR documentation is easy to maintain. | ➔ | “Easy to maintain” leads to a 46% higher rate of DR success. |
|
||
Not only are visual-based disaster recovery plans more effective, but they are also easier to maintain.
Recovery Workflow: Starting the project with overly detailed documentation can slow down the entire process. Overcome planning inertia by starting with high-level incident response plans in a flowchart format. For examples and additional information, see XMPL Medical’s Recovery Workflows.
Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook): For each step in the high-level flowchart, create recovery procedures where necessary using additional flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams as appropriate. Leverage Info-Tech’s Systems Recovery Playbook example as a starting point.
Additional Reference Documentation: Reference existing IT documentation, such as network diagrams and configuration documents, as well as more detailed step-by-step procedures where necessary (e.g. vendor documentation), particularly where needed to support alternate recovery staff who may not be as well versed as the primary system owners.
Organizations that use flowcharts, checklist, and diagrams over traditional, dense DRP manuals are far more likely to meet their RTOs/RPOs because their documentation is more usable and easier to maintain.
Phases |
Phase 1: Streamline DRP documentation | Phase 2: Select the optimal DRP publishing strategy | Phase 3: Keep your DRP relevant through maintenance best practices | |||
Phases |
1.1 |
Start with a recovery workflow |
2.1 |
Decide on a publishing strategy |
3.1 |
Incorporate DRP maintenance into core IT processes |
1.2 |
Create supporting DRP documentation |
3.2 |
Conduct an annual focused review | |||
1.3 |
Write the DRP Summary | |||||
Tools and Templates |
End-to-End Sample DRP | DRP Publishing Evaluation Tool | Project In-take/Request Form
Change Management Checklist |
|||
Streamline your documentation and maintenance process by following the approach outlined in XMPL Medical’s journey to an end-to-end DRP.
XMPL’s disaster recovery plan includes its business impact analysis and a subset of tier 1 and tier 2 patient care applications.
Its DRP includes incident response flowcharts, system recovery checklists, and a communication plan. Its DRP also references IT operations documentation (e.g. asset management documents, system specs, and system configuration docs), but this material is not published with the example documentation.
XMPL’s DRP includes actionable documents in the form of high-level disaster response plan flowcharts and system recovery checklists. During an incident, the DR team is able to clearly see the items for which they are responsible.
XMPL Medical’s disaster recovery plan illustrates an effective DRP. Model your end-to-end disaster recovery plan after XMPL’s completed templates. The specific data points will differ from organization to organization, but the structure of each document will be similar.
Recovery Workflow:
Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook):
Additional Reference Documentation:
Use Info-Tech’s DRP Maturity Scorecard to evaluate your progress
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." |
| 1. Streamline DRP Documentation | 2. Select the Optimal DRP Publishing Strategy | 3. Keep Your DRP Relevant | |
|---|---|---|---|
![]() Best-Practice Toolkit |
1.1 Start with a recovery workflow 1.2 Create supporting DRP documentation 1.3 Write the DRP summary |
2.1 Create Committee Profiles |
3.1 Build Governance Structure Map 3.2 Create Committee Profiles |
| Guided Implementations |
|
|
|
Onsite Workshop |
Module 1:
Streamline DRP documentation |
Module 2:
Select the optimal DRP publishing strategy |
Module 3:
Learn best practices for keeping your DRP relevant |
Phase 1 Outcome:
|
Phase 2 Outcome:
|
Phase 3 Outcome:
|
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 Info-Tech Analysts Finalize Deliverables |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Activities |
Assess DRP Maturity and Review Current Capabilities0.1 Assess current DRP maturity through Info-Tech’s Maturity Scorecard. 0.2 Identify the IT systems that support mission-critical business activities, and select 2 or 3 key applications to be the focus of the workshop. 0.3 Identify current recovery strategies for selected applications. 0.4 Identify current DR challenges for selected applications. |
Document Your Recovery Workflow1.1 Create a recovery workflow: review tabletop planning, walk through DR scenarios, identify DR gaps, and determine how to fill them. |
Create Supporting Documentation1.2 Create supporting DRP documentation. 1.3 Write the DRP summary. |
Establish a DRP Publishing, Management, and Maintenance Strategy2.1 Decide on a publishing strategy. 3.1 Incorporate DRP maintenance into core IT. 3.2 Considerations for reviewing your DRP regularly. |
|
| Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.
This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.
This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.
PHASE 1 |
PHASE 2 |
PHASE 3 |
|||
| 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 3.2 |
| Start with a Recovery Workflow | Create Supporting Documentation | Write the DRP Summary | Select DRP Publishing Strategy | Integrate into Core IT Processes | Conduct an Annual Focused Review |
A DRP is a collection of procedures and supporting documents that allow an organization to recover its IT services to minimize system downtime for the business.
Recovery Workflow |
➔ |
The recovery workflow maps out the incident response plan from event detection, assessment, and declaration to systems recovery and validation. This documentation includes:
|
| Recovery Procedures (Playbook) | ||
| Additional Reference Documentation |
“We use flowcharts for our declaration procedures. Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management.” (Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)
Specifically, review the following from your BIA:
CASE STUDY: The XMPL DRP documentation is based on this Business Impact Analysis Tool.
Info-Tech’s publication Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan takes a very practical approach to BIA work. Our process gives IT leaders a mechanism to quickly get agreement on system recovery order and DR investment priorities.
1.1.1 Tabletop Planning Exercise
Note: You may have already completed this exercise as part of Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.
Use scenarios to provide context for DR planning, and to test your plans, but don’t create a separate plan for every possibility.
The high-level recovery plan will be the same whether the incident is a fire, flood, or tornado. While there might be some variances and outliers, these scenarios can be addressed by adding decision points and/or separate, supplementary instructions.
Note:
Note: You may have already completed this exercise as part of Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.
Use the sample DRP to guide your own flowchart. Some notes on the example are:
This sample flowchart is included in XMPL Recovery Workflows.
PHASE 1 | PHASE 2 | PHASE 3 | |||
| 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 3.2 |
| Start with a Recovery Workflow | Create Supporting Documentation | Write the DRP Summary | Select DRP Publishing Strategy | Integrate into Core IT Processes | Conduct an Annual Focused Review |
| Recovery Workflow |
Write your recovery procedures playbook to be effective and usable. Your playbook documentation should include:
Reference vendors’ technical information in your flowcharts and checklists where appropriate. |
|
Recovery Procedures (Playbook) |
➔ | |
Additional Reference Documentation |
➔ |
Write for your audience. The playbook is for IT; include only the information they need to execute the plan. DRP summaries are for executives and auditors; do not include information intended for IT. Similarly, your disaster recovery plan is not for business units; keep BCP content out of your DRP.
XMPL Medical used its high-level flowcharts as a roadmap for creating its Systems Recovery Playbook.
Included in the XMPL Systems Recovery Playbook are checklists for recovering XMPL’s virtual desktop infrastructure, mission-critical applications, and core infrastructure components.
Included in the XMPL DR documentation is an example flowchart for recovering phone systems. This flowchart is in Recovery Workflows.
Reference this blueprint for more SOP flowchart examples: Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind
“Our network engineers came to me and said our standard SOP template didn't work for them. They're now using a lot of diagrams and flowcharts, and that has worked out better for them.” (Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)
You can download a PDF and a VSD version of these Data Center and Network Diagrams from Info-Tech’s website.
Many DR managers have their team on speed dial. However, having the contact info of alternate staff, BCP leads, and vendors can be very helpful during a disaster. XMPL Medical lists the following information in its DRP Workbook:
DISCUSS: Is there enough information in your DRP for both primary and backup DR personnel?
PHASE 1 | PHASE 2 | PHASE 3 | |||
| 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 3.2 |
| Start with a Recovery Workflow | Create Supporting Documentation | Write the DRP Summary | Select DRP Publishing Strategy | Integrate into Core IT Processes | Conduct an Annual Focused Review |
1.3.1 DRP Summary Document
XMPL’s DRP Summary is organized into the following categories:
| Application tier | Desired RTO (hh:mm) | Desired RPO (hh:mm) | Achievable RTO (hh:mm) | Achievable RPO (hh:mm) |
| Tier 1 | 4:00 | 1:00 | *90:00 | 1:00 |
| Tier 2 | 8:00 | 1:00 | *40:00 | 1:00 |
| Tier 3 | 48:00 | 24:00 | *96:00 | 24:00 |
The above table to is a snippet from the XMPL DR Summary Document (section 2.1.3.2).
In the example, the DR team is unable to recover tier 1, 2, and 3 systems within the desired RTO. As such, they clearly communicate this information in the DRP summary, and include action items to address these gaps.
PHASE 1 | PHASE 2 | PHASE 3 | |||
| 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 3.2 |
| Start with a Recovery Workflow | Create Supporting Documentation | Write the DRP Summary | Select DRP Publishing Strategy | Integrate into Core IT Processes | Conduct an Annual Focused Review |
Diversify your publishing strategy to ensure you can access your DRP in a disaster. For example, if you are using a BCM tool or SharePoint Online as your primary documentation repository, also push the DRP to your DR team’s smartphones as a backup in case the disaster affects internet access.
| Portability/External Access: Assume your primary site is down and inaccessible. Can you still access your documentation? As shown in this chart, traditional strategies of either keeping a copy at another location (e.g. at the failover site) or with staff (e.g. on a USB drive) still dominate, but these aren’t necessarily the best options. | ➔ |
![]() Note: Percentages total more than 100% due to respondents using more than one portability strategy. (Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=118) |
| Maintainability/Usability: How easy is it to create, update, and use the documentation? Is it easy to link to other documents as shown in the flowchart and checklist examples? Is there version control? Lack of version control can create a maintenance nightmare as well as issues in a crisis if staff are questioning whether they have the right version. | ||
| Cost/Effort: Is the cost and effort appropriate? For example, a large enterprise may need a formal solution (e.g. DRP tools or SharePoint), but the cost might be hard to justify for a smaller company. |
This section will review the following strategies, their pros and cons, and how they meet publishing and document management requirements:
The tool enables you to compare two possible solutions based on these key considerations discussed in this section:
The right choice will depend on factors such as current in-house tools, maturity around document management, the size of your IT department, and so on.
For example, a small shop may do very well with the USB drive strategy, whereas a multi-national company will need a more formal strategy to manage consistent DRP distribution.
The DRP Publishing and Management Solution Evaluation Tool helps you to evaluate the tools included in this section.
About this approach:
BCM tools are solutions that provide templates, tools, and document management to create BC and DR documentation.
The business case for a BCM tool is built by answering the following questions:
If you cannot get a satisfactory answer to each of these questions, then opt for an in-house solution.
“We explored a DRP tool, and it was something we might have used, but it was tens of thousands of pounds per year, so it didn’t stack up financially for us at all.” (Rik Toms, Head of Strategy – IP and IT, Cable and Wireless Communications)
About this approach:
DRPs and SOPs most often start as MS Office documents, even if there is a DRP tool available. For organizations that elect to bypass a formal DRP tool, and most do, the biggest gap they have to overcome is document management.
Many organizations are turning to SharePoint to meet this need. For those that already have SharePoint in place, it makes sense to further leverage SharePoint for DR documentation and day-to-day SOPs.
For SharePoint to be a practical solution, the documentation must still be accessible if the primary data center is down, e.g. by having redundant SharePoint instances at multiple in-house locations, or using a cloud-based SharePoint solution.
“Just about everything that a DR planning tool does, you can do yourself using homegrown solutions or tools that you're already familiar with such as Word, Excel, and SharePoint.” (Allen Zuk, President and CEO, Sierra Management Consulting)
About this approach:
Wiki sites are websites where users collaborate to create and edit the content. Wikipedia is an example.
While wiki sites are typically used for collaboration and dynamic content development, the traditional collaborative authoring model can be restricted to provide structure and an approval process.
Several tools are available to create and manage wiki sites (and other collaboration solutions), as outlined in the following research:
If your organization is not already using wiki sites, this technology can introduce a culture shock. Start slow by using a wiki site within a specific department or for a particular project. Then evaluate how well your staff adapt to this technology as well as its potential effectiveness in your organization. Refer to our collaboration strategy research for additional guidance.
About this approach:
With this strategy, your ERT and key IT staff keep a copy of your DRP and relevant documentation with them (e.g. on a USB drive). If the primary site experiences a major event, they have ready access to the documentation.
Fifty percent of respondents in our recent survey use this strategy. A common scenario is to use a shared network drive or a solution such as SharePoint as the master centralized repository, but distribute a copy to key staff.
This approach can have similar disadvantages as using hard copies. Ensuring the USB drives are up to date, and that all staff who might need access have a copy, can become a burdensome process. More often, USB drives are updated periodically, so there is the risk that the information will be out of date or incomplete.
About this approach:
Traditionally DRPs are printed and distributed to managers and/or kept in a central location at both the primary site and a secondary site. In addition, wallet cards are distributed that contain key information such as contact numbers.
A wallet card or even a few printed copies of your high-level DRP for general reference can be helpful, but paper is not a practical solution for your overall DR documentation library, particularly when you include SOPs for recovery procedures.
One argument in favor of paper is there is no dependency on power during a crisis. However, in a power outage, staff can use smartphones and potentially laptops (with battery power) to access electronically stored documentation to get through first response steps. In addition, your DR site should have backup power to be an appropriate recovery site.
The list is only a partial list of BCM tool vendors. The order in which vendors are presented, and inclusion in this list, does not represent an endorsement.
Through advisory services, workshops, and consulting engagements, we have created this BCM Tool Requirements List. The featured requirements includes the following categories:
This BCM Tool – RFP Selection Criteria can be appended to an RFP. You can leverage Info-Tech’s RFP Template if your organization does not have one.
As part of a consulting engagement, Info-Tech can write RFPs for BCM tools and provide a customized scoring tool based on your environment’s unique requirements.
PHASE 1 | PHASE 2 | PHASE 3 | |||
| 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 3.2 |
| Start with a Recovery Workflow | Create Supporting Documentation | Write the DRP Summary | Select DRP Publishing Strategy | Integrate into Core IT Processes | Conduct an Annual Focused Review |
Prioritize quick wins that will have large benefits. The advice presented in this section offers easy ways to help keep your DRP up to date. These simple solutions can save a lot of time and effort for your DRP team as opposed to more intricate changes to the processes above.
Assess how new projects impact service criticality and DR requirements upfront during project intake |
|
Note: The goal is not to make DR a roadblock, but rather to ensure project requirements will be met – including availability and DR requirements.
This Project Intake Form asks the submitter to fill out the availability and criticality requirements for the project.
Leverage your change management process to identify required DRP updates as they occur |
|
This template asks the submitter to fill out the availability and criticality requirements for the project.
For change management best practices beyond DRP considerations, please see Optimize Change Management.
Integrate documentation into performance measurement and performance management |
|
Why documentation is such a challenge |
How management can address these challenges |
| We all know that IT staff typically do not like to write documentation. That’s not why they were hired, and good documentation is not what gets them promoted. | Include documentation deliverables in your IT staff’s performance appraisal to stress the importance of ensuring documentation is up to date, especially where it might impact DR success. |
| Similarly, documentation is secondary to more urgent tasks. Time to write documentation is often not allocated by project managers. | Schedule time for developing documentation, just like any other project, or it won’t happen. |
| Writing manuals is typically a time-intensive task. | Focus on what is necessary for another experienced IT professional to execute the recovery. As discussed earlier, often a diagram or checklist is good enough and actually far more usable in a crisis. |
“Our directors and our CIO have tied SOP work to performance evaluations, and SOP status is reviewed during management meetings. People have now found time to get this work done.” (Assistant Director – IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)
PHASE 1 | PHASE 2 | PHASE 3 | |||
| 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 3.2 |
| Start with a Recovery Workflow | Create Supporting Documentation | Write the DRP Summary | Select DRP Publishing Strategy | Integrate into Core IT Processes | Conduct an Annual Focused Review |
Testing is a waste of time and resources if you do not fix what’s broken. Tabletop testing is effective at uncovering gaps in your DR processes, but if you don’t address those gaps, then your DRP will still be unusable in a disaster.
The COBIT 5 Enablers provide a foundation for this analysis. Consider:
COBIT 5 Enablers
What changes need to be reflected in your DRP?
Reference this blueprint for guidance on DRP testing plans: Reduce Costly Downtime Through DR Testing
Streamline your documentation and maintenance process by following the approach outlined in XMPL Medical’s journey to an end-to-end DRP.
XMPL’s disaster recovery plan includes its business impact analysis and a subset of tier 1 and tier 2 patient care applications.
Its DRP includes incident response flowcharts, system recovery checklists, and a communication plan. Its DRP also references IT operations documentation (e.g. asset management documents, system specs, and system configuration docs), but this material is not published with the example documentation.
XMPL’s DRP includes actionable documents in the form of high-level disaster response plan flowcharts and system recovery checklists. During an incident, the DR team is able to clearly see the items for which they are responsible.
XMPL Medical’s disaster recovery plan illustrates an effective DRP. Model your end-to-end disaster recovery plan after XMPL’s completed templates. The specific data points will differ from organization to organization, but the structure of each document will be similar.
Recovery Workflow:
Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook):
Additional Reference Documentation:
Use our structure to create your practical disaster recovery plan.
Use visual-based documentation instead of a traditional DRP manual.
Create your DRP in layers to keep the work manageable.
Prioritize quick wins to make DRP maintenance easier and more likely to happen.
Knowledge Gained
Processes Optimized
Deliverables Completed
Client Project: Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan
This project has the ability to fit the following formats:
Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan
Close the gap between your DR capabilities and service continuity requirements.
Reduce Costly Downtime Through DR Testing
Improve the accuracy of your DRP and your team’s ability to efficiently execute recovery procedures through regular DR testing.
Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind
Go beyond satisfying auditors to drive process improvement, consistent IT operations, and effective knowledge transfer.
Prepare for a DRP Audit
Assess your current DRP maturity, identify required improvements, and complete an audit-ready DRP summary document.
A Structured Approach to Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and the Requirements of ISO 31000. The Association of Insurance and Risk Managers, Alarm: The Public Risk Management Association, and The Institute of Risk Management, 2010.
“APO012: Manage Risk.” COBIT 5: Enabling Processes. ISACA, 2012.
Bird, Lyndon, Ian Charters, Mel Gosling, Tim Janes, James McAlister, and Charlie Maclean-Bristol. Good Practice Guidelines: A Guide to Global Good Practice in Business Continuity. Global ed. Business Continuity Institute, 2013.
COBIT 5: A Business Framework for the Governance and Management of Enterprise IT. ISACA, 2012.
“EDM03: Ensure Risk Optimisation.” COBIT 5: Enabling Processes. ISACA, 2012.
Risk Management. ISO 31000:2009.
Rothstein, Philip Jan. Disaster Recovery Testing: Exercising Your Contingency Plan. Rothstein Associates: 1 Oct. 2007.
Societal Security – Business continuity management systems – Guidance. ISO 22313:2012.
Societal Security – Business continuity management systems – Requirements. ISO 22301:2012.
Understanding and Articulating Risk Appetite. KPMG, 2008.
Sixty percent of marketers find it hard to produce high-quality content consistently. SaaS marketers have an even more difficult job due to the technical nature of content production. Without an easy content development strategy, marketers have an insurmountable task of continually creating interesting content for an audience they don’t understand.
Globally, B2B SaaS marketers without the ability to consistently produce and activate quality content will experience:
Marketing content that identifies the benefit of the product along with a deep understanding of the buyer pain points, desired value, and benefit proof points is a key driver in delivering value to a prospect, thereby increasing marketing metrics such as open rates, time on site, page views, and click-through rates.
Marketers that activate the SoftwareReviews message mapping architecture will be able to crack the code on the formula for improving open and click-through rates.
By applying the SoftwareReviews message mapping architecture, clients will be able to:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Through this blueprint marketers will learn how to shift content away from low-performing content that only focuses on the product and company to high-performing customer-focused content that answers the “What’s in it for me?” question for a buyer, increasing engagement and conversions.
Marketers only have seven seconds to capture a visitor's attention but often don't realize that the space between competitors and their company is that narrow. They often miss the mark on content and create reams of product and company-focused messaging that result in high bounce rates, low page views, low return visits, low conversions, and low click-through rates.
We wouldn't want to sit in a conversation with someone who only speaks about themselves, so why would it be any different when we buy something? Today's marketers must quickly hook their visitors with content that answers the critical question of "What's in it for me?"
Our research finds that leading content marketers craft messaging that lets their audience ”know they know them,” points out what’s in it for them, and includes proof points of promised value. This simple, yet often missed approach, we call Message Mapping, which helps marketers grab a visitor’s initial attention and when applied throughout the customer journey will turn prospects into customers, lifelong buyers, advocates, and referrals.
![]() |
Terra Higginson
|
| Your Challenge
Globally, B2B SaaS marketers without the ability to consistently produce and activate quality content will experience:
|
Common Obstacles
Marketers struggle to create content that quickly engages the buyer because they lack:
|
SoftwareReviews’ Approach
By applying the SoftwareReviews’ message mapping architecture, clients will be able to:
|
Marketing content that identifies the benefit of the product, along with a deep understanding of the buyer pain points, desired value, and benefit proof-points, is a key driver in delivering value to a prospect, thereby increasing marketing metrics such as open rates, time on site, page views, and click-through rates.
| 65% of marketers find it challenging to produce engaging content. Globally, B2B SaaS marketers without the ability to consistently produce and activate quality content will experience:
A staggering 60% of marketers find it hard to produce high-quality content consistently and 62% don’t know how to measure the ROI of their campaigns according to OptinMonster. SaaS marketers have an even more difficult job due to the technical nature of content production. Without an easy content development strategy, marketers have an insurmountable task of continually creating interesting content for an audience they don’t understand. | ![]() Over 64% of marketers want to learn how to build a better content (Source: OptinMonster, 2021) |
GrowRevenue, MarketingSherpa, Google Analytics, FirstPageSage, Google Analytics, HubSpot |
|
Mistake #1Myopic Focus on Company and ProductContent suffers a low ROI due to a myopic focus on the company and the product. This self-focused content fails to engage prospects and move them through the funnel. |
Mistake #2WIIFM Question UnansweredContent never answers the fundamental “What’s in it for me?” question due to a lack of true buyer understanding. This leads to an inability to communicate the value proposition to the prospect. |
Mistake #3Inability to Select the Right Content FormatMarketers often guess what kind of content their buyers prefer without any real understanding or research behind what buyers would actually want to consume. |
Leaders Will Avoid the “Big Three” Pitfalls
|
Without quality content, the sales and marketing cycles elongate and content marketing metrics suffer.
|
50% — Half of the content produced has no backlinks. (Source: Moz, 2015)
Content matters more than ever since 67% of the buyer's journey is now done digitally. (Source: Worldwide Business Research, 2022) |
A content mapping approach lets content marketers:
|
Avoid value claiming. Leaders will use client testimonials as proof points because buyers believe peers more than they believe you.
“… Since 95 percent of the people are imitators and only 5 percent initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer. (Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion) |










What’s in It for Me?Most content has a focus on the product and the company. Content that lacks a true and deep understanding of the buyer suffers low engagement and low conversions. Our research shows that all content must answer ”What’s in it for me?” for a prospect. |
Social Proof & AuthorityBuyers that are faced with a new and unusual buying experience (such as purchasing SaaS) look at what others say about the product (social proof) and what experts say about the product (authority) to make buying decisions. |
Scarcity & Loss FramingResearch shows that scarcity is a strong principle of influence that can be used in marketing messages. Loss framing is a variation of scarcity and can be used by outlining what a buyer will lose instead of what will be gained. |
Unify the ExperienceUse your message map to structure all customer-facing content across Sales, Product, and Marketing and create a unified and consistent experience across all touchpoints. |
Close the GapSaaS marketers often find the gap between product and company-focused content and buyer-focused content to be so insurmountable that they never manage to overcome it without a framework like message mapping. |
Create a Buyer Persona and JourneyMake it easier to market, sell, and achieve product-market fit with deeper buyer understanding.
|
Diagnose Brand Health to Improve Business GrowthHave a significant and well-targeted impact on business success and growth by knowing how your brand performs, identifying areas of improvement, and making data-driven decisions to fix it.
|
Build a More Effective Go-to-Market StrategyCreating a compelling Go-to-Market strategy, and keeping it current, is a critical software company function – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development – given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.
|
Arakelyan, Artash. “How SaaS Companies Increase Their ROI With Content Marketing.” Clutch.co, 27 July 2018. Accessed July 2022.
Bailyn, Evan. “Average Session Duration: Industry Benchmarks.” FirstPageSage, 16 March 2022. Accessed July 2022.
Burstein, Daniel. “Marketing Research Chart: Average clickthrough rates by industry.” MarketingSherpa, 1 April 2014. Accessed July 2022.
Cahoon, Sam. “Email Open Rates By Industry (& Other Top Email Benchmarks).” HubSpot, 10 June 2021. Accessed July 2022.
Cialdini, Robert. Influence: Science and Practice. 5th ed. Pearson, 29 July 2008. Print.
Cialdini, Robert. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Revised ed. Harper Business, 26 Dec. 2006. Print.
Content Marketing—Statistics, Evidence and Trends.” 1827 Marketing, 7 Jan. 2022. Accessed July 2022.
Devaney, Erik. “Content Mapping 101: The Template You Need to Personalize Your Marketing.” HubSpot, 21 April 2022. Accessed July 2022.
Hiscox Business Insurance. “Growing Your Business--and Protecting It Every Step of the Way.” Inc.com. 25 April 2022. Accessed July 2022.
Hurley Hall, Sharon. “85 Content Marketing Statistics To Make You A Marketing Genius.” OptinMonster, 14 Jan. 2021. Accessed July 2022.
Patel, Neil. “38 Content Marketing Stats That Every Marketer Needs to Know.” NeilPatel.com, 21 Jan. 2016. Web.
Prater, Meg. “SaaS Sales: 7 Tips on Selling Software from a Top SaaS Company.” HubSpot, 9 June 2021. Web.
Polykoff, Dave. “20 SaaS Content Marketing Statistics That Lead to MRR Growth in 2022.” Zenpost blog, 22 July 2022. Web.
Rayson, Steve. “Content, Shares, and Links: Insights from Analyzing 1 Million Articles.” Moz, 8 Sept. 2015. Accessed July 2022.
“SaaS Content Marketing: How to Measure Your SaaS Content’s Performance.” Ken Moo, 9 June 2022. Accessed July 2022.
Taylor Gregory, Emily. “Content marketing challenges and how to overcome them.” Longitude, 14 June 2022. Accessed July 2022.
Visitors Benchmarking Channels. Google Analytics, 2022. Accessed July 2022.
WBR Insights. “Here's How the Relationship Between B2B Buying, Content, and Sales Reps Has Changed.” Worldwide Business Research, 2022. Accessed July 2022.
“What’s a good bounce rate? (Here’s the average bounce rate for websites).” GrowRevenue.io, 24 Feb. 2020. Accessed July 2022.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Create a light business case to gain buy-in and define goals, milestones, and use cases.
Create your list of requirements and shortlist vendors.
As the world around us changes there is a higher risk that IT productivity and planned priorities will be derailed.
To meet the challenges of uncertainty head on IT leaders must adapt so their employees are supported and IT departments continue to operate successfully.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This blueprint helps you develop an approach to understand your low- and no-code challenges and priorities and to shortlist, govern, and manage the right low- and no-code tools.
This template narrates a story to describe the need and expectations of your low- and no-code initiative to get buy-in from stakeholders and interested parties.
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.
Understand the personas of your low- and no-code users and their needs.
List the challenges low- and no-code is designed to solve or the opportunities you hope to exploit.
Identify the low- and no-code tools to address your needs.
Level set expectations on what low- and no-code can deliver.
Identify areas where low- and no-code can be the most beneficial.
Select the tools to best address your problem and opportunities.
1.1 Profile your digital end users
1.2 Set reasonable expectations
1.3 List your use cases
1.4 Shortlist your tools
Digital end-user skills assessment
Low- and no-code objectives and metrics
Low- and no-code use case opportunities
Low- and no-code tooling shortlist
Optimize your product delivery process to accommodate low- and no-code.
Review and improve your product delivery and management governance model.
Discuss how to improve your low- and no-code capacities.
Encourage business-IT collaborative practices and improve IT’s reputation.
Shift the right accountability and ownership to the business.
Equip digital end users with the right skills and competencies.
2.1 Adapt your delivery process
2.2 Transform your governance
2.3 Identify your low- and no-code capacities
Low- and no-code delivery process and guiding principles
Low- and no-code governance, including roles and responsibilities, product ownership and guardrails
List of low- and no-code capacity improvements
Design a CoE and/or CoP to support low- and no-code capabilities.
Build a roadmap to illustrate key low- and no-code initiatives.
Ensure coordinated, architected, and planned implementation and adoption of low- and no-code consistently across the organization.
Reaffirm support for digital end users new to low- and no-code.
Clearly communicate your approach to low- and no-code.
3.1 Support digital end users and facilitate cross-functional sharing
3.2 Yield results with a roadmap
Low- and no-code supportive body design (e.g. center of excellence, community of practice)
Low- and no-code roadmap
The current global situation, marked by significant trade tensions and retaliatory measures between major economic powers, has elevated the importance of more detailed, robust, and executable exit plans for businesses in nearly all industries. The current geopolitical headwinds create an unpredictable environment that can severely impact supply chains, technology partnerships, and overall business operations. What was once a prudent measure is now a critical necessity – a “burning platform” – for ensuring business continuity and resilience.
Here I will delve deeper into the essential components of an effective exit plan, outline the practical steps for its implementation, and explain the crucial role of testing in validating its readiness.
Lack of control over the release process, poor collaboration between teams, and manual deployments lead to poor quality releases at a cost to the business.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Begin improving release management by assessing the current state and gaining a solid understanding of how core operational processes are actually functioning within the organization.
Plan releases to gather all the pieces in one place and define what, why, when, and how a release will happen.
Take a holistic and comprehensive approach to effectively designing and building releases. Get everything right the first time.
Determine desired goals for release management to ensure both IT and the business see the benefits of implementation.
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.
Release management improvement begins with assessment of the current state.
A solid understanding of how core operational processes are actually functioning within the organization.
1.1 Evaluate process maturity.
1.2 Assess release management challenges.
1.3 Define roles and responsibilities.
1.4 Review and rightsize existing policy suite.
Maturity Assessment
Release Management Policy
Release Management Standard Operating Procedure
Patch Management Policy
In simple terms, release planning puts all the pertinent pieces in one place.
It defines the what, why, when, and how a release will happen.
2.1 Design target state release planning process.
2.2 Define, bundle, and categorize releases.
2.3 Standardize deployment plans and models.
Release Planning Workflow
Categorization and prioritization schemes
Deployment models aligned to release types
Take a holistic and comprehensive approach to effectively designing and building releases.
Standardize build and test procedures to begin to drive consistency.
3.1 Standardize build procedures for deployments.
3.2 Standardize test plans aligned to release types.
Build procedure for hardware and software releases
Test models aligned to deployment models
Determine and define the desired goals for release management as a whole.
Agree to key metrics and success criteria to start tracking progress and establish a post-deployment review process to promote continual improvement.
4.1 Determine key metrics to track progress.
4.2 Establish a post-deployment review process.
4.3 Understand and define continual improvement drivers.
List of metrics and goals
Post-deployment validation checklist
Project roadmap
COVID-19 is driving the need for quick technology solutions, including some that require personal data collection. Organizations are uncertain about the right thing to do.
Data equity approaches personal data like money, putting the owner in control and helping to protect against unethical systems.
There are some key considerations for businesses grappling with digital ethics:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Organizations wishing to mature their IT financial management (ITFM) maturity often face the following obstacles:
No matter where you currently stand in your ITFM practice, there is always room for improvement. Hence, a maturity assessment should be viewed as a self-improvement tool that is only valuable if you are willing to act on it.
A mature ITFM practice leads to many benefits.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This research seeks to support IT leaders and ITFM practitioners in evaluating and improving their current maturity. It will help document both current and target states as well as prioritize focus areas for improvement.
This Excel workbook guides IT finance practitioners to effectively assess their IT financial management practice. Incorporate the visual outputs into your final executive presentation document. Key activities include context setting, completing the assessment, and prioritizing focus areas based on results.
Use this template to document your final ITFM maturity outputs, including the current and target states and your identified priorities.
Technology has been evolving throughout the years, increasing complexity and investments, while putting more stress on operations and people involved. As an IT leader, you are now entrusted to run your outfit as a business, sit at the executive table as a true partner, and be involved in making decisions that best suit your organization. Therefore, you have an obligation to fulfill the needs of your end customers and live up to their expectations, which is not an easy task.
IT financial management (ITFM) helps you generate value to your organization’s clientele by bringing necessary trade-offs to light, while driving effective dialogues with your business partners and leadership team.
This research will focus on Info-Tech’s approach to ITFM maturity, aiming for a state of continuous improvement, where an organization can learn and grow as it adapts to change. As the ITFM practice matures, IT and business leaders will be able to better understand one another and together make better business decisions, driven by data.
This client advisory presentation and accompanying tool seek to support IT leaders and ITFM practitioners in evaluating and improving their current maturity. It will help document both current and target states as well as prioritize focus areas for improvement.
|
Bilal Alberto Saab
Research Director, IT Financial Management Info-Tech Research Group |
ITFM is often discarded and not given enough importance and relevance due to the operational nature of IT, and the specialized skillset of its people, leading to several problems and challenges, such as:
Business-driven conversations around financials (spending, cost, revenue) are a rarity in IT due to several factors, including:
Mature your ITFM practice by activating the means to make informed business decisions.
Info-Tech’s methodology helps you move the dial by focusing on three maturity focus areas:
Influence your organization’s strategic direction by maturing your ITFM practice.
“ITFM embeds technology in financial management practices. Through cost, demand, and value, ITFM brings technology and business together, forging the necessary relationships and starting the right conversations to enable the best decisions for the organization.”
– Monica Braun, Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
“Value is not the numbers you visualize on a chart, it’s the dialogue this data generates with your business partners and leadership team.”
– Dave Kish, Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group
In a technology-driven world, advances come at a price. With greater spending required, more complex and difficult conversations arise.
79% of respondents believe that decisions taking too long to make is either a significant or somewhat of a challenge (Flexera 2022 Tech Spend Pulse; N=501).
81% of respondents believe that ensuring spend efficiency (avoiding waste) is either a challenge or somewhat of a challenge (Flexera 2022 Tech Spend Pulse; N=501).
In today’s world, where organizations are driving customer experience through technology investments, having a seat at the table means IT leaders must be well versed in business language and practice, including solid financial management skills.
However, IT staff across all industries aren’t very confident in how well IT is doing in managing its finances. This becomes evident after looking at three core processes:
Recent data from 4,137 respondents to Info-Tech’s IT Management & Governance Diagnostic shows that while most IT staff feel that these three financial management processes are important, notably fewer feel that IT management is effective at executing on them.
IT leadership’s capabilities around fundamental cost data capture appear to be lagging, not to mention the essential value-added capabilities around optimizing costs and demonstrating IT’s contribution to business value.

Source: Info-Tech Research Group, IT Management & Governance Diagnostic, 2023.
Note: See Appendix A for maturity level definitions and descriptions.
Info-Tech identified three maturity focus areas, each containing three levers.
Identify where you stand across the nine maturity levers, detect the gaps, and determine your priorities as a first step to develop an improvement plan.
Note: See Appendix B for maturity level definitions and descriptions per lever.
Each step of this activity is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals.
Build your improvement plan and implement your initiatives to move the dial and climb the maturity ladder.
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 |
|||
3 hours
Input: Understanding your context, objectives, and methodology
Output: ITFM maturity assessment stakeholders and their objectives, ITFM maturity assessment methodology, ITFM maturity assessment takers
Materials: 1a. Prepare for Assessment tab in the ITFM Maturity Assessment Tool
Participants: CIO/IT director, CFO/finance director, IT finance lead, IT audit lead, Other IT management
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to document stakeholders, objectives, and methodology (table range: columns B to G and rows 8 to 15).
| Column ID | Input Type | Guidelines |
| B | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required. |
| C | Text | Enter the full name of each stakeholder on a separate row. |
| D | Text | Enter the job title related to each stakeholder. |
| E | Text | Enter the objective(s) related to each stakeholder. |
| F | Text | Enter the agreed upon methodology. |
| G | Text | Enter any notes or comments per stakeholder (optional). |
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to document assessment takers (table range: columns B to E and rows 18 to 25).
| Column ID | Input Type | Guidelines |
| B | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required. |
| C | Text | Enter the full name of each assessment taker on a separate row. |
| D | Text | Enter the job title related to each stakeholder to identify which party is being represented per assessment taker. |
| E | Text | Enter any notes or comments per stakeholder (optional). |
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
3 hours
Input: Understanding of your ITFM current state and 12-month target state, ITFM maturity assessment results
Output: ITFM current- and target-state maturity levels, average scores, and variance, ITFM current- and target-state average scores, variance, and priority by maturity focus area and maturity lever
Materials: 1b. Glossary, 2a. Assess ITFM Foundation, 2b. Assess Mngt. & Monitoring, 2c. Assess Language, and 3. Assessment Summary tabs in the ITFM Maturity Assessment Tool
Participants: CIO/IT director, CFO/finance director, IT finance lead, IT audit lead, Other IT management
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete the survey.
| Column ID | Input Type | Guidelines |
| B | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required. |
| C | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: ITFM maturity statement to assess. |
| D, E | Dropdown | Select the maturity levels of your current and target states. One of five maturity levels for each statement, from “1. Nonexistent” (lowest maturity) to “5. Advanced” (highest maturity). |
| F, G, H | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: scores associated with your current and target state selection, along with related variance (column G – column F). |
| I | Text | Enter any notes or comments per ITFM maturity statement (optional). |
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to review your results.
| Column ID | Input Type | Guidelines |
| K | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required. |
| L | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: Current State, Target State, and Variance entries. Please ignore the current state benchmark, it’s a placeholder for future reference. |
| M | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: average overall maturity score for your Current State and Target State entries, along with related Variance. |
| N, O | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: maturity level and related name based on the overall average score (column M), where level 1 corresponds to an average score less than or equal to 1.49, level 2 corresponds to an average score between 1.5 and 2.49 (inclusive), level 3 corresponds to an average score between 2.5 and 3.49 (inclusive), level 4 corresponds to an average score between 3.5 and 4.49 (inclusive), and level 5 corresponds to an average score between 4.5 and 5 (inclusive). |
| P, Q | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: maturity definition and related description based on the maturity level (column N). |
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to review your results per maturity focus area and maturity lever, then prioritize accordingly.
| Column ID | Input Type | Guidelines |
| B | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required. |
| C | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: ITFM maturity focus area or lever, depending on the table. |
| D | Placeholder | Ignore this column because it’s a placeholder for future reference. |
| E, F, G | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: average score related to the current state and target state, along with the corresponding variance per maturity focus area or lever (depending on the table). |
| H | Formula | Automatic calculation, no entry required: preliminary priority based on the average variance (column G), where Low corresponds to an average variance between 0 and 0.5 (inclusive), Medium corresponds to an average variance between 0.51 and 0.99 (inclusive), and High corresponds to an average variance greater than or equal to 1. |
| J | Dropdown | Select your final priority (Low, Medium, or High) per ITFM maturity focus area or lever, depending on the table. |
| K | Whole Number | Enter the appropriate rank based on your priorities; do not use the same number more than once. A whole number between 1 and 3 to rank ITFM maturity focus areas, and between 1 and 9 to rank ITFM maturity levers, depending on the table. |
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
3 hours
Input: ITFM maturity assessment results
Output: Customized ITFM maturity assessment report
Materials: 3. Assessment Summary tab in the ITFM Maturity Assessment Tool, ITFM Maturity Assessment Report Template
Participants: CIO/IT director, CFO/finance director, IT finance lead, IT audit lead, Other IT management
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
Refer to the example below on charts depicting different views of the maturity assessment results across the three focus areas and nine levers.
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Tool
Refer to the example below on slides depicting different views of the maturity assessment results across the three maturity focus areas and nine maturity levers.
Slide 6: Edit levels based on your assessment results. Copy and paste the appropriate maturity level definition and description from slide 4.
Slide 7: Copy related charts from the assessment summary tab in the Excel workbook and remove the chart title. You can use the “Outer Offset: Bottom” shadow under shape effects on the chart.
Slide 8: Copy related charts from the assessment summary tab in the Excel workbook and remove the chart title and legend. You can use the “Outer Offset: Center” shadow under shape effects on the chart.
Download the IT Financial Management Maturity Assessment Report Template
Communicate your maturity results with stakeholders and develop an actionable ITFM improvement plan.
And remember, having informed discussions with your business partners and stakeholders, where technology helps propel your organization forward, is priceless!
|
Dave Kish
Practice Lead, ITFM Practice Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Jennifer Perrier
Principal Research Director, ITFM Practice Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Angie Reynolds
Principal Research Director, ITFM Practice Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Monica Braun
Research Director, ITFM Practice Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Rex Ding
Research Specialist, ITFM Practice Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Aman Kumari
Research Specialist, ITFM Practice Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Amy Byalick
Vice President, IT Finance Info-Tech Research Group |
Amy Byalick is an IT Finance practitioner with 15 years of experience supporting CIOs and IT leaders elevating the IT financial storytelling and unlocking insights. Amy is currently working at Johnson Controls as the VP, IT Finance, previously working at PepsiCo, AmerisourceBergen, and Jacobs. |
|
Carol Carr
Technical Counselor, Executive Services Info-Tech Research Group |
|
|
Scott Fairholm
Executive Counselor, Executive Services Info-Tech Research Group |
|
|
Gokul Rajan
Executive Counselor, Executive Services Info-Tech Research Group |
|
|
Allison Kinnaird
Practice Lead, Infrastructure & Operations Info-Tech Research Group |
|
|
Isabelle Hertanto
Practice Lead, Security & Privacy Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Achieve IT Spending Transparency
Mature your ITFM practice by activating the means to make informed business decisions. |
|
Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap
Develop an IT cost optimization strategy based on your specific circumstances and timeline. |
Eby, Kate. “The Complete Guide to Organizational Maturity: Models, Levels, and Assessments.” Smartsheet, 8 June 2022. Web.
“Financial Management Maturity Model.” National Audit Office, n.d. Accessed 28 Apr. 2023.
“ITFM/TBM Program Maturity Guide.” Nicus Software, n.d. Accessed 28 Apr. 2023.
Jouravlev, Roman. "Service Financial Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide." Axelos, 2020.
McCarthy, Seamus. “Financial Management Maturity Model: A Good Practice Guide.” Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General, 26 June 2018. Web.
“Principles for Effective Risk Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting.“ Bank for International Settlements, Jan. 2013. Web.
“Role & Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker 2022.” Foundry, 2022. Web.
Stackpole, Beth. “State of the CIO, 2022: Focus turns to IT fundamentals.” CIO, 21 March 2022. Web.
“Tech Spend Pulse.” Flexera, 2022. Web.
Maturity Level |
Definition |
Description |
| Nascent Level 1 |
Inability to consistently deliver financial planning services | ITFM practices are almost inexistent. Only the most basic financial tasks and activities are being performed on an ad hoc basis to fulfill the Finance department’s requests. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 |
Rudimentary financial planning capabilities. | ITFM activities revolve around minimizing the IT budget as much as possible. ITFM practices are not well defined, and IT’s financial view is limited to day-to-day technical operations.
IT is only involved in low complexity decision making, where financial conversations center on general ledger items and IT spending. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 |
Enablement of business through cost-effective supply of technology. | ITFM activities revolve around becoming a proficient and cost-effective technology supplier to business partners.
ITFM practices are in place, with moderate coordination and adherence to execution. Various IT business units coordinate to produce a consolidated financial view focused on business services. IT is involved in moderate complexity decision making, as a technology subject matter expert, where financial conversations center on IT spending in relation to technology services or solutions provided to business partners. |
| Value Optimizer Level 4 |
Effective impact on business performance. | ITFM activities revolve around optimizing existing technology investments to improve both IT and business performance.
ITFM practices are well managed, established, documented, repeatable, and integrated as necessary across the organization. IT’s financial view tie technology investments to lines of business, business products, and business capabilities. Business partners are well informed on the technology mix and drive related discussion. IT is trusted to contribute to complex decision making around existing investments to cost-effectively plan initiatives, as well as enhance business performance. |
| Strategic Partner Level 5 |
Influence on the organization’s strategic direction. | ITFM activities revolve around predicting the outcome of new or potential technology investments to continuously optimize business performance.
ITFM practices are fully optimized, reviewed, and improved in a continuous and sustainable manner, and related execution is tracked by gathering qualitative and quantitative feedback. IT’s financial view is holistic and fully integrated with the business, with an outlook on innovation, growth, and strategic transformation. Business and IT leaders know the financial ramifications of every business and technology investment decision. IT is trusted to contribute to strategic decision making around potential and future investments to grow and transform the business. |
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability to provide any type of financial insight. | ITFM tasks, activities, and functions are not being met in any way, shape, or form. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to provide basic financial insights. | There is no dedicated ITFM team.
|
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to provide basic business insights. | A dedicated team is fulfilling essential ITFM tasks, activities, and functions.
|
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to provide valuable business driven insights. | A dedicated ITFM team with well-defined roles and responsibilities can provide effective advice to IT leaders, in a timely fashion, and positively influence IT decisions. |
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to influence both technology and business decisions. | A dedicated and highly specialized ITFM team is trusted and valued by both IT and Business leaders.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability to ensure any adherence to rules and regulations. | ITFM frameworks, guidelines, policies, and procedures are not developed nor documented. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to ensure basic adherence to rules and regulations. | Basic ITFM frameworks, guidelines, policies, and procedures are in place, developed on an ad hoc basis, with no apparent coherence or complete documentation. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to ensure compliance to rules and regulations, as well as accountability across ITFM processes. | Essential ITFM frameworks, guidelines, policies, and procedures are in place, coherent, and documented, aiming to (a) comply with rules and regulations, and (b) provide clear accountability. |
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to ensure compliance to rules and regulations, as well as structure, transparency, and business alignment across ITFM processes. | ITFM frameworks, guidelines, policies, and procedures are well defined, coherent, documented, and regularly reviewed, aiming to (a) comply with rules and regulations, (b) provide clear accountability, and (c) maintain business alignment. |
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to:
| ITFM frameworks, guidelines, policies, and procedures are complete, well defined, coherent, documented, continuously reviewed, and improved, aiming to (a) comply with rules and regulations, (b) provide clear accountability, (c) maintain business alignment, and (d) facilitate the decision-making process.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability to deliver IT financial planning and performance output. | ITFM processes and tools are not developed nor documented. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to deliver basic IT financial planning output. | Basic ITFM processes and tools are in place, developed on an ad hoc basis, with no apparent coherence or complete documentation. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to deliver accurate IT financial output and basic IT performance output in a consistent cadence. | Essential ITFM processes and tools are in place, coherent, and documented, aiming to (a) maintain integrity across activities, tasks, methodologies, data, and reports; (b) deliver IT financial planning and performance output needed by stakeholders; and (c) provide clear accountability. ITFM tools and processes are adopted by the ITFM team and some IT business units but are not fully integrated. |
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to deliver accurate IT financial planning and performance output at the needed level of detail to stakeholders in a consistent cadence. | ITFM processes and tools are complete, well defined, coherent, documented, continuously reviewed, and improved, aiming to (a) maintain integrity across activities, tasks, methodologies, data, and reports; (b) deliver IT financial planning and performance output needed by stakeholders; (c) provide clear accountability; and (d) facilitate decision-making. ITFM tools and processes are adopted by IT and business partners but are not fully integrated. |
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to:
| ITFM processes and tools are complete, well defined, coherent, documented, continuously reviewed, and improved, aiming to (a) maintain integrity across activities, tasks, methodologies, data, and reports; (b) deliver IT financial planning and performance output needed by stakeholders; (c) provide clear accountability; and (d) facilitate decision making.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability to provide transparency across technology spending. | ITFM taxonomy and data model are not developed nor documented. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to provide transparency and support IT financial planning data, analysis, and reporting needs of finance stakeholders. | ITFM taxonomy and data model are in place, developed on an ad hoc basis, with no apparent coherence or complete documentation, to comply with, and meet the needs of finance stakeholders. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to provide transparency and support IT financial planning and performance data, analysis, and reporting needs of IT and finance stakeholders. | ITFM taxonomy and data model are in place, coherent, and documented to meet the needs of IT and finance stakeholders. |
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to provide transparency and support IT financial planning and performance data, analysis, and reporting needs of IT, finance, business, and executive stakeholders. | ITFM taxonomy and data model are complete, well defined, coherent, documented, continuously reviewed, and improved, aiming to provide (a) a holistic view of IT spending and IT performance, (b) visibility and transparency, (c) flexibility, and (d) valuable insights to facilitate data driven decision making.
|
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to:
| ITFM taxonomy and data model are complete, well defined, coherent, documented, continuously reviewed, and improved, aiming to provide (a) a holistic view of IT spending and IT performance, (b) visibility and transparency, (c) flexibility, and (d) valuable insights to facilitate data driven decision making.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability to provide accurate and complete across technology spending. | ITFM data needs and requirements are not understood. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to provide accurate, but incomplete IT financial planning data to meet the needs of finance stakeholders. | Technology spending data is extracted, transformed, and loaded on an ad hoc basis to meet the needs of finance stakeholders. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to provide accurate and complete IT financial planning data to meet the needs of IT and finance stakeholders, but IT performance data remain incomplete. | IT financial planning data is extracted, transformed, and loaded in a regular cadence to meet the needs of IT and finance stakeholders.
|
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to provide accurate and complete IT financial planning and performance data to meet the needs of IT, finance, business, and executive stakeholders. | ITFM data needs and requirements are understood.
|
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to provide accurate and complete IT financial planning and performance data real time and when needed by IT, finance, business, and executive stakeholders. | ITFM data needs and requirements are understood.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability to provide any type of financial insight. | ITFM analysis and reports are not developed nor documented. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to provide basic financial insights. | IT financial planning analysis is conducted on an ad hoc basis to meet the needs of finance stakeholders. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to provide basic financial planning and performance insights to meet the needs of IT and finance stakeholders. | IT financial planning and performance analysis are methodical and rigorous, as defined in related control documents (guideline, policies, procedures, etc.).
|
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to provide practical insights and useful recommendations as needed by IT, finance, business, and executive stakeholders to facilitate business decision making around technology investments. | ITFM analysis and reports support business decision making around technology investments.
|
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to provide practical insights and useful recommendations as needed by IT, finance, business, and executive stakeholders to facilitate strategic decision making. | ITFM analysis and reports support strategic decision making.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability of organization stakeholders to communicate and understand each other. | The organization stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives do not understand one another, and cannot speak the same language. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to understand business and finance requirements. | IT understands and meets business and financial planning requirements but does not communicate in a similar language.
|
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to understand the needs of different stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives and take part in decision making around technology spending. | The organization stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives understand each other’s needs, but do not communicate in a common language.
|
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to communicate in a common vocabulary across the organization and take part in business decision making around technology investments. | The organization stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives communicate in a common vocabulary and understand one another.
|
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to communicate in a common vocabulary across the organization and take part in strategic decision making. | The organization stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives communicate in a common vocabulary and understand one another.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability of organization stakeholders to acquire knowledge. | Educational resources are inexistent. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to acquire financial knowledge and understand financial concepts. | IT leaders have access to educational resources to gain the financial knowledge necessary to perform their duties. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to acquire financial and business knowledge and understand related concepts. | IT leaders and their respective teams have access to educational resources to gain the financial and business knowledge necessary to perform their duties.
|
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to acquire knowledge, across technology, business, and finance as needed by different organization stakeholders, and the leadership understand concepts across these various domains. | Stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives have access to various educational resources to gain knowledge in different domains as needed.
|
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to acquire knowledge, and understand concepts across technology, business, and finance as needed by different organization stakeholders. | The organization promotes continuous learning through well designed programs including training, mentorship, and academic courses. Thus, stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives have access to various educational resources to gain knowledge in different domains as needed.
|
Maturity Level | Definition | Description |
| Nascent Level 1 | Inability to provide and foster an environment of collaboration and continuous improvement. | Stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives operate in silos, and collaboration between different teams is inexistent. |
| Cost Operator Level 2 | Ability to provide an environment of cooperation to meet the needs of IT, finance, and business leaders. | IT, finance, and business leaders cooperate to meet financial planning requirements as necessary to perform their duties. |
| Trusted Coordinator Level 3 | Ability to provide and foster an environment of collaboration across the organization. | IT, finance, and business collaborate on various initiatives. ITFM employees are trusted and supported by their stakeholders (IT, finance, and business). |
| Value Optimizer Level 4 | Ability to provide and foster an environment of collaboration and continuous improvement, where employees across the organization feel trusted, supported, empowered, and valued. | Stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives support and promote continuous improvement, transparency practices, and collaboration across the organization.
|
| Strategic Partner Level 5 | Ability to provide and foster an environment of collaboration and continuous improvement, where leaders are willing to change, and employees across the organization feel trusted, supported, empowered, and valued. | Stakeholders including IT, finance, business, and executives support and promote continuous improvement, transparency practices, and collaboration across the organization.
|
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Analyze the four key benefits of blockchain as they relate to the transportation and logistics industry to understand how the technology can resolve issues being experienced by industry incumbents.
Brainstorm a set of blockchain use cases for your organization and apply design thinking tactics to evaluate and select the optimal one to pitch to your executives for prototyping.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Define the current state of your data protection practices by documenting the backup process and identifying problems and opportunities for the desired state.
Understand the business priorities.
Determine the desired state.
Explore the component of governance required.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This storyboard offers insight into impactful strategies and beneficial enabling technologies to implement in your IVR approach to improve your customers’ experience and to reduce the load on your support staff. This deck outlines IT’s role in the IVR development process, offering insight into how to develop an effective IVR call flow and providing details on relevant enabling technologies to consider implementing to further improve your offering.
This template demonstrates an ideal IVR approach, outlining a sample call flow for a telecommunications company designed to meet the needs of a curated customer persona. Use this template to gain a better understanding of your own key customers and to construct your own call flow tree.
Tailor your IVR system specifically for your customers. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Understand your key customers and support their experience by implementing the most effective strategies for them.
Despite the contrary beliefs that the preference for phone support and IVR systems is declining, studies have consistently shown that consumers still prefer receiving customer service over the phone.
|
76% |
of customers prefer the "traditional" medium of phone calls to reach customer support agents. |
|---|---|
|
50% |
of customers across all age groups generally use the phone to contact customer support, making it the most-used customer service channel. |
Effective IVR systems provide customers with positive experiences, keeping them happy and satisfied. Poorly executed IVR systems leave customers feeling frustrated and contribute to an overall negative experience. Negative experiences with your IVR system could lead to your customers taking their business elsewhere.
In fact, research by Haptik shows that an average of $262 per customer is lost each year due to poor IVR experiences ("7 Conversational IVR Trends for 2021 and Beyond," Haptik, 2021).
50% | of customers have abandoned their business transactions while dealing with an IVR system. Source: Vonage, 2020 |
|---|---|
45% | of customers will abandon a business altogether due to a poor IVR experience. Source: "7 Remarkable IVR Trends For the Year 2022 And Beyond," Haptik, 2021 |
Call flow trees don't grow overnight; they require commitment, nurturing, and care
While IT may not be involved in organizing the call flow tree itself, their impact on an organization's IVR approach is undeniable. Not only will IT assist with the implementation and integration of your IVR system, they will also be responsible for maintaining the technology on an ongoing basis. As such, IT should be a part of your organization's software selection team, following Info-Tech's methodology for optimizing your software selection process.
|
Focus on the Roots of Your Call Flow Tree |
Allow Customers the Opportunity to Branch Out | Let Your IVR Call Flow Tree Flourish | Keep Watering Your Call Flow Tree |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Call #1: Introduce the project, scoping customer call drivers and defining metrics of success. |
Call #3: Discuss the importance of promoting self-service and how to improve call routing processes, assessing the final tiers of the IVR. |
Call #4: Discuss the benefits of integrating your IVR within your existing business architecture and using relevant enabling technologies. |
Call #5: Discuss how to elicit feedback from relevant stakeholders and develop an iterative IVR review cycle, wrapping up the project. |
|
Call #2: Begin assessing initial IVR structure. |
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 5 to 7 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.
|
Phase 1 |
Phase 2 |
Phase 3 |
Phase 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1.1 Understand your customers 1.2 Develop goals for your IVR 1.3 Align goals with KPIs 1.4 Build your initial IVR menu |
2.1 Build the second tier of your IVR menu 2.2 Build the third tier of your IVR menu |
3.1 Learn the benefits of a personalized IVR 3.2 Review new technology to apply to your IVR |
4.1 Gather insights on your IVR's performance 4.2 Create an agile review method |
Implement a Transformative IVR Approach That Empowers Your Customers
1.1.1 Build a database of the reasons why your customers call your contact center
"Call flows are the structure of a call center's interactive voice response (IVR). They define the path a caller takes to reach a resolution. The more efficient the flow, the quicker a resolution can be – thereby delivering a better caller experience."
Thomas Randall, Ph.D.
Senior Research Analyst
Info-Tech Research Group
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
To understand why your customers are calling, first you need to know who your customers are. Improve your caller understanding by creating customer personas.
| Customer Call Drivers |
|---|
| Need to pay a bill |
| Complaints about an outage to their service |
| Inquiry about new plans |
| Need to update account information |
| Complaints about their last bill |
1.2.1 Outline IVR-related goals relevant to your organization.
Based on your customer experience strategy and what industry you're in, the goals that you aim to accomplish will look different. A doctor's office will be more concerned with an accurate diagnosis and high first call resolution rate than low average talk time!
Setting business goals relevant to your organization is only half of the battle; it's just as important to hold your organization accountable to those goals and measure your continued progress toward meeting them.
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
| Goal | Designation |
|---|---|
| Lower the average queue time | Quick win |
| Lower call abandonment rate | Quick win |
| Lower customer attrition | Long-term |
| Lower employee attrition | Long-term |
| Increase average speed of answer | Quick win |
1.3.1 Review your organizational IVR goals and connect them with your key performance indicators (KPIs)
| Metric Description | Current Score | Target Score [Date/Year] |
|---|---|---|
| First call resolution | ||
| Average abandonment rate | ||
| Customer attrition | ||
| Employee attrition | ||
| Average queue time | ||
| Service level | ||
| Average speed of answer | ||
| Average handle time | ||
| Average call transfer rate | ||
| Average talk time | ||
| Customer self-service resolution | ||
| Agent satisfaction | ||
| Customer satisfaction |
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
1.4.1 Develop the first tier of your IVR menu, determining the initial selections that customers will have to choose from
You don't want to overload your customers with information. Providing your callers with overly detailed prompts and too many menu options will only lead to frustration, ultimately diminishing both the efficiency and the effectiveness of your IVR. Limiting the length of your voice prompts and the depth of your menus will lay out a clear path for your callers, increasing the likelihood that they are able to navigate your IVR accurately.
Each of your IVR menus should provide your customers with no more than five selections.
Your IVR should offer a maximum of three menu tiers.
Each of your selection "descriptions" or voice prompts should be no longer than four seconds in length.
According to a study by Telzio (2020), introductory IVR messages that greet your customers and identify your company should be under 7.9 seconds in length. Longer introductions will only bore, frustrate, and overload the customer before the call really even begins.
Securing voice talent and be expensive and cumbersome. Consider using an automated voice through a text-to-speech solution for your prompts. This will ensure that all your prompts are consistent throughout your menus, and it also makes it significantly easier to provide crucial updates within your IVR system.
Source: Ansafone Contact Centers, 2019
Remember: You don't need five selections! That is the maximum recommended number of prompts to use and will most likely be reserved for more complex call flows. More isn't always better. If you can limit your initial menu to fewer selections, then do so.
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
|
IVR Initial Greeting |
||
|---|---|---|
|
1. For Billing and Payments |
2. To Report an Outage |
3. To Make Changes to Your Plan or Account |
Allow Customers the Opportunity to Branch Out
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
1.1 Understand your customers 1.2 Develop goals for your IVR 1.3 Align goals with KPIs 1.4 Build your initial IVR menu | 2.1 Build the second tier of your IVR menu 2.2 Build the third tier of your IVR menu | 3.1 Learn the benefits of a personalized IVR 3.2 Review new technology to apply to your IVR | 4.1 Gather insights on your IVR's performance 4.2 Create an agile review method |
|
73% |
of customers want to be provided with the ability to solve issues on their own. |
|---|---|
|
67% |
of customers prefer to use self-service options over speaking with a customer service representative. |
Source: Raffle, 2020
Always provide your callers with the option to go back to a previous menu or to have menu options repeated.
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Example
2.2.1 Complete your call flow tree by branching out your third and final tier of menu options.
While promoting self-service and automating certain processes will improve the functionality of your IVR, it is also important to realize that some issues will ultimately require human intervention. An effective IVR system harmonizes these concepts by making human contact an option, but not too early in the process. You need to find the right balance!
When organizing your IVR call flow tree, you need to be conscious of sending clients in an endless "IVR loop." You should never have your IVR continually repeat its menu options. Customers will abandon an IVR if they are stuck in an IVR loop, being forced to listen to the same information repeatedly without having a way to reach an agent.
If a problem cannot be solved within three steps or by the third tier of your IVR menus, callers should be provided with the option to speak to a live agent, if not automatically routed to one. By providing your callers with the option to speak to a live agent on the third tier of your IVR, you are still offering ample time for customers to discover an avenue to solve their issue on their own through self-service, without frustrating them by losing them in an endless loop of IVR options.
|
30% |
of customers say that not being able to reach a human agent is the most frustrating aspect of a poor customer service experience. |
|---|
Source: ProProfs Chat, 2022
Consider routing callers to a live agent not only on the third tier of your IVR menus but also after three input errors. Multiple input errors can show an eagerness to speak to a representative or a strong misunderstanding of the IVR offering.
Don't think that just offering your customers the option to speak to a live agent is enough. When aiming to significantly improve your customers' experience, how you direct calls to your live agents plays a major role. When a call is being directed to a live agent, be sure to:
|
72% |
of customers view having to talk to multiple agents as poor customer service. Source: ProProfs Chat, 2022 |
|---|---|
|
33% |
of customers highlight waiting on hold as being their biggest frustration. Source: EmailAnalytics, 2022 |
Remember: Your IVR system doesn't live in isolation. The information offered by your IVR, particularly from automated messages, should be consistent with information found within other resources (e.g. online knowledge bases).
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Let Your IVR Call Flow Tree Flourish
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
1.1 Understand your customers 1.2 Develop goals for your IVR 1.3 Align goals with KPIs 1.4 Build your initial IVR menu | 2.1 Build the second tier of your IVR menu 2.2 Build the third tier of your IVR menu | 3.1 Learn the benefits of a personalized IVR 3.2 Review new technology to apply to your IVR | 4.1 Gather insights on your IVR's performance 4.2 Create an agile review method |
3.1.1 Review the benefits of offering personalized service, namely by connecting your IVR system with your customer knowledge base
The integration of your IVR system with your CRM or other applicable knowledge base allows for customer data (e.g. customer history and previous interactions) to be accessible to your staff during calls. Access to this data allows for a deeper understanding of your customers and for personalization of service. This provides immediate benefits to your contact center that will improve your customer experience.
When you inevitably do need to transfer a customer to another agent, they won't have to repeat their issue to a new representative, as all their information will now be easily accessible. Being forced to repeat themselves to multiple agents is a major cause of frustration for customers. This integration would also allow you to route callers to the previous agent that they dealt with whenever possible for the purpose of continuity, and it would enable you to implement other beneficial technologies as well.
One such example is "agent assist." Agent assist is an AI bot that listens in on calls, learning customer context and automatically searching knowledge bases to help resolve queries without the agent having to put the caller on hold to manually perform that work themselves. Not only does agent assist improve customer resolution times, but it also ramps up onboarding time, allowing for new agents to enter the workforce and perform with confidence earlier.
76% | of consumers expect personalized experiences. |
|---|---|
71% | of customers expect internal collaboration so that they don't have to repeat themselves. Source: Zendesk, 2019 |
Personalizing your IVR does much more than just provide your customer service representatives with conversational context. Personalization enables your IVR to recognize callers by their phone number, or even by voice via biometric authentication technologies.
This advanced level of recognition allows your IVR to greet your callers by name, speak to them in their preferred language, send follow-up correspondence to their preferred method of communication (i.e. email or SMS), and even provide them with contact numbers and addresses for your organization's physical locations that are closest to them.
An example of a more advanced functionality is having your IVR call flow personalized for each customer based on their call history. As customers call in, their data is collected, ultimately improving your IVR's ability to predict and understand caller intent. This makes personalized call flows possible. If customers typically call in to make payments, your IVR can logically deduce that their next call will be for the same reason, and it will alter the call menu to direct them to that functionality more efficiently.
3.2.1 Review new technologies offered in the IVR space and understand their impact
Instead of making your customers work their way through your call flow tree to find out what they need, why not just ask them? Conversational IVR, also known as an "intuitive IVR system," makes this possible.
Think Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa. Your customers can simply tell you what they need and your conversational IVR, using the advancements in natural language processing and conversational AI, will take it from there, directing callers to the resources needed to resolve their issues.
Powerful enough to understand full sentences and not just select words or phrases, the increased intelligence of a conversational IVR system allows it to handle complex customer inquiries. Leveraging machine learning capabilities, the system will only continue to improve its ability to understand caller intent, ultimately leading to increased call routing accuracy as it fields more and more calls.
Remember: Your customers want fast and easy, not overwhelming and confusing. Some customers who are greeted with an open-ended question from a conversational IVR may not be sure how to respond.
Understand your key customer demographics and act accordingly. It may be beneficial to provide your callers with guidelines of what to say. Outlining appropriate responses that will guide your customers to their desired department quicker will boost their experience with your conversational IVR.
|
60% |
of callers will bypass the pre-recorded messages in a standard IVR to reach a human voice. Source: Cognigy, 2020 |
|---|---|
|
66% |
of requests can be resolved faster by a conversational IVR than by a live agent. Source: Cognigy, 2020 |
Despite this, only... |
|
|
28% |
of IVR systems contacted use voice response as their primary input method. Source: Telzio, 2020 |
Instead of updating the entire IVR system and implementing a conversational IVR, smaller and mid-level organizations should consider attaching a natural language processing front-end to their existing IVR. Through this, you will be able to reap a lot of the same benefits you would if you were to upgrade to a conversational IVR.
You can attach a natural language processing front-end to your existing IVR in two ways.
Keep Watering Your IVR Call Flow Tree
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
1.1 Understand your customers 1.2 Develop goals for your IVR 1.3 Align goals with KPIs 1.4 Build your initial IVR menu | 2.1 Build the second tier of your IVR menu 2.2 Build the third tier of your IVR menu | 3.1 Learn the benefits of a personalized IVR 3.2 Review new technology to apply to your IVR | 4.1 Gather insights on your IVR's performance 4.2 Create an agile review method |
4.1.1 Understand the importance of receiving feedback and review the best methods for obtaining it from your clients.
Your live agents are on the proverbial front lines, fielding calls from customers daily. As such, they are the prime stakeholders for knowing what kinds of calls the organization receives and how often. Their input on the most frequent reasons that customers call, whether it be to address common pain points or to have FAQs answered, is invaluable. Ask them regularly for their feedback on how the IVR system is performing and which updates should be implemented.
While improving the agent experience is a driver behind adopting an IVR system, the focus should always be improving your customer experience. So why wouldn't you ask your customers for their feedback on your IVR offering? Most customers don't only want to be asked to provide feedback, they expect to be asked. Have your agents ask your customers directly about their experience with your IVR or use the functions of your IVR to offer automated end-of-call surveys.
Many IVR systems are capable of recording calls. Listening back on previous calls is another great way to further understand how your IVR is performing, and it also can provide a glimpse into your customers' experience.
Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is a great way to determine how happy callers are with their experiences with your organization. CSAT surveys ask your clients outright how satisfied they are with their recent interaction and have them rate your service on a scale. While straightforward, the feedback received from CSAT surveys is more general and can lack depth.
For more detailed responses, consider asking your clients an open-ended question as opposed to using a rating scale. This will provide you with a more specific understanding of your customers' experience. For this, an IVR system that supports voice transcription is best. Automated speech-to-text functionality will ensure rapid results.
Another option is to offer a survey that includes skip logic. These multi-tiered surveys, much like an IVR call flow tree, direct your callers to different follow-up questions based on their previous answers. While capable of providing more insight into the customer experience, these surveys are only recommended for more complex service offerings.
Asking for feedback makes your callers feel valued, and it also provides your organization with extremely useful information – including an understanding of what you may need to change within your IVR
|
90% |
of consumers believe that organizations should provide them with the opportunity to give customer feedback. Source: SmallBizGenius, 2022 |
|---|---|
|
41% |
of customer support professionals say that CSAT is their team's most important KPI. Source: Hiver, 2022 |
4.2.1 Understand the best practices for developing an ongoing review cycle for your IVR approach
|
|
|
|
Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management |
|
|
|
|
|
|
"7 Conversational IVR Trends for 2021 and Beyond." Haptik, 25 March 2021. Accessed 16 June 2022.
"7 Remarkable IVR Trends For the Year 2022 And Beyond." Haptik, 30 Dec. 2021. Accessed 27 April 2022.
"8 IVR Strategies that Keep Customers Happy." Ansafone Contact Centers, 31 May 2019. Accessed 25 April 2022.
"Agent Assist." Speakeasy AI, 19 April 2022. Accessed 27 April 2022.
"AI chatbot that's easy to use." IBM, n.d. Accessed 21 June 2022.
"IVR Trends to Watch in 2020 and Beyond: Inside CX." Intrado, 1 May 2020. Accessed 27 April 2022.
"RIP IVR: 1980-2020." Vonage, 2 June 2020. Accessed 16 June 2022.
Andrea. "What do Customers Want? – 37 Customer Service Statistics." SmallBizGenius, 17 March 2022. Accessed 24 May 2022.
Anthony, James. "106 Customer Service Statistics You Must See: 2021/2022 Data & Analysis." FinancesOnline, 14 Jan. 2022. Accessed 27 April 2022.
Brown, James. "14 stats that prove the importance of self-service in customer service." raffle, 13 Oct. 2020. Accessed 17 June 2022.
Buesing, Eric, et al. "Getting the best customer service from your IVR: Fresh eyes on an old problem." McKinsey & Company, 1 Feb. 2019. Accessed 25 April 2022.
Callari, Ron. "IVR Menus and Best Practices." Telzio, 4 Sep. 2020. Accessed 27 April 2022.
Cornell, Jared. "104 Customer Service Statistics & Facts of 2022." ProProfs Chat, 6 April 2022. Accessed 16 June 2022.
DeCarlo, Matthew. "18 Common IVR Mistakes & How To Configure Effective IVR." GetVoIP, 13 June 2019. Accessed 27 April 2022.
DeMers, Jayson. "77 Customer Service Statistics to Know." EmailAnalytics, 23 March 2022. Accessed 27 April 2022.
Frants, Valeriy. Interview. Conducted by Austin Wagar, 22 June 2022.
Grieve, Patrick. "Personalized customer service: what it is and how to provide it." Zendesk, 28 June 2019. Accessed 27 April 2022.
"How Natural Language Processing Can Help Your Interactive Voice Response System Meet Best Practice." Hostcomm, 15 July 2019. Accessed 25 April 2022.
"IVR and customer experience: get the best UX for your clients." Kaleyra, 14 Dec. 2020. Accessed 25 April 2022.
Irvine, Bill. "Selecting an IVR System for Customer Satisfaction Surveys." IVR Technology Group, 14 April 2020. Accessed 22 June 2022.
Kulbyte, Toma. "Key Customer Experience Statistics to Know." SuperOffice, 24 June 2021. Accessed 24 May 2022.
Leite, Thiago. "What's the Difference Between Standard & Conversational IVR?" Cognigy, 27 Oct. 2020. Accessed 24 May 2022.
Maza, Cristina. "What is IVR? The ultimate guide." Zendesk, 30 Sep. 2020. Accessed 25 April 2022.
McCraw, Corey. "What is IVR Call Flow? Benefits, Features, Metrics & More." GetVoIP, 30 April 2020. Accessed 25 April 2022.
Mircevski, Bruno. "Smart IVR Introduction – What Is It and Why You Should Use It." Ideta, 7 March 2022. Accessed 28 April 2022.
Oriel, Astha. "Artificial Intelligence in IVR: A Step Towards Faster Customer Services." Analytics Insight, 19 Aug. 2020. Accessed 24 May 2022.
Perzynska, Kasia. "What is CSAT & How to Measure Customer Satisfaction?" Survicate, 9 March 2022. Accessed 22 June 2022.
Pratt, Mary K. "How to set business goals, step by step." TechTarget, 27 April 2022. Accessed 21 June 2022.
Robinson, Kerry. "Insight of the Week: Make Your IVR More Like Alexa." Waterfield Tech, 20 April 2022. Accessed 25 April 2022.
Sehgal, Karishma. "Exclusive Research – 76% of customer service teams offer support outside of business hours." Hiver, 4 May 2022. Accessed 22 June 2022.
Smith, Mercer. "111 Customer Service Statistics and Facts You Shouldn't Ignore." Help Scout, 23 May 2022. Accessed 24 June 2022.
Thompson, Adrian. "A Guide to Conversational IVR." The Bot Forge, 27 Jan. 2021. Accessed 21 June 2022.
Tolksdorf, Juergen. " 5 Ways to Leverage AI and Agent-Assist to Improve Customer Experience." Genesys, 19 May 2020. Accessed 27 April 2022.
Vaish, Aakrit. "5 ways conversational IVR is helping businesses revolutionize customer service." ETCIO.com, 20 March 2020. Web.
Westfall, Leah. "Improving customer experience with the right IVR strategy." RingCentral, 23 July 2021. Accessed 25 April 2022.
Well, your clients demand it. And it makes business sense; it is much cheaper to retain a client than to acquire new ones. By all means, always expand your client base; just don't make it a zero-sum game by losing clients because you cannot provide decent service.
Although the term has existed since the 17th century, it has only received legal attention since 2020. Now, several years later, the EU and the US require companies to prove their resilience.
To understand what resilience is, please read our article on resilience.
IT resilience is a mindset, a collection of techniques, and people management focused on providing consistent service to clients, all rolled into one discipline. While we discuss IT resilience, it takes more than IT staff or IT processes to become a truly resilient business.
Here are 10 themes relevant to the (IT) resilient organization:
A transparent company culture empowers its people to act confidently, respond swiftly to challenges, and continuously learn and improve. This builds a strong foundation for resilience, enabling the organization to navigate disruption or adversity much more easily.
At its core, transparency is about open communication, sharing information, and fostering a culture of honesty and trust. These traits directly influence the various aspects of resilience.
A client service focus isn't just about customer satisfaction; it's an integral part of a company's resilience strategy. Service stability and continuous value delivery are the elements that retain existing clients and attract new ones through reputation. System outages, slowdowns, and errors lead to client frustration and erode confidence. In other words, client service focuses on making sure you are available. Once you have that, then you can look at enhancing and expanding services and products.
Resilient systems and processes often also include tools and capabilities for proactive communication with clients. This can include automated notifications during system maintenance or updates, providing transparency and minimizing inconvenience. A proactive approach to communication creates a sense of partnership, and it demonstrates that you value your clients' time and business.
Adaptable systems and processes give you the flexibility for rapid incident response and easy workarounds, bringing your service back to the level it is supposed to be at.
In the bigger picture, when you design your systems for flexibility and modification, you can rapidly adjust to new market conditions, evolving customer demands, and technological advancements. This agility allows you to pivot swiftly, seizing opportunities while mitigating risks.
In the same vein, adaptable processes, fostered by a culture of continuous improvement and open communication, empower teams to innovate and refine workflows in response to challenges. This constant evolution ensures the company remains competitive and aligned with its ever-changing environment.
When you establish standardized procedures for planning, testing, and implementing changes, IT change management ensures that every modification, no matter how seemingly small, is carefully considered and assessed for its impact on the broader IT ecosystem. This structured approach significantly reduces the risk of unexpected side effects, unforeseen conflicts, and costly downtime, protecting the company's operations and its reputation.
It does not have to be a burdensome bureaucratic process. Modern processes and tools take the sting out of these controls. Many actions within change management can be automated without losing oversight by both the IT custodians and the business process owners.
By having duplicates of essential components or systems in place, you ensure that even if one part fails, another is ready to take over. This helps you minimize the impact of unexpected events like hardware issues, software glitches, or other unforeseen problems. This might mean replicating critical policy data across multiple servers or data centers in different locations.
Fault tolerance is all about your systems and processes being able to keep working even when facing challenges. By designing your software and systems architecture with fault tolerance in mind, you are sure it can gracefully handle errors and failures, preventing those small problems from causing bigger issues, outages, and unhappy clients.
Clients entrust you with valuable information. Demonstrating a commitment to data security through resilient systems builds trust and provides reassurance that their data is safeguarded against breaches and unauthorized access.
Trusting that all working is good. making sure is better. When you observe your systems and receive timely notifications when something seems off, you'll be able to address issues before they snowball into real problems.
In any industry, monitoring helps you keep an eye on crucial performance metrics, resource usage, and system health. You'll get insights into how your systems behave, allowing you to identify bottlenecks or potential points of failure before they cause serious problems. And with a well-tuned alerting system, you'll get those critical notifications when something requires immediate attention. This gives you the chance to respond quickly, minimize downtime, and keep things running smoothly for your customers.
Monitoring is also all about business metrics. Keep your service chains running smoothly and understand the ebb and flow of when clients access your services. Then update and enhance in line with what you see happening.
Well-thought-out plans and processes are key. Work with your incident managers, developers, suppliers, business staff and product owners and build an embedded method for reacting to incidents.
The key is to limit the time of the service interruption. Not everything needs to be handled immediately, so your plan must be clear on how to react to important vs lower-priority incidents. Making the plan and process well-known in the company helps everybody and keeps the calm.
Business continuity planning anticipates and prepares for various scenarios, allowing your company to adapt and maintain essential functions even in the face of unexpected disruptions.
When you proactively address these non-IT aspects of recovery, you build resilience that goes beyond simply restoring technology. It enables you to maintain customer relationships, meet contractual obligations, and safeguard your reputation, even in the face of significant challenges.
Business continuity is not about prevention; it is about knowing what to do when bad things happen that may threaten your company in a more existential way or when you face issues like a power outage in your building, a pandemic, major road works rendering your business unreachable and such events.
Disaster recovery is your lifeline when the worst happens. Whether it's a major cyberattack, a natural disaster, or a catastrophic hardware failure, a solid disaster recovery plan ensures your business doesn't sink. It's your strategy to get those critical systems back online and your data restored as quickly as possible.
Think of it this way: disaster recovery, just like business continuity, isn't about preventing bad things from happening; it's about being prepared to bounce back when they do. It's like having a spare tire in your car, you hope you never need it, but if you get a flat, you're not stranded. With a well-tested disaster recovery plan, you can minimize downtime, reduce data loss, and keep your operations running even in the face of the unexpected. That translates to happier customers, protected revenue, and a reputation for reliability even amidst chaos.
Resilience is the result of a well-conducted orchestra. Many disciplines come together to help you service your clients in a consistent way.
The operational lifeline of your company and the reason it exists in the first place is to provide your clients with what they need, when they need it, and be able to command a good price for it. And that will keep your shareholders happy as well.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Define an organizational standard for identifying day-to-day projects and triaging them in relation to other categories of projects.
Build a process for maintaining reliable day-to-day project supply and demand data.
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.
Assess the current state of project portfolio management and establish a realistic target state for the management of day-to-day projects.
Realistic and well-informed workshop goals.
1.1 Begin with introductions and workshop expectations activity.
1.2 Perform PPM SWOT analysis.
1.3 Assess pain points and analyze root causes.
Realistic workshop goals and expectations
PPM SWOT analysis
Root cause analysis
Establish a standard set of baselines for day-to-day projects that will help them to be identified and managed in the same way across different functional teams.
Standardization of project definitions and project value assessments across different functional teams.
2.1 Formalize the definition of a day-to-day project and establish project levels.
2.2 Develop a project value scorecard for day-to-day projects.
2.3 Analyze the capacity footprint of day-to-day projects.
Project identification matrix
Project value scorecard
A capacity overview to inform baselines
Establish a target state process for tracking and monitoring day-to-day projects at the portfolio level.
Standardization of how day-to-day projects are managed and reported on across different functional teams.
3.1 Map current state workflows for the intake and resource management practices (small and large projects).
3.2 Perform a right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis.
3.3 Draft a target state process for the initiation of day-to-day projects and for capacity planning.
Current state workflows
Right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis
Target state workflows
Start to plan the implementation of your new processes for the portfolio management of day-to-day projects.
An implementation plan, complete with communication plans, timelines, and goals.
4.1 Perform a change impact and stakeholder management analysis.
4.2 Perform a start-stop-continue activity.
4.3 Define an implementation roadmap.
Change impact and stakeholder analyses
Start-stop-continue retrospective
Implementation roadmap
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Determine how to establish the foundation of your security operations.
Assess the maturity of your prevention, detection, analysis, and response processes.
Design a target state and improve your governance and policy solutions.
Make your case to the board and develop a roadmap for your prioritized security initiatives.
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.
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.
Identified the foundational elements needed for planning before a security operations program can be built
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.
Customized security pressure posture
Current knowledge and skills gaps
Log register of essential services
Asset management inventory
Identify the maturity level of existing security operations program processes.
Current maturity assessment of security operations processes
2.1 Assess the current maturity level of the existing security operations program processes.
Current maturity assessment
Design your optimized target state.
Improve your security operations processes with governance and policy solutions.
Identify and prioritize gap initiatives.
A comprehensive list of initiatives to reach ideal target state
Optimized security operations with repeatable and standardized policies
3.1 Complete standardized policy templates.
3.2 Map out your ideal target state.
3.3 Identify gap initiatives.
Security operations policies
Gap analysis between current and target states
List of prioritized initiatives
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.
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
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.
Security operations project charter
In-house vs. outsourcing rationale
Initiatives organized according to phases of development
Planned and achievable security operations roadmap
Let’s make the case for enterprise business analysis!
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
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
Principal Research Director, Applications Delivery and Management
Info-Tech Research Group
Your Challenge
Common Obstacles
Info-Tech's Approach
Let's make the case for enterprise business analysis!
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 |
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 |
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:
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 |
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template
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. |
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:
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.
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.

(Adapted from PMI, 2017)
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.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template
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)
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)
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.

(Adapted from PMI, 2017)
The biggest sources of project failure include:
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:
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 |
|
|
|
Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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:
This phase involves the following participants:
Your vision becomes your "north star," guiding your journey and decisions.
When thinking about a vision statement for enterprise business analysis, think about:
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.
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.
Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Training
Competencies and capabilities
Structure and alignment
Methods and processes
Tools, techniques, and templates
Governance
Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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:
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:
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.

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
Output
Materials
Participants
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? |
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. |
| 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% |
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Use Info-Tech’s licensing best practices to avoid shelfware with VMware licensing and remain compliant in case of an audit.
Use Info-Tech’s licensing best practices to avoid shelfware with VMware licensing and remain compliant in case of an audit.
Manage your renewals and transition to the cloud subscription model.
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
|
The mechanics of negotiating a deal with VMware may seem simple at first as the vendor is willing to provide a heavy discount on an enterprise license agreement (ELA). However, come renewal time, when a reduction in spend or shelfware is needed, or to exit the ELA altogether, the process can be exceedingly frustrating as VMware holds the balance of power in the negotiation. Negotiating a complete agreement with VMware from the start can save you from an immense headache and unforeseen expenditures. Many VMware customers do not realize that the terms and conditions in the Volume Purchasing Program (VPP) and Enterprise Purchasing Program (EPP) agreements limit how and where they are able to use their licenses. Furthermore, after the renewal is complete, organizations must still worry about the management of various license types, accurate discovery of what has been deployed, visibility into license key assignments, and over and under use of licenses. Preventive and proactive measures enclosed within this blueprint will help VMware clients mitigate this minefield of challenges. |
|
Scott Bickley |
|
Your Challenge |
Common Obstacles |
Info-Tech’s Approach |
|---|---|---|
|
VMware's dominant position in the virtualization space can create uncertainty to your options in the long term as well as the need to understand:
Make an informed decision with your VMware investments to allow for continued ROI. |
There are several hurdles that are presented when considering a VMware ELA:
Overcoming these and other obstacles are key to long-term satisfaction with your VMware infrastructure. |
Info-Tech has a two-phase approach:
A tactical roadmap approach to VMware ELA and the cloud will ensure long-term success and savings. |
VMware customers almost always have incomplete price information from which to effectively negotiate a “best in class” ELA.
ELAs and EPPs are generally the only way to get a deep discount from VMware.
Competition is a key driver of price
|
1. Manage Your VMware Agreements |
2. Transition to the VMware Cloud |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Phase Steps |
1.1 Establish licensing requirements 1.2 Evaluate licensing options 1.3 Evaluate agreement options 1.4 Purchase and manage licenses 1.5 Understand SnS renewal management |
2.1 Understand the VMware subscription model 2.2 Migrate workloads and licenses 2.3 Manage SnS and cloud subscriptions |
|
Phase Outcomes |
Understanding of your licensing requirements and what agreement option best fits your needs for now and the future. Knowledge of VMware’s sales model and how to negotiate the best deal. |
Knowledge of the evolving cloud subscription model and how to plan your cloud migration and transition to the new licensing. |
|
Overarching insight With the introduction of the subscription licensing model, VMware licensing and renewals are becoming more complex and require a deeper understanding of the license program options to best manage renewals and cloud deployments as well as to maximize legacy ROI. |
||
|
Phase 1 insight Contracts are typically overweighted with a discount at the expense of contractual T&Cs that can restrict license usage and expose you to unpleasant financial surprises and compliance risk. |
Phase 1 insight VMware has a large lead in being first to market and it realizes running dual virtualization stacks is complex, unwieldy, and expensive. To further complicate the issues, most skill sets in the industry are skewed toward VMware. |
Phase 2 insight VMware has purposefully reduced a focus on the actual license terms and conditions; most customers focus on the transactional purchase or the ELA document, but the rules governing usage are on a website and can be changed by VMware regularly. |
|
Tactical insight Beware of out-year pricing and ELA optimization reviews that may provide undesirable surprises and more spend than was planned. |
Tactical insight Negotiate desired terms and conditions at the start of the agreement, and prioritize which use rights may be more important than an additional discount percentage. |
|
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
|
VMware ELA Analysis Tool |
VMware ELA RFQ Template Tool |
VPP Transaction Purchase Tool |
|---|---|---|
|
VMware ELA Analysis Tool |
Use this tool as a template for an RFQ with VMware ELA contracts. |
Use this tool to analyze cost breakdown and discount based on your volume purchasing program (VPP) level. |
|
|
|
VMware Business as Usual SnS Renewal Only Tool
Use this tool to analyze discounts from a multi-year agreement vs. prepay. See how you can get the best discount.
|
Why VMware |
What to Know |
The Future |
|---|---|---|
|
VMware is the leader in OS virtualization, however, this is a saturated market, which is being pressured by public and hybrid cloud as a competitive force taking market share. There are few viable alternatives to VMware for virtualization due to vendor lock-in of existing IT infrastructure footprint. It is too difficult and cost prohibitive to make a shift away from VMware even when alternative solutions are available. |
ELAs are the preferred method of contracting as it sets the stage for a land-and-expand product strategy; once locked into the ELA model, customers must examine VMware alternatives with preference or risk having Support and Subscription Services (SnS) re-priced at retail. VMware does not provide a great deal of publicly available information regarding its enterprise license agreement (ELA) options, leaving a knowledge gap that allows the sales team to steer the customer. |
VMware is taking countermeasures against increasing competition. Recent contract terms changed to eliminate perpetual caps on SnS renewals; they are now tied to a single year of discounted SnS, then they go to list price. Migration of list pricing to a website versus contract, where pricing can now be changed, reducing discount percentage effectiveness. Increased audits of customers, especially those electing to not renew an ELA.
|
|
|
|
|---|
INDUSTRY: Finance
SOURCE: VMware.com
“We’ll have network engineers, storage engineers, computer engineers, database engineers, and systems engineers all working together as one intact team developing and delivering goals on specific outcomes.” – Vipul Nagrath, CIO, ADP
Improving developer capital management
Constant innovation helped ADP keep ahead of customer needs in the human resources space, but it also brought constant changes to the IT environment. Internally, the company found it was spending too long working on delivering the required infrastructure and system updates. IT staff wanted to improve velocity for refreshes to better match the needs of ADP developers and encourage continued development innovation.
Business needs
Impact
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.” |
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
|---|---|---|
|
Call #1: Discuss scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges. Call #2: Assess the current state. Determine licensing position. Call #3: Complete a deployment count, needs analysis, and internal audit. |
Call #4: Review findings with analyst:
Call #5: Select licensing option. Document forecasted costs and benefits. |
Call #6: Review final contract:
Call #7: Negotiate final contract. Evaluate and develop a roadmap for SAM. |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between 2 to 6 calls over the course of 1 to 2 months.
Phase 1 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|
1.1 Establish licensing requirements 1.2 Evaluate licensing options 1.3 Evaluate agreement options 1.4 Purchase and manage licenses | 2.1 Understand the VMware subscription model 2.2 Migrate workloads and licenses 2.3 Discuss the VMware sales approach 2.4 Manage SnS and cloud subscriptions |
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase will take you thorough:
vSphere Main Editions Overview
Review vSphere Edition Features
Download the vSphere Edition 7 Features List
VMware agreement types
Review purchase options to align with your requirements.
| Transactional | VPP | EPP | ELA |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Transactional |
Entry-level volume license purchasing program |
Mid-level purchasing program |
Highest-level purchasing program |
|
|
Deal size of initial purchase typically is:
Minimum deal size of top-up purchase:
|
Minimum deal size of initial purchase:
|
How the program works
Benefits
VPP Point & Discount Table
|
Level |
Point Range |
Discount |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
250-599 |
4% |
| 2 |
600-999 |
6% |
| 3 |
1,000-1,749 |
9% |
| 4 |
1,750+ |
12% |
1-3 hours
Instructions:
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Download the VPP Transactional Purchase Tool
What to know when using a token/credit-based agreement.
Token/credit-based agreements carry high risk as customers are purchasing a set number of tokens/credits to be redeemed during the ELA term for licenses.
How the program works
Benefits
EPP Level & Point Table
Level | Point Range |
|---|---|
| 7 | 2,500-3,499 |
| 8 | 3,500-4,499 |
| 9 | 4,500-5,999 |
| 10 | 6,000+ |
If a legacy ELA exists that has “deploy or lose” language, engage VMware to recapture any lost license rights as VMware has changed this language effective with 2016 agreements and there is an “appeals” process for affected customers.
The advantages of an ELA are:
General disadvantages are:
|
ELA Type |
Description |
Pros and Cons |
|---|---|---|
|
Capped (max quantities) |
Used to purchase a specific quantity and type of license. |
Pro – Clarity on what will be purchased Pro – Lower risk of over licensing Con – Requires accurate forecasting |
|
All you can eat or unlimited |
Used to purchase access to specified products that can be deployed in unlimited quantities during the ELA term. |
Pro – Acquire large quantity of licenses Pro – Accurate forecasting not critical Con – Deployment can easily exceed forecast, leading to high renewal costs |
|
Burn-down |
A form of capped ELA purchase that uses prepaid tokens that can be used more flexibly to acquire a variety of licenses or services. This can include the hybrid purchasing program (HPP) credits. However, the percentage redeemable for VMware subscription services may be limited to 10% of the MSRP value of the HPP credit. |
Pro – Accurate demand forecast not critical Pro – Can be used for products and services Con – Unused tokens or credits are forfeited |
|
True-up |
Allows for additional purchases during the ELA term on a determined schedule based on the established ELA pricing. |
Pro – Consumption payments matched after initial purchase Pro – Accurate demand forecast not critical Con – Potentially requires transaction throughout term |
Editable copies of VMware’s license and governance documentation are a requirement to initiate the dialogue and negotiation process over T&Cs.
VMware’s licensing is complex and although documentation is publicly available, it is often hidden on VMware’s website.
Many VMware customers often overlook reviewing the license T&Cs, leaving them open to compliance risks.
It is imperative for customers to understand:
Build in time to obtain, review, and negotiate these documents (easily weeks to months).
Use Rights
|
Product details that go beyond the sales pitch |
|
|---|---|
|
Different support levels (e.g. basic, enterprise, per incident) |
|
|
Details to ensure the product being purchased matches the business needs |
|
|
SnS renewals pricing is based on the (1) year SnS list price |
|
|
Governing agreements, VPP program details |
|
2-4 hours
Instructions:
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Download the VMware ELA Analysis Tool
|
Securing “out years” pricing for SnS or the cost of SnS is critical or it will default to a set percentage (25%) of MSRP, removing the ELA discount. |
|
| ↓ | |
|
Typically, the out year is one year; maximum is two years. |
|
| ↓ | |
|
Negotiate the “go forward” SnS pricing post-ELA term as part of the ELA negotiations when you have some leverage. |
Default after (1) out year is to rise to 25% of current MSRP versus as low as 20% of net license price within the ELA. |
| ↓ | |
|
Carefully incorporate the desired installed-base licenses that were acquired pre-ELA into the agreement, but ensure unwanted licenses are removed. |
|
| ↓ | |
|
Ancillary but binding support policies, online terms and conditions, and other hyperlinked documentation should be negotiated and incorporated as part of the agreement whenever possible. |
|
1-3 hours
Use this tool for as a template for an RFQ with VMware ELA contracts.
| Input | Output |
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Download the VMware ELA RFQ Template
Shift to Subscription
VMware has a license cost calculator and additional licensing documents that can be used to help determine what spend should be.
Phase 1 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|
1.1 Establish licensing requirements 1.2 Evaluate licensing options 1.3 Evaluate agreement options 1.4 Purchase and manage licenses | 2.1 Understand the VMware subscription model 2.2 Migrate workloads and licenses 2.3 Discuss the VMware sales approach 2.4 Manage SnS and cloud subscriptions |
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase will take you thorough:
VMware Cloud Assist
Combine SaaS and on-premises capabilities for automation, operations, log analytics, network visibility, security, and compliance into one license.
INFO-TECH TIP: Create your own assumptions as inputs into the BAU model and then evaluate the ELA value proposition instead of depending on VMware’s model.
Use Info-Tech Research Group’s customized RFQ template to discover true discount levels and model various purchase options for VMware ELA proposals.
Processes Optimized
Prepare for Negotiations More Effectively
Price Benchmarking & Negotiation
You need to achieve an objective assessment of vendor pricing in your IT contracts, but you have limited knowledge about:
VMware vRealize Cloud Management
VMware vCloud Suite is an integrated offering that brings together VMware’s industry-leading vSphere hypervisor and VMware vRealize Suite multi-vendor hybrid cloud management platform. VMware’s new portable licensing units allow vCloud Suite to build and manage both vSphere-based private clouds and multi-vendor hybrid clouds.
Barrett, Alex. “vSphere and vCenter licensing and pricing explained -- a VMware license guide.” TechTarget, July 2010. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Bateman, Kayleigh. “VMware licensing, pricing and features mini guide.” Computer Weekly, May 2011. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Blaisdell, Rick. “What Are The Common Business Challenges The VMware Sector Faces At This Point In Time?” CIO Review, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
COMPAREX. “VMware Licensing Program.” COMPAREX, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Couesbot, Erwann. “Using VMware? Oracle customers hate this licensing pitfall.” UpperEdge, 17 October 2016. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Crayon. “VMware Licensing Programs.” Crayon, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Datanyze." Virtualization Software Market Share.” Datanyze, n.d. Web.
Demers, Tom. “Top 18 Tips & Quotes on the Challenges & Future of VMware Licensing.” ProfitBricks, 1 September 2015. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Fenech, J. “A quick look at VMware vSphere Editions and Licensing.” VMware Hub by Altaro, 17 May 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Flexera. “Challenges of VMware Licensing.” Flexera, n.d. Accessed 5 February 2018.
Fraser, Paris. “A Guide for VMware Licensing.” Sovereign, 11 October 2016. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Haag, Michael. “IDC Data Shows vSAN is the Largest Share of Total HCI Spending.” VMware Blogs, 1 December 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Kealy, Victoria. “VMware Licensing Quick Guide 2015.” The ITAM Review, 17 December 2015. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Kirsch, Brian. “A VMware licensing guide to expanding your environment.” TechTarget, August 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Kirupananthan, Arun. “5 reasons to get VMware licensing right.” Softchoice, 16 April 2018. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Knorr, Eric. “VMware on AWS: A one-way ticket to the cloud.” InfoWorld, 17 October 2016. Accessed 7 May 2018
Leipzig. “Help, an audit! License audits by VMware. Are you ready?” COMPAREX Group, 2 May 2016. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Mackie, Kurt. “VMware Rips Microsoft for Azure “Bare Metal” Migration Solution.” Redmond Magazine, 27 November 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Micromail. “VMware vSphere Software Licensing.” Micromail, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Microsoft Corportation. “Migrating VMware to Microsoft Azure” Microsoft Azure, November 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Peter. “Server Virtualization and OS Trends.” Spiceworks, 30 August 2016. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Rich. “VMware running on Azure.” The ITAM Review, 28 November 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Robb, Drew. “Everything you need to know about VMware’s licensing shake up.” Softchoice, 4 March 2016. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Rose, Brendan. “How to determine which VMware licensing option is best.” Softchoice, 28 July 2015. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Scholten, Eric. “New VMware licensing explained.” VMGuru, 12 July 2011. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Sharwood, Simon. “Microsoft to run VMware on Azure, on bare metal. Repeat. Microsoft to run VMware on Azure.” The Register, 22 November 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Siebert, Eric. “Top 7 VMware Management Challenges.” Veeam, n.d. Web.
Smith, Greg. “Will The Real HCI Market Leader Please Stand Up?” Nutanix, 29 September 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Spithoven, Richard. “Licensing Oracle software in VMware vCenter 6.0.” LinkedIn, 2 May 2016. Accessed 7 May 2018.
VMTurbo, Inc. “Licensing, Compliance & Audits in the Cloud Era.” Turbonomics, November 2015. Web.
VMware. “Aug 1st – Dec 31st 2016 Solution Provider Program Requirements & Incentives & Rewards.” VMware, n.d. Web.
VMware. “Global Support and Subscription Services “SnS” Renewals Policy.” VMware, n.d. Web.
VMware. “Support Policies.” VMware, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
VMware. “VMware Cloud Community.” VMware Cloud, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
VMware. “VMware Cloud on AWS” VMware Cloud, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
VMware. “VMware Enterprise Purchasing Program.” VMware, 2013. Web.
VMware. “VMware Product Guide.” VMware, May 2018. Web.
VMware. “VMware Volume Purchasing Program.” VMware, April 2019. Web.
VMware. "VMware Case Studies." VMware, n.d. Web.
Wiens, Rob. “VMware Enterprise Licensing – What You Need To Know. House of Brick, 14 April 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018
Apply zero trust to key protect surfaces. A successful zero trust strategy should evolve through an iterative and repeatable process by assessing the full spectrum of available technologies to apply zero trust principles to the most relevant protect surfaces.
Every organization should have a zero trust strategy and the roadmap to deploy it must always be tested and refined. Our unique approach:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
The storyboard contains five easy-to-follow steps on building a roadmap for implementing zero trust, from aligning initiatives to business goals to establishing metrics for measuring the progress and effectiveness of a zero trust implementation.
Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by having it focus on key protect surfaces that are aligned to the goals of the business.
Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by creating a roadmap that is aligned with the current state of the organization when it comes to zero trust and its desired target state.
Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by identifying the best solutions for zero trust initiatives.
Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by identifying metrics that will allow the organization to monitor how the zero trust implementation is progressing, and whether it is proving to be effective.
Use this template to present the zero trust strategy and roadmap to ensure all key elements are captured.
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.
Align business goals to protect surfaces.
A better understanding of how business goals can map to key protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements.
1.1 Understand business and IT strategy and plans.
1.2 Define business goals.
1.3 Identify five critical protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements.
1.4 Map business goals and protect surfaces.
Mapping of business goals to key protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements.
Identify and define zero trust initiatives.
A list of zero trust initiatives to be prioritized and set into a roadmap.
2.1 Assess current security capabilities and define the zero trust target state for a set of controls.
2.2 Identify tasks to close maturity gaps.
2.3 Assign tasks to zero trust initiatives.
Security capabilities current state assessment
Zero trust target state
Tasks to address maturity gaps
Complete the zero trust gap analysis and prioritize zero trust initiatives.
A prioritized list of zero trust initiatives aligned to business goals and key protect surfaces.
3.1 Align initiatives to business goals and key protect surfaces.
3.2 Conduct cost/benefit analysis on zero trust initiatives.
3.3 Prioritize initiatives.
Zero trust initiative list mapped to business goals and key protect surfaces
Prioritization of zero trust initiatives
Finalize the zero trust roadmap and begin to formulate zero trust policies for roadmap initiatives.
A zero trust roadmap of prioritized initiatives.
4.1 Define solution criteria.
4.2 Identify candidate solutions.
4.3 Evaluate candidate solutions.
4.4 Finalize roadmap.
4.5 Formulate policies for critical DAAS elements.
4.6 Establish metrics for high-priority initiatives.
Zero trust roadmap
Zero trust policies for critical protect surfaces
Method for defining zero trust policies for candidate solutions
Metrics for high-priority initiatives
For the longest time we have focused on reducing the attack surface to deter malicious actors from attacking organizations, but I dare say that has made these actors scream “challenge accepted.” With sophisticated tools, time, and money in their hands, they have embarrassed even the finest of organizations. A popular hybrid workforce and rapid cloud adoption have introduced more challenges for organizations, as the security and network perimeter have shifted and the internet is now the corporate network. Suffice it to say that a new mindset needs to be adopted to stay on top of the game.
The success of most attacks is tied to denial of service, data exfiltration, and ransom. A shift from focusing on the attack surface to the protect surface will help organizations implement an inside-out architecture that protects critical infrastructure, prevents the success of any attack, makes it difficult to gain access, and links directly to business goals.
Zero trust principles aid that shift across several pillars (Identity, Device, Application, Network, and Data) that make up a typical infrastructure; hence, the need for a zero trust roadmap to accomplish that which we desire for our organization.
Victor Okorie
Senior Research Analyst, Security and Privacy
Info-Tech Research Group
A successful zero trust strategy should evolve through an iterative and repeatable process by assessing the full spectrum of available technologies to apply zero trust principles to the most relevant protect surfaces.
On this zero trust journey, identify your valuable assets and zero trust controls to protect them.
Reduce attacker’s ability to move laterally
Enforce least privilege access to critical resources
Reduce enterprise attack surface
Organizations with a full implementation of zero trust saved 43% on the costs of data breaches.
(Source: Teramind, 2021)
Zero trust is considered key to the success of 96% of organizations in a survey conducted by Microsoft.
(Source: Microsoft, 2021)
“A cybersecurity paradigm focused on resource protection and the premise that trust is never granted implicitly but must be continually evaluated.”
Source: NIST, SP 800-207: Zero Trust Architecture, 2020
“An evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms that move defenses from static, network-based perimeters to focus on users, assets, and resources.”
Source: DOD, Zero Trust Reference Architecture, 2021
“A security model, a set of system design principles, and a coordinated cybersecurity and system management strategy based on an acknowledgement that threats exist both inside and outside traditional network boundaries.”
Source: NSA, Embracing a Zero Trust Security Model, 2021
“Zero trust provides a collection of concepts and ideas designed to minimize uncertainty in enforcing accurate, least privilege per-request access decisions in information systems and services in the face of a network viewed as compromised.”
Source: CISA, Zero Trust Maturity Model, 2021
“The foundational tenet of the zero trust model is that no actor, system, network, or service operating outside or within the security perimeter is trusted.”
Source: OMB, Moving the U.S. Government Toward Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles, 2022
Zero trust is an ideal in the literal sense of the word, because it is a standard defined by its perfection. Just as nothing in life is perfect, there is no measure that determines an organization is absolutely zero trust. The best organizations can do is improve their security iteratively and get as close to ideal as possible.
In the most current application of zero trust in the enterprise, a zero trust strategy applies a set of principles, including least-privilege access and per-request access enforcement, to minimize compromise to critical assets. A zero trust roadmap is a plan that leverages zero trust concepts, considers relationships between technical elements as well as security solutions, and applies consistent access policies to minimize areas of exposure.

Solutions offering zero trust often align with one of five pillars. A successful zero trust implementation may involve a combination of solutions, each protecting the various data, application, assets, and/or services elements in the protect surface.
Reduced business risks as continuous verification of identity, devices, network, applications, and data is embedded in the organizations practice.
36% of data breaches involved internal actors.
Source: Verizon, 2021
Reduced CapEx and OpEx due to the scalability, low staffing requirement, and improved time-to-respond to threats.
Source: SecurityBrief - Australia, 2020.
Helps achieve compliance with several privacy standards and regulations, improves maturity for cyber insurance premium, and fewer gaps during audits.
Scope of compliance reduced due to segmentation.
Reduced risk of data breach in any instance of a malicious attack as there’s no lateral movement, secure segment, and improved visibility.
10% Increase in data breach costs; costs went from $3.86 million to $4.24 million.
Source: IBM, 2021
1. Define Business Goals and Protect Surfaces |
2. Assess Key Capabilities and Identify Zero Trust Initiatives |
3. Evaluate Candidate Solutions and Finalize Roadmap |
4. Formulate Policies for Roadmap Initiatives |
5. Monitor the Zero Trust Roadmap Deployment |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Phase Steps |
Define business goals Identify critical DAAS elements Map business goals to critical DAAS elements |
|
|
|
|
Phase Outcomes |
Mapping of business goals to protect surfaces |
Gap analysis of security capabilities |
Evaluation of candidate solutions and a roadmap to close gaps |
Method for defining zero trust policies for candidate solutions |
Metrics for measuring the progress and efficiency of the zero trust implementation |
A successful zero trust strategy should evolve through an iterative and repeatable process by assessing the full spectrum of available technologies to apply zero trust principles to the most relevant protect surfaces.
Developing a zero trust roadmap collaboratively with business stakeholders enables alignment with upcoming business priorities and industry trends.
Deriving protect surface elements from business goals reframes how security controls are applied. Assess control effectiveness in this context and identify zero trust capabilities to close any gaps.
Don’t let your solution dictate your roadmap. Define your zero trust solution criteria before engaging in vendor selection.
The success of a zero trust implementation relies on consistent enforcement. Applying the Kipling methodology to each protect surface is the best way to design zero trust policies.
To measure the efficacy of a zero trust implementation, ensure you know what a successful zero trust implementation means for your organization, and define metrics that demonstrate whether that success is being realized.
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
Present your zero trust strategy in a prepopulated document that summarizes the work you have completed as a part of this blueprint.
Identify critical and vulnerable DAAS elements to protect and align them to business goals.
Perform a gap analysis between current and target states to build a zero trust roadmap.
Determine and evaluate candidate solutions based on defined criteria.
Develop metrics to track the progress and efficiency of the organization’s zero trust implementation.
Organizations with a mature implementation of zero trust saved 43%, or $1.76 million, on the costs of data breaches.
Source: IBM, 2021
In phase 2 of this blueprint, we will help you establish zero trust implementation tasks for your organization.
In phase 3, we will help you develop a game plan and a roadmap for implementing those tasks.

INDUSTRY: Government
SOURCE: Zero Trust Architecture Technical Exchange Meeting
NASA recognized the potential benefits of both adopting a zero trust architecture (including aligning with OMB FISMA and DHS CDM DEFEND) and improving NASA systems, especially those related to user experience with dynamic access, application security with sole access from proxy, and risk-based asset management with trust score. The trust score is continually evaluated from a combination of static factors, such as credential and biometrics, and dynamic factors, such as location and behavior analytics, to determine the level of access. The enhanced access mechanism is projected on use-case flows of users and external partners to analyze the required initiatives.
The lessons learned in adapting zero trust were:
NASA implemented zero trust architecture by leveraging the agency existing components on a roadmap with phases related to maturity. The initial development includes privileged access management, security user behavior analytics, and a proof-of-concept lab for evaluating the technologies.
Case Study Source: NASA, “Planning for a Zero Trust Architecture Target State,” 2019
“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.”
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 4 | Phase 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges. |
Call #3: |
Call #5: Identify and evaluate solution criteria. |
Call #7: |
Call #8: |
| Call #2: Identify business goals and protect surfaces. |
Call #4: |
Call #6: |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 2 to 4 months.
Contact your account representative for more information.workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Define Business Goals and Protect Surfaces |
Begin Gap Analysis |
Complete Gap Analysis |
Finalize Roadmap and Formulate Policies |
Next Steps and |
|
| Activities | 1.1 Understand business and IT strategy and plans. 1.2 Define business goals. 1.3 Identify five critical protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements. 1.4 Map business goals and protect surfaces. |
2.1 Assess current security capabilities and define the zero Trust target state for a set of controls. 2.2 Identify tasks to close maturity gaps. 2.3 Assign tasks to zero trust initiatives. |
3.1 Align initiatives to business goals and key protect surfaces. 3.2 Conduct cost/benefit analysis on zero trust initiatives. 3.3 Prioritize initiatives. |
4.1 Define solution criteria. 4.2 Identify candidate solutions. 4.3 Evaluate candidate solutions. 4.4 Finalize roadmap. 4.5 Formulate policies for critical DAAS elements. 4.6 Establish metrics for high-priority initiatives. |
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days. 5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps. |
| Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
|
Security and the business need to be in alignment when implementing zero trust. Defining the business goal helps rationalize the need for a zero trust implementation.
Download the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool
Developing a zero trust roadmap collaboratively with business stakeholders enables alignment with upcoming business priorities and industry trends.
Regardless of whether the user is accessing resources internally or externally, zero trust is posed to authenticate, authorize, and continuously verify the security policies and posture before access is granted or denied. Many network architecture can be local, cloud based, or hybrid and with users working from any location, there is no network perimeter as we knew it and the internet is now the corporate network.
Zero trust framework seeks to extend the perimeter-less security to the present digital transformation.
A protect surface can be described as what’s critical, most vulnerable, or most valuable to your organization. This protect surface could include at least one of the following – data, assets, applications, and services (DAAS) – that requires protection. This is also the area that zero trust policy is aimed to protect. Understanding what your protect surface is can help channel the required energy into protecting that which is crucial to the business, and this aligns with the shift from focusing on the attack surface to narrowing it down to a smaller and achievable area of protection.
Anything and everything that connects to the internet is a potential attack surface and pursuing every loophole will leave us one step behind due to lack of resources. Since a protect surface contains one or more DAAS element, the micro-perimeter is created around it and the appropriate protection is applied around it. As a team, we can ask ourselves this question when thinking of our protect surface: to what degree does my organization want me to secure things? The knowledge of the answer to this question can be tied to the risk tolerance level of the organization and it is only fair for us to engage the business in identifying what the protect surface should be.
The protect surface is a shift from focusing on the attack surface. DAAS elements show where the initiatives and controls associated with the zero trust pillars (Identity, Devices, Network, Application, and Data) need to be applied.
INDUSTRY: Healthcare
SOURCE: Info-Tech Research Group
This granular identification provides an opportunity to not only see what the protect surface and DAAS elements are but also understand where to apply security controls that align with the principle of zero trust as well as how the transaction flows. The application pillar initiatives will provide protection to the EPIC application and the device pillar initiatives will provide protection to the workstations and physical scanners. The identity pillar initiatives will apply protection to the active directory, and single sign-on services. The zero trust pillar initiatives align with the protection of the DAAS elements.
The protect surface is a shift from focusing on the attack surface as it creates a micro-perimeter for the application of zero trust policies on the system. This drastically reduces the success of an attack whether internally or externally, reduces the attack surface, and is also repeatable.
Download the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool
Download the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool
A best-of-breed approach ensures holistic coverage of your zero trust program while refraining from locking you into a specific reference.
Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
Refer to the Protect Surface Mapping Tool, copy the following elements from the Protect Surface tab.
Deriving protect surface elements from business goals reframes how security controls are applied. Assess control effectiveness in this context and identify zero trust capabilities to close any gaps.
Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
Maturity models are very effective for determining target states. This table provides general descriptions for each maturity level. As a group, consider which description most accurately reflects the ideal target state in your organization.
Initial/ad hoc security programs are reactive. Lacking strategic vision, these programs are less effective and less responsive to the needs of the business.
Developing security programs can be effective at what they do but are not holistic. Governance is largely absent. These programs tend to rely on the talents of individuals rather than a cohesive plan.
A defined security program is holistic, documented, and proactive. At least some governance is in place; however, metrics are often rudimentary and operational in nature. These programs still often rely on best practices rather than strong risk management.
Managed security programs have robust governance and metrics processes. Management and board-level metrics for the overall program are produced. These are reviewed by business leaders and drive security decisions. More mature risk management practices take the place of best practices.
An optimized security program is based on strong risk management practices, including the production of key risk indicators (KRIs). Individual security services are optimized using key performance indicators (KPIs) that continually measure service effectiveness and efficiency.
Make sure that the gap between target state and current state is achievable for the current zero trust roadmap. For instance, if you set your current maturity to 1 – Ad Hoc, then having a target maturity of 4 – Managed or 5 – Optimized is not recommended due to the big jump.
Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
Make sure that the Gap Closure Tasks are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound).
Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
In the example below, we see three gap closure tasks within the Authentication process for the Identity pillar being consolidated into a single initiative “IAM modernization.”
We can also see three gap closure tasks within the Micro Segmentation process for the Network pillar being grouped into another initiative “Network segmentation.”

As you go through this exercise, you may find that some tasks that you previously defined could be consolidated into an initiative.

If the list of tasks is too long for the Description column, then you can also shorten the name of the tasks or group several tasks to a more general task.
Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
Don’t let your solution dictate your roadmap. Define your zero trust solution criteria before engaging in vendor selection.
Download the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool
On the Setup tab, provide a weight for each evaluation criterion to evaluate the candidate solutions. You can use “0%” weight if that criterion is not required in your solution selection.
On the Setup tab, provide a weight for each evaluation criterion to evaluate the candidate solutions. You can use “0%” weight if that criterion is not required in your solution selection.
| Awareness | Education & Discovery | Evaluation | Selection | Negotiation & Configuration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 Proactively Lead Technology Optimization & Prioritization | 2.1 Understand Marketplace Capabilities & Trends | 3.1 Gather & Prioritize Requirements & Establish Key Success Metrics | 4.1 Create a Weighted Vendor Selection Decision Model | 5.1 Initiate Price Negotiation With Top |
| 1.2 Scope & Define the Selection Process for Each Selection Request Action | 2.2 Discover Alternative Solutions & Conduct Market Education | 3.2 Conduct a Data-Driven Comparison of Vendor Features & Capabilities | 4.2 Conduct Investigative Interviews Focused on Mission Critical Priorities With Top 2-4 Vendors | 5.2 Negotiate Contract Terms & Product Configuration Two Vendors Selected |
| 1.3 Conduct an Accelerated Business Needs Assessment | 2.3 Evaluate Enterprise Architecture & Application Portfolio | 3.3 Narrow the Field to Four Top Contenders | 4.3 Validate Key Issues With Deep Technical Assessments, Trial Configuration & Reference Checks | 5.3 Finalize Budget Approval & Project Implementation Timeline |
| 1.4 Align Stakeholder Calendars to Reduce Elapsed Time & Asynchronous Evaluation | 2.4 Validate the Business Case | 5.4 Invest in Training & Onboarding Assistance |
The Data Quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions.

Vendors are ranked by their Composite Score, based on individual feature evaluations, user satisfaction rankings, vendor capability comparisons, and likeliness to recommend the platform.

The Emotional Footprint is a powerful indicator of overall user sentiment toward the relationship with the vendor, capturing data across five dimensions.

Vendors are ranked by their Customer Experience (CX) Score, which combines the overall Emotional Footprint rating with a measure of the value delivered by the solution.


Add a description associated with the candidate solution, e.g. reference link to vendors or manufacturers. This will make it easier to perform the evaluation.
On the Scoring tab, evaluate solution features, usability, affordability, and architecture using the instructions on the following slides. This activity will produce a solution score that can be used to identify the suitability of a solution.
After all candidate solutions are evaluated, the Solution Score column can be sorted to rank the candidate solutions. After sorting, the top solutions can be used on prioritization of initiatives on Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.
Use Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.
The Cost / Effort Rating is calculated based on the weight defined on step 2.1.1. The Benefit Rating is calculated based on the weight defined on step 2.1.2.
Use Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.
The Benefits-Cost column will give results after comparing the cost and the benefit. Negative value means that the cost outweighs the benefit. Positive value means that the benefit outweighs the cost. Zero value means that the cost equals the benefit.
An effort map is a tool used for the visualization of a cost and benefit analysis. It is a quadrant output that visually shows how your gap initiatives were prioritized based on tab 7 in the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.
Once the effort map is complete, work to further simplify the visual output by categorizing initiatives based on the quadrant in which they have been placed.


In the example below, we see “IAM modernization” was assessed as 9 on cost/effort rating and 5 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a positive value of 1. We can label this as SHOULD DO (wave 2).
We can also see “Network segmentation” was assessed as 6 on cost/effort rating and 4 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a positive value of 2. We can label this as MUST DO (wave 1).
We can also see “Unified Endpoints Management” was assessed as 8 on cost/effort rating and 2 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a negative value of -4. We can label this as WON’T DO (no wave).
We can also see “Data Protection” was assessed as 4 on cost/effort rating and 2 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a zero value. We can label this as COULD DO (wave 3).

It is recommended to define the threshold of each wave based on the value of Benefits-Cost before assigning waves.


This table provides you with the information to have important conversations with management and stakeholders.

| Who | Who should access a resource? Here, the user ID that identifies the users through the principle of least privilege is allowed access to a particular resource. The authentication policy will be used to verify identity of a user when access request to a resource is made. Who requires MFA? |
|---|---|
| What | What application is used to access the resource? Application ID to identify applications that are only allowed on the network. Port control policies can be used for the application service. |
| When | When do users access the resource? Policy that identifies and enforces time schedule when an application accessed by users is used. |
| Where | Where is the resource located? The location of the destination resource should be added to the policy and, where possible, restrict the source of the traffic either by zone and/or IP address. |
| Why | Why is the data accessed? Data classification should be done to know why the data needs protection and the type of protection (data filtering). |
| How | How should you allow access to the resource? This covers the protection of the application traffic. Principle of least privilege access, log all traffic, configure security profiles, NGFW, decryption and encryption, consistent application of policy and threat prevention across all locations for all local and remote users on managed and unmanaged endpoints are ways to apply content-ID. |
The success of a zero trust implementation relies on enforcing policies consistently. Applying the Kipling methodology to the protect surface is the best way to design zero trust policies.
| Who | What | When | Where | Why | How | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | User-ID | App-ID | Time limit | System Object | Classification | Content-ID |
| On-Prem | Pyxis_Users | Pyxis | Any | Pyxis_server | Severe (high value data) | Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic |
| Cloud | Sales | Salesforce | Working hours | Canada | Severe (high value data) | Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic |
| Who | What | When | Where | Why | How | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | User-ID | App-ID | Time limit | System Object | Classification | Content-ID |
| Who | What | When | Where | Why | How | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | User-ID | App-ID | Time limit | System Object | Classification | Content-ID |
| Who | What | When | Where | Why | How | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | User-ID | App-ID | Time limit | System Object | Classification | Content-ID |
This component makes up the final piece of formulating the policies as it applies the protection of the application traffic.
The principle of least privilege is applied to the security policy to only allow access requests and restrict the access to the purpose it serves. This access request is then logged as well as the traffic (both internal and external). Most firewalls (NGFW) have policy rules that, by default, enable logging.
Segmentation gateways (NGFW, VM-series firewalls, agent-based and clientless VPN solutions), are used to apply zero trust policy (Kipling methodology) in the network, cloud, and endpoint (managed and unmanaged) for all local and remote users.
These policies need to be applied to security profiles on all allowed traffic. Some of these profiles include but are not limited to the following: URL filtering profile for web access and protect against phishing attacks, vulnerability protection profile intrusion prevention systems, anti spyware profiles to protect against command-and-control threats, malware and antivirus profile to protect against malware, and a file blocking profile to block and/or alert suspicious file types.
Good visibility on your network can also be tied to decryption as you can inspect traffic and data to the lowest level possible that is generally accepted by your organization and in compliance with regulation.
With users working from anywhere on managed and unmanaged devices, access to the internet, SAAS, public cloud, and the data center will have consistent policies applied regardless of their location.
The policy is validating that the user is who they say they are based on the role profile, what they are trying to access to make sure their role or attribute profile has the appropriate permission to the application, and within the stipulated time limit. Where the data or application is located is also verified and the why needs to be satisfied before the requested access is granted. Based on the mentioned policies, the how element is then applied throughout the lifecycle of the access.
Who (Internet) |
What (SAAS) |
When | Where (Public Cloud) |
Why | How (Data Center) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | User-ID | App-ID | Time limit | System Object | Classification | Content-ID |
| On-Prem | Pyxis_Users | Pyxis | Any | Pyxis_server | Severe (high value data) | Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic |
| Cloud | Sales | Salesforce | Working hours | Canada | Severe (high value data) | Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic |

To measure the efficacy of a zero trust implementation, ensure you know what a successful zero trust implementation means for your organization, and define metrics that demonstrate whether that success is being realized.
For each metric defined in step 4.1.1:
On tab “3. Track Metrics” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool:

On tab “4. Graphs” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool:
Copy and paste desired graphs into presentations for audience members identified in step 5.1.2.
Leverage the Zero Trust Communication Deck to showcase the work that you have done in the tools and activities associated with this research.
In this communication deck template, you will find the following sections:
If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop
Contact your account representative for more information
workshops@infotech.com
1-888-670-8889
To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
Contact your account representative for more information.

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

Assess current security capabilities and build a roadmap of tasks and initiatives that close maturity gaps.

Identify and track metrics for zero trust tasks and initiatives.

Build an Information Security Strategy
Info-Tech has developed a highly effective approach to building an information security strategy – an approach that has been successfully tested and refined for over seven years with hundreds of organizations. This unique approach includes tools for ensuring alignment with business objectives, assessing organizational risk and stakeholder expectations, enabling a comprehensive current-state assessment, prioritizing initiatives, and building out a security roadmap.

Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness
IT security was typified by perimeter security. However, the way the world does business has mandated a change to IT security. In response, zero trust is a set of principles that can add flexibility to planning your IT security strategy.
Use this blueprint to determine your zero trust readiness and understand how zero trust can benefit both security and the business.

Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program
Many organizations are looking to improve their identity and access management (IAM) practices but struggle with where to start and whether all areas of IAM have been considered. This blueprint will help you improve the organization's identity and access management practices by following our three-phase methodology:
This blueprint can help you:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This blueprint will help you achieve a single view of your most important data assets by following our two-phase methodology:
This tool will help you determine if your organization has a master data problem and if an MDM project should be undertaken.
The tool will help you identify the sources of data within the business unit and use the typical properties of master data to determine which data should be classified as master data.
The template will help you communicate your organization's specific pains surrounding poor management of master data and identify and communicate the benefits of effective MDM. Communicate Info-Tech's approach for creating an effective MDM practice and platform.
The project charter will help you document the project sponsor of the project. Identify purpose, goals, and objectives. Identify the project risks. Build a cross-functional project team and assign responsibilities. Define project team expectations and meeting frequency. Develop a timeline for the project with key milestones. Identify metrics for tracking success. Receive approval for the project.
This template will assist you:
The master data management practice pattern describes the core capabilities, accountabilities, processes, essential roles, and the elements that provide oversight or governance of the practice, all of which are required to deliver on high value services and deliverables or output for the organization.
This template will assist you:
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.
Identification of MDM and why it is important.
Differentiate between reference data and master data.
Discuss and understand the key challenges and pains felt by the business and IT with respect to master data, and identify the opportunities MDM can provide to the business.
Identification of what is and is not master data.
Understand the value of MDM and how it can help the organization better monetize its data.
Knowledge of how master data can benefit both IT and the business.
1.1 Establish business context for master data management.
1.2 Assess the value, benefits, challenges, and opportunities associated with MDM.
1.3 Develop the vision, purpose, and scope of master data management for the business.
1.4 Identify MDM enablers.
1.5 Interview business stakeholders.
High-level data requirements
Identification of business priorities
Project vision and scope
Recognize business drivers for MDM.
Determine where master data lives and how this data moves within the organization.
Streamline business process, map the movement of data, and achieve a common understanding across the company.
Identify the source of master data and what other systems will contribute to the MDM system.
2.1 Evaluate the risks and value of critical data.
2.2 Map and understand the flow of data within the business.
2.3 Identify master data sources and users.
2.4 Document the current architectural state of the organization.
Data flow diagram with identified master data sources and users
Business data glossary
Documented current data state.
Document the target data state of the organization surrounding MDM.
Identify key initiatives and metrics.
Recognition of four MDM implementation styles.
Identification of key initiatives and success metrics.
3.1 Document the target architectural state of the organization.
3.2 Develop alignment of initiatives to strategies.
3.3 Consolidate master data management initiatives and strategies.
3.4 Develop a project timeline and define key success measures.
Documented target state surrounding MDM.
Data and master data management alignment and strategies
Get a clear picture of what the organization wants to get out of MDM.
Identify master data management capabilities, accountabilities, process, roles, and governance.
Prioritized master data management capabilities, accountabilities, process, roles, and governance.
4.1 Identify master data management capabilities, roles, process, and governance.
4.2 Build a master data management practice and platform.
Master Data Management Practice and Platform
|
The most crucial and shared data assets inside the firm must serve as the foundation for the data maturing process. This is commonly linked to your master data (such as customers, products, employees, and locations). Every organization has master data, but not every organization has a master data problem. Don't waste time or resources before determining the source of your master data problem. Master data issues are rooted in the business practices of your organization (such as mergers and acquisitions and federated multi-geographic operations). To address this issue, you will require a master data management (MDM) solution and the necessary architecture, governance, and support from very senior champions to ensure the long-term success of your MDM initiative. Approaching MDM with a clear blueprint that provides a step-by-step approach will aid in the development of your MDM practice and platform. |
|
|
Ruyi Sun |
Rajesh Parab |
|
Your Challenge |
Common Obstacles |
Info-Tech’s Approach |
|---|---|---|
|
Your organization is experiencing data challenges, including:
|
MDM is useful in situations such as a business undergoing a merger or acquisition, where a unique set of master data needs to be created to act as a single source of truth. However, having a unified view of the definitions and systems of record for the most critical data in your organization can be difficult to achieve. An organization might experience some pain points:
|
|
Info-Tech Insight
Everybody has master data (e.g. customer, product) but not a master data problem (e.g. duplicate customers and products). MDM is complex in practice and requires investments in data governance, data architecture, and data strategy. Identifying business outcomes based on quality master data is essential before you pull the trigger on an MDM solution.
Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework Adapted from DAMA-DMBOK and Advanced Knowledge Innovations Global Solutions. See Create a Data Management Roadmap blueprint for more information.
|
Customer Intimacy |
Innovation Leadership |
Risk Management |
Operational Excellence |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Improve marketing and the customer experience by using the right data from the system of record to analyze complete customer views of transactions, sentiments, and interactions. |
Gain insights on your products, services, usage trends, industry directions, and competitor results, and use these data artifacts to support decisions on innovations, new products, services, and pricing. |
Maintain more transparent and accurate records and ensure that appropriate rules are followed to support audit, compliance, regulatory, and legal requirements. Monitor data usage to avoid fraud. |
Make sure the right solution is delivered rapidly and consistently to the right parties for the right price and cost structure. Automate processes by using the right data to drive process improvements. |
|
85% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments (Salesforce, 2022). |
Top-decile economic performers are 20% more likely to have a common source of data that serves as the single source of truth across the organization compared to their peers (McKinsey & Company, 2021). |
Only 6% of board members believe they are effective in managing risk (McKinsey & Company, 2018). |
32% of sales and marketing teams consider data inconsistency across platforms as their biggest challenge (Dun & Bradstreet, 2022). |
On average, 25 different data sources are used for generating customer insights and engagement.
On average, 16 different technology applications are used to leverage customer data.
Source: Deloitte Digital, 2020
Changes in business process often come with challenges for CIOs and IT leaders. From an IT perspective, there are several common business operating models that can result in multiple sets of master data being created and held in various locations. Some examples could be:
In such situations, implementing an MDM solution helps achieve harmonization and synchronization of master data and provide a single, reliable, and precise view of the organization. However, MDM is a complex system that requires more than just a technical solution. An organization might experience the following pain points:
Building a successful MDM initiative can be a large undertaking that takes some preparation before starting. Understanding the fundamental roles that data governance, data architecture, and data strategy play in MDM is essential before the implementation.
“Only 3 in 10 of respondents are completely confident in their company's ability to deliver a consistent omnichannel experience.”
Source: Dun & Bradstreet, 2022
Overarching insight
Everybody has master data (e.g. customer, product) but not a master data problem (e.g. duplicate customers and products). MDM is complex in practice and requires investments in data governance, data architecture, and data strategy. Figuring out what the organization needs out of its master data is essential before you pull the trigger on an MDM solution.
Phase 1 insight
A master data management solution will assist you in solving master data challenges if your organization is large or complex, such as a multinational corporation or a company with multiple product lines, with frequent mergers and acquisitions, or adopting a digital transformation strategy such as omnichannel.
Organizations often have trouble getting started because of the difficulty of agreeing on the definition of master data within the enterprise. Reference data is an easy place to find that common ground.
While the organization may have data that fits into more than one master data domain, it does not necessarily need to be mastered. Determine what master data entities your organization needs.
Although it is easy to get distracted by the technical aspects of the MDM project – such as extraction and consolidation rules – the true goal of MDM is to make sure that the consumers of master data (such as business units, sales) have access to consistent, relevant, and trusted shared data.
Phase 2 insight
An organization with activities such as mergers and acquisitions or multi-ERP systems poses a significant master data challenge. Prioritize your master data practice based on your organization’s ability to locate and maintain a single source of master data.
Leverage modern capabilities such as artificial intelligence or machine learning to support large and complex MDM deployments.
|
1. Build a Vision for MDM |
2. Build an MDM Practice and Platform |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Phase Steps |
|
|
|
Phase Participants |
CIO, CDO, or IT Executive Head of the Information Management Practice Business Domain Representatives |
Enterprise Architecture Domain Architects Information Management MDM Experts Data Stewards or Data Owners |
|
Phase Outcomes |
This step identifies the essential concepts around MDM, including its definitions, your readiness, and prioritized master data domains. This will ensure the MDM initiatives are aligned to business goals and objectives. |
To begin addressing the MDM project, you must understand your current and target data state in terms of data architecture and data governance surrounding your MDM strategy. With all these considerations in mind, design your organizational MDM practice and platform. |
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
1. MDM Readiness Assessment Tool
|
2. Business Needs Assessment Tool
|
3. Business Case Presentation Template
|
4. Project Charter Template
|
5. Architecture Design Template
|
6. MDM Practice Pattern Template
7. MDM Platform Template
Define the intentional relationships between the business and the master data through a well-thought-out master data platform and practice.
In phase 1 of this blueprint, we will help you establish the business context and master data needs.
In phase 2, we will help you document the current and target state of your organization and develop a practice and platform so that master data is well managed to deliver on those defined metrics.
|
Sample Metrics |
Method of Calculation |
|---|---|
|
Master Data Sharing Availability and Utilization |
# of Business Lines That Use Master Data |
|
Master Data Sharing Volume |
# of Master Entities # of Key Elements, e.g. # of Customers With Many Addresses |
|
Master Data Quality and Compliance |
# of Duplicate Master Data Records Identified Sources That Contribute to Master Data Quality Issues # of Master Data Quality Issues Discovered or Resolved # of Non-Compliance Issues |
|
Master Data Standardization/Governance |
# of Definitions for Each Master Entity # of Roles (e.g. Data Stewards) Defined and Created |
|
Trust and Satisfaction |
Trust Indicator, e.g. Confidence Indicator of Golden Record |
“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.”
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|
|
Call #1: Identify master data problem and assess your organizational readiness for MDM. Call #2: Define master data domains and priorities. Call #3: Determine business requirements for MDM. Call #4: Develop a strategic vision for the MDM project. Call #5: Map and understand the flow of data within the business. |
Call #6: Document current architectural state. Call #7: Discover the MDM implementation styles of MDM and document target architectural state. Call #8: Create MDM data practice and platform. Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps. |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Develop a Vision for the MDM Project |
Document the |
Document the |
Develop a MDM Practice and Platform |
Next Steps and |
|
|
Activities |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
|
Objectives
1. Build a solid foundation of knowledge surrounding MDM.
2. Recognize MDM problems that the organization faces in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, omnichannel, multi-product line, and multi-ERP setups.
This step involves the following participants:
CIO, CDO, or IT Executive
Head of Information Management
Outcomes of this step
An understanding of master data, MDM, and the prerequisites necessary to create an MDM program.
Determine if there is a need for MDM in the organization.
Info-Tech analyzes the value of data through the lenses of its four distinct classes: Master, Transactional, Operational, and Reference.
|
Master |
Transactional |
Operational |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Organizational buy-in
Understanding the existing data environment
Before starting to look at technology solutions, make sure you have organizational buy-in and an understanding of the existing data environment. These two prerequisites are the foundation for MDM success.
MDM can be approached in two ways: analytical and operational.
Think of it in the context of your own organization:
An investment in MDM will improve the opportunities for using the organization’s most valuable data assets, including opportunities like:
9.5% of revenue was at risk when bad experiences were offered to customers.
85% In a survey of nearly 17,000 consumers and business buyers, 85% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments.
Yet, 60% of customer say it generally feels like sales, service, and marketing teams do not share information.
What is a business without the customer? Positive customer service experience drives customer retention, satisfaction, and revenue growth, and ultimately, determines the success of the organization. Effective MDM can improve customer experiences by providing consistent interactions and the ability to meet customer expectations.
61% of customers say they would switch to a competitor after just one bad customer service experience.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A)
M&A involves activities related to the consolidation of two companies. From IT’s perspective, whether the organization maintains different IT systems and applications in parallel or undergoes data integration process, it is common to have multiple instances of the same customer or product entity across different systems between companies, leading to incomplete, duplicate, and conflicting data sets. The organization may face challenges in both operational and analytical aspects. For many, the objective is to create a list of master data to have a single view of the organization.
Multiple-instance ERP or multinational organizations
Multiple-instance ERP solutions are commonly used by businesses that operate globally to accommodate each country’s needs or financial systems (Brightwork Research). With MDM, having a single source of truth could be a great advantage in certain business units to collaborate globally, such as sharing inventory coding systems to allow common identity and productive resource allocation and shared customer information for analytical purposes.
Multiple product lines of business
An example for firms that sells multiple product lines could be Nike’s multiple product lines including footwear, clothing, and equipment. Keeping track of many product lines is a constant challenge for organizations in terms of inventory management, vendor database, and a tracking system. The ability to track and maintain your product data accurately and consistently is crucial for a successful supply chain (whether in a warehouse, distribution center, or retail office), which leads to improved customer satisfaction and increased sales.
Info-Tech Insight
A master data management solution will assist you in solving master data challenges if your organization is large or complex such as a multinational corporation or a company with multiple product lines, frequent mergers and acquisitions, or adopting a digital transformation strategy such as omnichannel.
Omni-channel
In e-commerce and retail industry, omnichannel means a business strategy that offers seamless shopping experiences across all channels, such as in-store, mobile, and online (Oracle). This also means the company needs to provide consistent information on orders, inventory, pricing, and promotions to customers and keep the customer records up to date. The challenges of omnichannel include having to synchronize data across channels and systems such as ERP, CRM, and social media. MDM becomes a solution for the success of an omnichannel strategy that refers to the same source of truth across business functions and channels.
30 Minutes

Download the MDM Readiness Assessment Tool
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Identify the Master Data Domains
Objectives
Determine which data domain contains the most critical master data in the organization for an MDM strategy.
This step involves the following participants:
Business Domain Representatives
Data Stewards or Data Owners
Information Management Team
Outcomes of this step
Determine the ideal data domain target for the organization based on where the business is experiencing the largest pains related to master data and where it will see the most benefit from MDM.
Info-Tech Insight
Organizations often have trouble getting started because of the difficulty of agreeing on the definition of master data within the enterprise. Reference data is an easy place to find that common ground.
A successful implementation of MDM depends on the careful selection of the data element to be mastered. As departments often have different interests, establishing a standard set of data elements can lead to a lot of discussion. When selecting what data should be considered master data, consider the following:
Begin by documenting the existing data sources within the organization.
Use Info-Tech’s Master Data Management Business Needs Assessment Tool to determine master data sources.
Info-Tech Insight
While the organization may have data that fits into more than one master data domain, it does not necessarily need to be mastered. Determine what master data entities your organization needs.
More perspectives to consider and define which data is your master data.
|
Internally Created Entities |
Externally Created Entities |
Large Non-Recurring Transactions |
Categories/Relationships/ Hierarchies/Aggregational Patterns |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
Parties
|
Product
|
|
Financial
|
Locations
|
Single Domain vs. Multi-Domain
2 hours
Use the Master Data Management Business Needs Assessment Tool to assist you in determining the master data domains present in your organization and the suggested domain(s) for your MDM solution.
Download the MDM Business Needs Assessment Tool
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Objectives
1. Understand the true goal of MDM – ensuring that the needs of the master data users in the organization are fulfilled.
2. Create a plan to obtain organizational buy-in for the MDM initiative.
3. Organize and officialize your project by documenting key metrics, responsibilities, and goals for MDM.
This step involves the following participants:
CEO, CDO, or CIO
Business Domain Representatives
Information Management Team
Outcomes of this step
Obtain business buy-in and direction for the MDM initiative.
Create the critical foundation plans that will guide you in evaluating, planning, and implementing your immediate and long-term MDM goals.
Make sure the whole organization is involved throughout the project.
Keep the priorities of the users of master data at the forefront of your MDM initiative.
Info-Tech Insight
Although it is easy to get distracted by the technical aspects of the MDM project – such as extraction and consolidation rules – the true goal of MDM is to make sure that the consumers of master data (such as business units, sales reps) have access to consistent, relevant, and trusted shared data.
1 hours
Instructions
Tactical Tips
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Info-Tech Insight
Prevent the interviews from being just a venue for the business to complain about data by opening the discussion of having them share current concerns and then focus the second half on what they would like to do with data and how they see master data assets supporting their strategic plans.
MDM exists to enable the success of the organization as a whole, not just as a technology venture. To be successful in the MDM initiative, IT must understand how MDM will help the critical aspects of the business. Likewise, the business must understand why it is important to them to ensure long-term support of the project.
“If an organization only wants to look at MDM as a tech project, it will likely be a failure. It takes a very strong business and IT partnership to make it happen.”
– Julie Hunt, Software Industry Analyst, Hub Designs Magazine
1-2 hours
Objectives
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Download the MDM Business Case Presentation Template
Use this master document to centralize the critical information regarding the objectives, staffing, timeline, budget, and expected outcome of the project.
1. MDM Vision and Mission
Overview
Define the value proposition behind addressing master data strategies and developing the organization's master data management practice.
Consider
Why is this project critical for the business?
Why should this project be done now, instead of delayed further down the road?
2. Goals or Objectives
Overview
Your goals and objectives should be practical and measurable. Goals and objectives should be mapped back to the reasons for MDM that we identified in the Executive Brief.
Example Objectives
Align the organization’s IT and business capabilities in MDM to the requirements of the organization’s business processes and the data that supports it.
3. Expected Outcomes
Overview
Master data management as a concept can change based on the organization and with definitions and expectations varying heavily for individuals. Ensure alignment at the outset of the project by outlining and attaining agreement on the expectations and expected outcomes (deliverables) of the project.
Recommended Outcomes
Outline of an action plan
Documented data strategies
4. Outline of Action Plan
Overview
Document the plans for your project in the associated sections of the project charter to align with the outcomes and deliverables associated with the project. Use the sample material in the charter and the “Develop Your Timeline for the MDM Project” section to support developing your project plans.
Recommended Project Scope
Align master data MDM plan with the business.
Document current and future architectural state of MDM.
Download the MDM Project Charter Template
5. Identify the Resourcing Requirements
Overview
Create a project team that has representation of both IT and the business (this will help improve alignment and downstream implementation planning).
Business Roles to Engage
Data owners (for subject area data)
Data stewards who are custodians of business data (related to subject areas evaluated)
Data scientists or other power users who are heavy consumers of data
IT Roles to Engage
Data architect(s)
Any data management professionals who are involved in modeling data, managing data assets, or supporting the systems in which the data resides.
Database administrators or data warehousing architects with a deep knowledge of data operations.
Individuals responsible for data governance.
Objectives
1. Understand roles that data strategy, data governance, and data architecture play in MDM.
2. Document the organization’s current data state for MDM.
This step involves the following participants:
Data Stewards or Data Custodians
Data or Enterprise Architect
Information Management Team
Outcomes of this step
Document the organization’s current data state, understanding the business processes and movement of data across the company.
For more information, see Info-Tech Research Group’s Establish Data Governance blueprint.
Regardless of the maturity of the organization or the type of MDM project being undertaken, all three representatives must be present and independent. Effective communication between them is also necessary.
|
Technology Representative |
Governance Representative |
Business Representative |
|---|---|---|
|
Role ensures:
|
Role ensures:
|
Role ensures:
|
The following roles need to be created and maintained for effective MDM:
Data Owners are accountable for:
Data Stewards are responsible for:
Match-Merge Rules vs. Match-Link Rules
Match-Merge Rules
Match-Link Rules
Data quality is directly impacted by architecture.
Before designing the MDM architecture, consider:
“Having an architectural oversight and reference model is a very important step before implementing the MDM solutions.”
– Selwyn Samuel, Director of Enterprise Architecture
2-3 hours
Populate the template with your current organization's data components and the business flow that forms the architecture.
Think about the source of master data and what other systems will contribute to the MDM system.
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Download the MDM Architecture Design Template ArchiMate file
Objectives
1. Understand four implementation styles for MDM deployments.
2. Document target MDM implementation systems.
This step involves the following participants:
Data Stewards or Data Custodians
Data or Enterprise Architect
Information Management Team
Outcomes of this step
Document the organization’s target architectural state surrounding MDM, identifying the specific MDM implementation style.
Understanding the data sources present in the organization and how the business organizes and uses this data is critical to implementing a successful MDM strategy.
Operational MDM
Analytical MDM
Discovery of master data is the same for both approaches, but the end use is very different.
The approaches are often combined by technologically mature organizations, but analytical MDM is generally more expensive due to increased complexity.
Info-Tech Research Group’s Reference MDM Architecture uses a top-down approach.
A top-down approach shows the interdependent relationship between layers – one layer of functionality uses services provided by the layers below, and in turn, provides services to the layers above.
The MDM service layers that make up the hub are:
All MDM architectures will contain a system of entry, a system of record, and in most cases, a system of reference. Collectively, these systems identify where master data is authored and updated and which databases will serve as the authoritative source of master data records.
|
System of Entry (SOE) |
System of Record (SOR) |
System of Reference (SORf) |
|---|---|---|
|
Any system that creates master data. It is the point in the IT architecture where one or more types of master data are entered. For example, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application is used as a system of entry for information about business entities like products (product master data) and suppliers (supplier master data). |
The system designated as the authoritative data source for enterprise data. The true system of record is the system responsible for authoring and updating master data and this is normally the SOE. An ideal MDM system would contain and manage a single, up-to-date copy of all master data. This database would provide timely and accurate business information to be used by the relevant applications. In these cases, one or more SOE applications (e.g. customer relationship management or CRM) will be declared the SOR for certain types of data. The SOR can be made up of multiple physical subsystems. |
A replica of master data that can be synchronized with the SOR(s). It is updated regularly to resolve discrepancies between data sets, but will not always be completely up to date. Changes in the SOR are typically batched and then transmitted to the SORf. When a SORf is implemented, it acts as the authoritative source of enterprise data, given that it is updated and managed relative to the SOR. The SORf can only be used as a read-only source for data consumers. |
These styles are complementary and see increasing functionality; however, organizations do not need to start with consolidation.
Consolidation | Registry | Coexistence | Transactional | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
What It Means | The MDM is a system of reference (application systems serve as the systems of record). Data is created and stored in the applications and sent (generally in batch mode) to a centralized MDM system. | The MDM is a system of reference. Master data is created and stored in the application systems, but key master data identifiers are linked with the MDM system, which allows a view of master data records to be assembled. | The MDM is a system of reference. Master data is created and stored in application systems; however, an authoritative record of master data is also created (through matching) and stored in the MDM system. | The MDM is a genuine source of record. All master data records are centrally authored and materialized in the MDM system. |
Use Case | This style is ideal for:
| This style is ideal for:
| This style is ideal for:
| This style is ideal for:
|
Method of Use | Analytical | Operational | Analytical, operational, or collaborative | Analytical, operational, or collaborative |
Master data is created and stored in application systems and then placed in a centralized MDM hub that can be used for reference and reporting.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Master data is created and stored in applications. Key identifiers are then linked to the MDM system and used as reference for operational systems.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Master data is created and stored in existing systems and then synced with the MDM system to create an authoritative record of master data.
Advantages
Disadvantages
All master data records are materialized in the MDM system, which provides the organization with a single, complete source of master data at all times.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Architecture is not static – it must be able to adapt to changing business needs.
2-3 hours
Populate the template with your target organization’s data architecture.
Highlight new capabilities and components that MDM introduced based on MDM implementation style.
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Objectives
1. Review Info-Tech’s practice pattern and design your master data management practice.
2. Design your master data management platform.
3. Consider next steps for the MDM project.
This step involves the following participants:
Data Stewards or Data Custodians
Data or Enterprise Architect
Information Management Team
Outcomes of this step
Define the key services and outputs that must be delivered by establishing core capabilities, accountabilities, roles, and governance for the practice and platform.
The master data management practice pattern describes the core capabilities, accountabilities, processes, and essential roles and the elements that provide oversight or governance of the practice, all of which are required to deliver on high-value services and deliverables or output for the organization.
Download the Master Data Management Practice Pattern Template ArchiMate File
Guidelines for designing and establishing your various data practices.
A master data management practice pattern includes key services and outputs that must be delivered by establishing core capabilities, accountabilities, roles, and governance for the practice.
Assumption:
The accountabilities and responsibilities for the master data management practice have been established and assigned to a practice lead.
Download the Master Data Management Practice Pattern Template ArchiMate File
Info-Tech Insight
An organization with heavy merger and acquisition activity poses a significant master data challenge. Prioritize your master data practice based on your organization’s ability to locate and maintain a single source of master data.
4.1 Define services and accountabilities
4.2 Define processes and deliverables by stakeholder
4.3 Design practice operating model
4.4 Perform skills inventory and design roles
4.5 Determine practice governance and metrics
4.6 Summarize practice capabilities
Download and Update:
Process Template: MDM Conflict Resolution
The operating model is a visualization of how MDM commonly operates and the value it brings to the organization. It illustrates the master data flow, which works from left to right, from source system to consumption layer. Another important component of the model is the business data glossary, which is part of your data governance plan, to define terminology and master data’s key characteristics across business units.
An MDM platform should include certain core technical capabilities:
Other requirements may include:
Info-Tech Research Group’s MDM platform summarizes an organization’s data environment and the technical capabilities that should be taken into consideration for your organization's MDM implementation.
2-3 hours
Instructions
Download the Master Data Management Platform Template.
The platform is not static. Adapt the template to your own needs based on your target data state, required technical capabilities, and business use cases.
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
|
|
| Materials | Participants |
|
|
Download the MDM Platform Template
There are several deployment options for MDM platforms; pick the one best suited to the organization’s business needs:
|
On-Premises Solutions |
Cloud Solutions |
Hybrid Solutions |
Embrace the technology |
|---|---|---|---|
|
MDM has traditionally been an on-premises initiative. On-premises solutions have typically had different instances for various divisions. On-premises solutions offer interoperability and consistency. Many IT teams of larger companies prefer an on-premises implementation. They want to purchase a perpetual MDM software license, install it on hardware systems, configure and test the MDM software, and maintain it on an ongoing basis. |
Cloud MDM solutions can be application-specific or platform-specific, which involves using a software platform or web-based portal interface to connect internal and external data. Cloud is seen as a more cost-effective MDM solution as it doesn’t require a large IT staff to configure the system and can be paid for through a monthly subscription. Because many organizations are averse to storing their master data outside of their firewalls, some cloud MDM solutions manage the data where it resides (either software as a service or on-premises), rather than maintaining it in the cloud. |
MDM system resides both on premises and in the cloud. As many organizations have some applications on premises and others in the cloud, having a hybrid MDM solution is a realistic option for many. MDM can be leveraged from either on-premises or in the cloud solutions, depending on the current needs of the organization. |
|
Info-Tech Insight
Leverage modern capabilities such as AI and ML to support large and complex MDM deployments.
Build Your Data Quality Program
Build a Data Architecture Roadmap
Create a Data Management Roadmap
Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy
Build Your Data Practice and Platform
Authors:
|
Name |
Position |
Company |
|---|---|---|
|
Ruyi Sun |
Research Specialist, Data & Analytics |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Rajesh Parab |
Research Director, Data & Analytics |
Info-Tech Research Group |
Contributors:
|
Name |
Position |
Company |
|
Selwyn Samuel |
Director of Enterprise Architecture |
Furniture manufacturer |
|
Julie Hunt |
Consultant and Author |
Hub Designs Magazine and Julie Hunt Consulting |
|
David Loshin |
President |
Knowledge Integrity Inc. |
|
Igor Ikonnikov |
Principal Advisory Director |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Irina Sedenko |
Advisory Director |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Anu Ganesh |
Principal Research Director |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Wayne Cain |
Principal Advisory Director |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Reddy Doddipalli |
Senior Workshop Director |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Imad Jawadi |
Senior Manager, Consulting |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Andy Neill |
Associate Vice President |
Info-Tech Research Group |
|
Steve Wills |
Practice Lead |
Info-Tech Research Group |
“DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK Guide).” First Edition. DAMA International. 2009. Digital. April 2014.
“State of the Connected Customer, Fifth Edition.” Salesforce, 2022. Accessed Jan. 2023.
“The new digital edge: Rethinking strategy for the postpandemic era.” McKinsey & Company, 26 May. 2021. Assessed Dec. 2022.
“Value and resilience through better risk management.” Mckinsey & Company, 1 Oct. 2018. Assessed Dec. 2022.
“Plotting a course through turbulent times (9TH ANNUAL B2B SALES & MARKETING DATA REPORT)” Dun & Bradstreet, 2022. Assessed Jan. 2023.
““How to Win on Customer Experience.”, Deloitte Digital, 2020. Assessed Dec. 2022.
“CX Trends 2022.”, Zendesk, 2022. Assessed Jan. 2023
.”Global consumer trends to watch out for in 2023.” Qualtrics XM Institute, 8 Nov. 2022. Assessed Dec. 2022
“How to Understand Single Versus Multiple Software Instances.” Brightwork Research & Analysis, 24 Mar. 2021. Assessed Dec. 2022
“What is omnichannel?” Oracle. Assessed Dec. 2022
“How AI Improves Master Data Management (MDM).” Informatica, 30 May. 2021. Assessed Dec. 2022
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Assess your readiness to scale Agile vertically by identifying and mitigating potential Agile maturity gaps remaining after scaling Agile across your IT organization.
Complete an overview of various scaled Agile models to help you develop your own customized delivery framework.
Determine the effort and steps required to implement your extended delivery framework.
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.
Assess your readiness to scale Agile vertically.
Identify and mitigate potential Agile maturity gaps remaining after scaling Agile across your IT organization.
IT Agile maturity gaps identified and mitigated to ensure successful extension of Agile to the business
1.1 Characterize your Agile implementation using the CLAIM model.
1.2 Assess the maturity of your Agile teams and organization.
Maturity gaps identified with mitigation requirements
Complete a review of scaled Agile models to help you develop your own customized delivery framework.
A customized Agile delivery framework
2.1 Explore various scaled frameworks.
2.2 Select an appropriate scaled framework for your enterprise.
2.3 Define the future state of your team and the communication structure of your functional business group.
Blended framework delivery model
Identification of team and communication structure impacts resulting from the new framework
Create your implementation action plan for the new Agile delivery framework.
A clearly defined action plan
3.1 Define your value drivers.
3.2 Brainstorm the initiatives that must be completed to achieve your target state.
3.3 Estimate the effort of your Agile initiatives.
3.4 Define your Agile implementation action plan.
List of target state initiatives
Estimation of effort to achieve target state
An implementation action plan
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Our dynamic, flexible, and embedded approach to governance will help drive organizational success. The three-phase methodology will help you identify your governance needs, select and refine your governance model, and embed and automate governance decisions.
Use these templates and workbook to identify the criteria and design factors for your organization and the design triggers to maintain fit. Upon completion this will be your new governance framework model.
Upon completion you will have a finalized implementation plan and a visual roadmap.
Customize these templates to create the committee charters or terms of reference for the committees developed in your governance model.
The checklist is a starting point for confirming which activities and decisions should be considered for automation or embedding. Use the worksheet to develop decision logic by defining the steps and information inputs involved in making decisions.
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.
Establish the context for your governance model.
Core understanding of the context that will enable us to build an optimal model
1.1 Confirm mission, vision, and goals.
1.2 Define scope and principles.
1.3 Adjust for culture and finalize context.
Governance principles
Governance context and goals
To select and adapt a governance model based on your context.
A selected and optimized governance model
2.1 Select and refine governance model.
2.2 Confirm and adjust the structure.
2.3 Review and adapt governance responsibilities and activities.
2.4 Validate governance mandates and membership.
IT governance model and adjustment triggers
IT governance structure, responsibilities, membership, and cadence
Governance committee charters
Refine your governance practices and associate policies properly.
A completed governance model that can be implemented with clear update triggers and review timing
Policy alignment with the right levels of authority
3.1 Update your governance process.
3.2 Align policies to mandate.
3.3 Adjust and confirm your model.
3.4 Identify and document update triggers and embed into review cycle.
IT governance process and information flow
IT governance policies
Finalized governance model
Identify options to automate and embed governance activities and decisions.
Simply more consistent governance activities and automate them to enhance speed and support governance delegation and empowerment
4.1 Identify decisions and standards that can be automated. Develop decision logic.
4.2 Plan verification and validation approach.
4.3 Build implementation plan.
4.4 Develop communication strategy and messaging.
Selected automation options, decision logic, and business rules
Implementation and communication plan
|
54 Phase 2: Select and Refine Your Governance Model 76 Phase 3: Embed and Automate 97 Contributors 98 Bibliography |
Far too often, the purpose of information and technology (I&T) governance is misunderstood. Instead of being seen as a way to align the organization’s vision to its investment in information and technology, it has become so synonymous with compliance and control that even mentioning the word “governance” elicits a negative reaction.
Success in modern digital organizations depends on their ability to adjust for velocity and uncertainty, requiring a dynamic and responsive approach to governance – one that is embedded and automated in your organization to enable new ways of working, innovation, and change.
Evolutionary theory describes adaptability as the way an organism adjusts to fit a new environment, or changes to its existing environment, to survive. Applied to organizations, adaptable governance is critical to the ability to survive and succeed.
If your governance doesn’t adjust to enable your changing business environment and customer needs, it will quickly become misaligned with your goals and drive you to failure.
It is critical that people build an approach to governance that is effective and relevant today while building in adaptability to keep it relevant tomorrow.
Valence Howden
Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
IT governance must be embedded and automated, where possible, to effectively meet the needs and velocity of digital organizations and modern practices and to drive success and value.
IT governance is a critical and embedded practice that ensures that information and technology investments, risks, and resources are aligned in the best interests of the organization and produce business value.
Effective governance ensures that the right technology investments are made at the right time to support and enable your organization’s mission, vision, and goals.
5 KEY OUTCOMES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE |
||||
| STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Technology investments and portfolios are aligned with the organization's strategic objectives. |
RISK OPTIMIZATION
Organizational risks are understood and addressed to minimize impact and optimize opportunities. |
VALUE DELIVERY
IT investments and initiatives deliver their expected benefits. |
RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION
Resources (people, finances, time) are appropriately allocated across the organization to optimal organizational benefit. |
PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
The performance of technology investments is monitored and used to determine future courses of action and to confirm achievement of success. |
| ‹–EVALUATE–DIRECT–MONITOR–› | ||||
Build an optimal model quickly and implement the core elements using an iterative approach to ensure the changes provide the most value.
All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work in harmony to deliver business value and meet strategic needs. As one changes, the others need to change as well.
Too often strategy, operating model and organizational design, and governance are considered separate practices. As a result, “strategic documents” end up being wish lists, and projects continue to be prioritized based on who shouts the loudest rather than on what is in the best interest of the organization.
Governance is the means by which IT ensures that information and technology delivery and spend is aligned to business goals and delivers business outcomes. However, most CEOs continue to perceive IT as being poorly aligned to the business’ strategic goals, which indicates that governance is not implemented or executed properly.
For I&T governance to be effective you need a clear understanding of the things that drive your organization and its success. This understanding becomes your guiding star, which is critical for effective governance. It also requires participation by all parts of the organization, not just IT.
43% of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.
60% of CEOs believe that improvement is required around IT’s understanding of business goals.
80% of CIOs/CEOs are misaligned on the target role for IT.
30% of business stakeholders are supporters (N=32,536) of their IT departments
Organizations should look to progress in their governance stages. Ad hoc and controlled governance practices tend to be more rigid, making these a poor fit for organizations requiring higher velocity delivery or using more agile and adaptive practices.
The goal as you progress through these stages is to delegate governance and empower teams based on your fit and culture, enabling teams where needed to make optimal decisions in real time, ensuring that they are aligned with the best interests of the organization.
Automate governance for optimal velocity while mitigating risks and driving value.
This puts your organization in the best position to be adaptive, able to react effectively to volatility and uncertainty.
| Adaptive Data-Centric ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ Traditional (People- and Document-Centric) |
4 |
Automated Governance
|
3 |
Agile Governance
|
|
2 |
Controlled Governance
|
|
1 |
Ad Hoc Governance
|
Governance adaptiveness ensures the success of digital organizations and modern practice implementation.
Define and establish the guiding principle that drive your organization toward success.
Use Info-Tech's IT Governance Models to identify a base model similar to the way you are organized. Confirm your current and future placement in governance execution.
Adjust the model based on industry needs, your principles, regulatory requirements, and future direction.
Identify where to embed or automate decision making and compliance and what is required to do so effectively.
Governance must actively adapt to changes in your organization, environment, and practices or it will drive you to failure.
Governance principles support the move from controlled to automated governance by providing guardrails that guide your decisions. They provide the ethical boundaries and cultural perspectives that contextualize your decisions and keep you in line with organizational values. Determining principles are global in nature.
| CONTROLLED | CHANGE ACTIONS AND RATIONALE | AUTOMATED |
| Disentangle governance and management | Move from governance focused on evaluating, directing, and monitoring strategic decisions around information and technology toward defining and automating rules and principles for decision making into processes and practices, empowering the organization and driving adaptiveness. | Delegate and empower |
| Govern toward value | Move from identifying the organization’s mission, goals, and key drivers toward orienting IT to align with those value outcomes and embedding value outcomes into design and delivery practices. | Deliver to defined outcomes |
| Make risk-informed decisions | Move from governance bodies using risk information to manually make informed decisions based on their defined risk tolerance toward having risk information and attestation baked into decision making across all aspects and layers of the IT organization – from design to sustainment. | Embed risk decision making into processes and practices |
| Measure to drive improvement | Move from static lagging metrics that validate that the work being done is meeting the organization’s needs and guide future decision making toward automated governance with more transparency driven by data-based decision making and real-time data insights. | Trust through real-time reporting |
| Enforce standards and behavior | Move from enforcing standards and behavior and managing exceptions to ensure that there are consistent outcomes and quality toward automating standards and behavioral policies and embedding adherence and changes in behavior into the organization’s natural way of working. | Automate standards through automated decision rules, verification, and validation |
| MISSION AND VISION –› | GOALS AND OBJECTIVES –› | GUIDING PRINCIPLES –› |
VALUE |
| Why your organization exists and what value it aims to provide. The purpose you build a strategy to achieve. | What your organization needs be successful at to fulfill its mission. | Key propositions and guardrails that define and guide expected organizational behavior and beliefs. |
Your mission and vision define your goals and objectives. These are reinforced by your guiding principles, including ethical considerations, your culture, and expected behaviors. They provide the boundaries and guardrails for enabling adaptive governance, ensuring you continue to move in the right direction for organizational success.
To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, “If you don't know where you want to get to, it doesn't much matter which way you go.” Once you know what matters, where value resides, and which considerations are necessary to make decisions, you have consistent directional alignment that allows you to delegate empowered governance throughout the organization, taking you to the places you want to go.
GovernanceI&T governance defines WHAT should be done and sets direction through prioritization and decision making, monitoring overall IT performance. Governance aligns with the mission and vision of the organization to guide IT. |
|
ManagementManagement focuses on HOW to do things to achieve the WHAT. It is responsible for executing on, operating, and monitoring activities as determined by I&T governance. Management makes decisions for implementation based on governance direction. |
Documents and subjective/non-transparent decisions do not create sufficient structure to allow for the true automation of governance. Data related to decisions and aggregated risk allow you to define decision logic and rules and algorithmically embed them into your organization.
Governance drives activities through specific actors (individuals/committees) and unstructured data in processes and documents that are manually executed, assessed, and revised. There are often constraints caused by gaps or lack of adequate and integrated information in support of good decisions.
Governance actors provide principles, parameters, and decision logic that enable the creation of code, rulesets, and algorithms that leverage organizational data. Attestation is automatic – validated and managed within the process, product, or service.
Define and establish the guiding principle that drive your organization toward success.
Use Info-Tech's IT Governance Models to identify a base model similar to the way you are organized. Confirm your current and future placement in governance execution.
Adjust the model based on industry needs, your principles, regulatory requirements, and future direction.
Identify where to embed or automate decision making and compliance and what is required to do so effectively.
| MY GOVERNANCE IS AD HOC AND WE’RE STARTING FROM SCRATCH | I NEED TO BUILD A NEW GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE | OUR GOVERNANCE APPROACH IS INEFFECTIVE AND NEEDS IMPROVEMENT | I NEED TO LOOK AT OPTIONS FOR AUTOMATING GOVERNANCE PRACTICES |
| Step 1.1: Define Your Governance Context | Step 1.2: Structure Your IT Governance | Phase 2: Select and Refine Your Model | Phase 3: Embed and Automate |
|
IT governance is about ensuring that the investment decisions made around information and technology drive the optimal organizational value, not about governing the IT department. In this section we will clarify your organizational context for governance and define your guiding star to orient your governance design and inform your structure. |
There is no need to start from scratch! Start with Info-Tech’s best-practice IT governance models and customize them based on your organizational context. The research in this section will help you to select the right base model to work from and provide guidance on how to refine it. |
Governance practices eventually stop being a good fit for a changing organization, and things that worked before become bottlenecks. Governing roles and committees don’t adjust well, don’t have consistent practices, and lack the right information to make good decisions. The research in this section will help you improve and realign your governance practices. |
Once your governance is controlled and optimized you are ready to investigate opportunities to automate. This phase of the blueprint will help you determine where it’s feasible to automate and embed governance, understand key governance automation practices, and develop governing business rules to move your journey forward. |
If you are looking for details on specific associated practices, please see our related research:
| 1. Identify Your Governance Needs | 2. Select and Refine Your Governance Model | 3. Embed and Automate | |
| Phase Steps |
|
|
|
| Phase Outcomes |
|
|
|
To remain valuable, I&T governance must actively adapt to changes in your organization, environment, and practices, or it will drive you to failure instead of success.
I&T governance does not focus on the IT department. Rather, its intent is to ensure your organization makes sound decisions around investment in and use of information and technology.
Your governance approach progresses in stages from ad hoc to automated as your organization matures. Your stage depends on your organizational needs and ways of working.
Good governance does not equate to control and does not stifle innovation.
Automating governance must be done in stages, based on your capabilities, level of maturity, and amount of usable data.
Establish the least amount of governance required to allow you to achieve your goals.
If you don’t establish a guiding star to align the different stakeholders in your organization, governance practices will create conflict and confusion.
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
Key Deliverable:
Governance Framework ModelThe governance framework model provides the design of your new governance model and the organizational context to retain stakeholder alignment and organizational satisfaction with governance. The model includes the structures, practices, and responsibilities to drive effective governance in your organization.
|
Governance Implementation PlanThis roadmap lays out the changes required to implement the governance model, the cultural items that need to be addressed, and anticipated timing.
|
Governance Committee ChartersDevelop a detail governance charter or term of reference for each governing body. Outline the mandate, responsibilities, membership, process, and associated policies for each.
|
Improving the governance approach and delegating decision making to support a change in business operation
The large, multi-national organization has locations across the world but has two primary headquarters, in Europe and the United States.
Market shifts drove an organizational shift in strategy, leading to a change in operating models, a product focus, and new work approaches across the organization.
Much of the implementation and execution was done in isolation, and effectiveness was slowed by poor integration and conflicting activities that worked against each other.
The product owner role was not well defined.
After reviewing the organization’s challenges and governance approach, we redefined and realigned its organizational and regional goals and identified outcomes that needed to be driven into their strategies.
We also reviewed their span of control and integration requirements and properly defined decisions that could be made regionally versus globally, so that decisions could be made to support new work practices.
We defined the product and service owner roles and the decisions each needed to make.
We saw an improvement in the alignment of organizational activities and the right people and bodies making decisions.
Work and practices were aimed at the same key outcomes and alignment between teams toward organizational goal improved.
Within one year, the success rate of the organization’s initiatives increased by 22%, and the percentage of product-related decisions made by product owners increased by 50%.
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." |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between 5 and 8 calls over the course of 2 to 3 months.
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889
| Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3 | Session 4 | Session 5 | |
| Activities |
Develop Your Guiding Star1.1 Confirm mission, vision, and goals 1.2 Define scope and principles 1.3 Adjust for culture and finalize context |
Define the Governance Model2.1 Select and refine governance model 2.2 Confirm and adjust the structure 2.3 Review and adapt governance responsibilities and activities 2.4 Validate governance mandates and membership |
Build Governance Process and Policy3.1 Update your governance process 3.2 Align policies to mandate 3.3 Adjust and confirm your governance model 3.4 Identify and document your update triggers 3.5 Embed triggers into review cycle |
Embed and Automate Governance4.1 Identify decisions and standards to automate 4.2 Plan verification and validation approach 4.3 Build implementation plan 4.4 Develop communication strategy and messaging |
Next Steps and Wrap-Up5.1 Complete in-progress outputs from previous four sessions 5.2 Set up review time for workshop outputs and to discuss next steps |
| Outcomes |
|
|
|
|
|
Phase 1
|
Phase 2
|
Phase 3
|
Identify the organization’s goals, mission, and vision that will guide governance.
Define the scope of your governance model and the principles that will guide how it works.
Account for organizational attitudes, behaviors, and culture related to governance and finalize your context.
Review your business and IT strategy, mission, and vision to ensure understanding of organizational direction.
Identify the business and IT goals that governance needs to align.
Confirm your operating model and any work practices that need to be accounted for in your model.
Identified guiding star outcomes to align governance outcomes with
Defined operating model type and work style that impact governance design
Identify Your Governance Needs
| Step 1.1 – Define your Guiding Star | Step 1.2 – Define Scope and Principles | Step 1.3 – Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context |
| Organic governance occurs during the formation of an organization and shifts with challenges, but it is rarely transparent and understood. It changes your culture in uncontrolled ways. | Intentional governance is triggered by changes in organizational needs, working approaches, goals, and structures. It is deliberate and changes your culture to enable success. |
|
|
Your approach to governance needs to be designed, even if your execution of governance is adaptable and delegated.
Your guiding star is a combination of your organization’s mission, vision, and strategy and the goals that have been defined to meet them.
It provides you with a consistent focal point around which I&T-related activities and projects orbit, like planets around a star.
It generates the gravity that governance uses to keep things from straying too far away from the goal of achieving relevant value.
Input: Business strategy, IT strategy, Mission and vision statements
Output: Updated Governance Workbook, Documented strategic outcomes and organizational aims that governance needs to achieve
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook
Participants: IT senior leadership
Download the Governance Workbook
60 minutes
Input: Business strategy, Business and IT goals and related initiatives
Output: Required success outcomes for goals, Links between IT and business goals that governance needs to align
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
An IT operating model is a visual representation of the way your IT organization needs to be designed and the capabilities it requires to deliver on the business mission, strategic objectives, and technological ambitions.
The model is critical in the optimization and alignment of the IT organization’s structure in order to deliver the capabilities required to achieve business goals. It is a key determinant of how governance needs to be designed and where it is implemented.
60 minutes
Input: Organizational structure, Operating model (if available)
Output: Confirmed operating approach, Defined work practices
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
Identify what is included and excluded within the scope of your governance.
Develop the determining and specific principles that provide guardrails for governance activities and decisions.
Documented governance scope and principles to apply
Identify Your Governance Needs
| Step 1.1 – Define your Guiding Star | Step 1.2 – Define Scope and Principles | Step 1.3 – Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context |
Based on the goals and principles you defined and the operating model you selected, confirm where oversight will be necessary and at what level. Focus on the necessity to expedite and clear barriers to the achievement of goals and on the ownership of risks and compliance. Some key considerations:
Your governance scope helps you define the boundaries of what your governance model and practices will cover. This includes key characteristics of your organization that impact what governance needs to address.
60 minutes
Input: Context information from Activity 1.1, Scoping areas
Output: Defined scope and span of control
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
Organizations often have too many governance bodies, creating friction without value. Where that isn’t the case, the bodies are often inefficient, with gaps or overlaps in accountability and authority. Structure your governance to optimize its effectiveness, designing with the intent to have the fewest number of governing bodies to be effective, but no less than is necessary.
Start with your operating model.
Determine whether your governance should be controlled or adaptive.
Your approach to governance needs to be designed and structured, even if your execution of governance is adaptable and delegated.
Confirm your defining principles based on your selection of controlled or adaptive governance. Create specific principles to clarify boundaries or provide specific guidance for teams within the organization.
| Controlled | Adaptive |
| Disentangle governance and management | Delegate and empower |
| Govern toward value | Deliver to defined outcomes |
| Make risk-informed decisions | Embed risk into decision making |
| Measure to drive improvement | Trust though real-time reporting |
| Enforce standards and behavior | Automate decision making though established standards |
Determining Principle: Delegate and empower.
Specific Principle: Decisions should be made at the lowest reasonable level of the organization with clarity.
Rationale: To govern effectively with the velocity required to address business needs, governance needs to be executed deeper into the organization and organizational goals need to be clearly understood everywhere.
Implication: Decision making needs to be delegated throughout the organization, so information and data requirements need to be identified, decision-making approach and principles need to be shared, and authority needs to be delegated clearly.
30-45 minutes
Input: Governance Framework Model– Governance Principles
Output: Governance workbook - Finalized list of determining principles
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook
Participants: IT senior leadership
Specific governing principles are refined principles derived from a determining principle, when additional specificity and detail is necessary. It allows you to define an approach for specific behaviors and activities. Multiple specific principles may underpin the determining one.
|
Specific Principles – Related principles that may be required to ensure the implications of the determining principal are addressed within the organization. They may be specific to individual areas and may be addressed in policies. Implications – The implications of this principle on the organization, specific to how and where governance is executed and the level of information and authority that would be necessary. Rationale – The reason(s) driving the determining principle. Determining Principle – A core overarching principle – a defining aspect of your governance model. |
30 minutes
Input: Updated determining principles
Output: List of specific principles linked to determining principles
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook
Participants: IT senior leadership
Download the Governance Workbook
Identify your organizational attitude, behavior, and culture related to governance.
Identify positives that can be leveraged and develop means to address negatives.
Finalize the context that your model will leverage and align to.
Downloaded tool ready to select the base governance model for your organization
Identify Your Governance Needs
| Step 1.1 – Define your Guiding Star | Step 1.2 – Define Scope and Principles | Step 1.3 – Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context |
A |
ttitude |
What people think and feel. It can be seen in their demeanor and how they react to change initiatives, colleagues, and users. This manifests in the belief that governance is a constraint that needs to be avoided or ignored – often with unintended consequences.
New Results'.">
Any form of organizational change involves adjusting people’s attitudes to create buy-in and commitment.
You need to identify and address attitudes that can lead to negative behaviors and actions or that are counter-productive.
B |
ehavior |
What people do. This is influenced by attitude and the culture of the organization. In governance, this manifests as people’s willingness to be governed, who pushes back, and who tries to bypass it.
To implement change within IT, especially at a tactical and strategic level, organizational behavior needs to change.
This is relevant because people gravitate toward stability and will resist change in an active or passive way unless you can sell the need, value, and benefit of changing their behavior and way of working.
C |
ulture |
The accepted and understood ways of working in an organization. The values and standards that people find normal and what would be tacitly identified to new resources. In governance terms, this is how decisions are really made and where responsibility really exists rather than what is identified formally.
The impact of the organizational or corporate “attitude” on employee behavior and attitude is often not fully understood.
Culture is an invisible element, which makes it difficult to identify, but it has a strong impact and must be addressed to successfully embed governance models. In the case of automating governance, cultural readiness for automation is a critical success factor.
45 minutes
Input: Senior leadership knowledge
Output: Updated Governance Workbook
Materials: Governance Workbook
Participants: IT senior leadership
Download the Governance Workbook
Evaluate the organization across the three contexts. The positive items represent opportunities for leveraging these characteristics with the implementation of the governance model, while the negative items must be considered and/or mitigated.
| Attitude | Behavior | Culture | |
| Positive | |||
| Negative | |||
| Mitigation |
30 minutes
Input: Documented governance principles and scope from previous exercises
Output: Finalized governance context in the Governance Workbook
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook
Participants: IT senior leadership
Download the Governance Workbook
Phase 1
| Phase 2
| Phase 3
|
Select a base governance model and refine it to suit your organization.
Identify scenarios and changes that will trigger updates to your governance model.
Build your implementation plan.
Review and selecting your base governance model.
Adjust the structure, responsibilities, policies, mandate, and membership to best support your organization.
Downloaded tool ready to select the base governance model for your organization
Select and Refine Your Governance Model
| Step 2.1 – Choose and Adapt Your Model | Step 2.2 – Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers | Step 2.3 – Build Implementation Approach |
| RESPONSIBILITIES AND TYPICAL MEMBERSHIP | |
| ENTERPRISE | Defines organizational goals. Directs or regulates the performance and behavior of the enterprise, ensuring it has the structure and capabilities to achieve its goals.
Membership: Business executives, Board |
| STRATEGIC | Ensures IT initiatives, products, and services are aligned to organizational goals and strategy and provide expected value. Ensure adherence to key principles.
Membership: Business executives, CIO, CDO |
| TACTICAL | Ensures key activities and planning are in place to execute strategic initiatives.
Membership: Authorized division leadership, related IT leadership |
| OPERATIONAL | Ensures effective execution of day-to-day functions and practices to meet their key objectives.
Membership: Service/product owners, process owners, architecture leadership, directors, managers |
30 minutes
Input: Governance models templates
Output: Selected governance model
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
30-45 minutes
Input: Selected base governance model, Governance context/scope
Output: Updated governance bodies and relationships
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
|
STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
VALUE DELIVERY
RISK MANAGEMENT
|
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
|
45-60 minutes
Input: Selected governance base model, Governance context
Output: Updated responsibilities and activities, Updated activities for selected governance bodies, New or removed governing bodies
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
30 minutes
Input: Selected governance base model, Updated structure and responsibilities
Output: Adjusted mandates and refined committee membership
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
One of the biggest benefits of governance committees is the perspective provided by people from various parts of the organization, which helps to ensure technology investments are aligned with strategic goals. However, having too many people – or the wrong people – involved prevents the committee from being effective. Avoid this by following these principles.
20 minutes
Input: Selected governance base model, Updated structure and responsibilities
Output: Updated committee processes
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
20 minutes
Input: Selected governance base model, Updated structure and responsibilities
Output: Adjusted mandates and refined committee membership
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
Identify scenarios that will create a need to review or change your governance model.
Update your review/update approach to receiving trigger notifications.
Downloaded tool ready to select the base governance model for your organization
Select and Refine Your Governance Model
| Step 2.1 – Choose and Adapt Your Model | Step 2.2 – Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers | Step 2.3 – Build Implementation Approach |
Governance triggers are organizational or environmental changes within or around an organization that are inflection points that start the review and revision of governance models to maintain their fit with the organization. This is the key to adaptive governance design.
30 minutes
Input: Governance Workbook
Output: Updated workbook with defined and documented governance triggers, points of origin, and integration
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
30 minutes
Input: Governance model
Output: Review cycle update
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
Transfer changes to the Governance Implementation Plan Template.
Determine the timing for the implementation phases.
Implementation plan for adaptive governance framework model
Select and Refine Your Governance Model| Step 2.1 – Choose and Adapt Your Model | Step 2.2 – Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers | Step 2.3 – Build Implementation Approach |
60 minutes
Input: Governance model, Guiding principles, Update triggers, Cultural factors and mitigations
Output: Implementation roadmap
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
Download the Governance Implementation Plan
Gantt Chart
This type of roadmap depicts themes, related initiatives, the associated goals, and exact start and end dates for each initiative. This diagram is useful for outlining a larger number of activities and initiatives and has an easily digestible and repeatable format. |
Sunshine Diagram
This type of roadmap depicts themes and their associated initiatives. The start and end dates for the initiatives are approximated based on years or phases. This diagram is useful for highlighting key initiatives on one page. |
Input: Governance themes and initiatives
Output: roadmap visual
Materials: Governance Roadmap Workbook, Governance Workbook
Participants: CIO, IT senior leadership
Develop your Gantt chart in the Governance Roadmap Workbook
30 minutes
Input: Governance themes and initiatives
Output: Sunshine diagram visual
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Markers, Governance Implementation Plan
Participants: CIO, IT senior leadership
Customize your sunshine diagram in the Governance Implementation Plan
Phase 1
| Phase 2
| Phase 3
|
Identify which decisions you are ready to automate.
Identify standards and policies that can be embedded and automated.
Identify integration points.
Confirm data requirements to enable success.
Identify your key decisions.
Develop your decision logic.
Confirm decisions that could be automated.
Identify and address constraints.
Develop decision rules and principles.
Developed decision rules, rulesets, and principles that can be leveraged to automate governance
Defined integration points
Embed and Automate
| Step 3.1 – Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate | Step 3.2 – Plan Validation and Verification | Step 3.3 – Update Implementation Plan |
Decision automation is the codifying of rules that connect the logic of how decisions are made with the data required to make those decisions. This is then embedded and automated into processes and the design of products and services.
Decision complexity impacts the type of rule(s) you create and the amount of data required. It also helps define where or if decisions can be automated.
The Governance Automation Criteria Checklist provides a view of key considerations for determining whether a governing activity or decision is a good candidate for automation.
The criteria identify key qualifiers/disqualifiers to make it easier to identify eligibility.
Download the Governance Automation Criteria Checklist
The Governance Automation Worksheet provides a way to document your governance and systematically identify information about the decisions to help determine if automation is possible.
From there, decision rules, logic, and rulesets can be designed in support of building a structure flow to allow for automation.
Download the Governance Automation Worksheet
30 minutes
Input: Automation Criteria Checklist, Governance Automation Worksheet, Updated governance model
Output: Documented decisions and related authority, Selected options for automation, Updated Governance Automation Worksheet
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Automation Worksheet
Participants: IT senior leadership
Decision rules provide specific instructions and constraints that must be considered in making decisions and are critical for automating governance.
They provide the logical path to assess governance inputs to make effective decisions with positive business outputs.
Inputs would include key information such as known risks, your defined prioritization matrix, portfolio value scoring, and compliance controls.
Individual rules can be leveraged in different places.
Some decision rule types are listed here.
Rulesets are created to make complex decisions. Individual rule types are combined to create rulesets that are applied together to generate effective decisions. One rule will provide contextual information required for additional rules to execute in a Rule-Result-Rule-Result-Rule-Decision flow.
30 minutes
Input: Governance Automation Worksheet
Output: Documented decision logic to support selected decision types and data requirements
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
1.5-2 hours
Input: Governance Automation Worksheet
Output: Defined decision integration points, Confirmed data availability sets, Decision rules, rulesets, and principles with control indicators
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Automation Worksheet
Participants: IT senior leadership
Define how decision outcomes will be measured.
Determine how the effectiveness of automated governance will be reported.
Tested and verified automation of decisions
Embed and Automate
| Step 3.1 – Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate | Step 3.2 – Plan Validation and Verification | Step 3.3 – Update Implementation Plan |
1. Rules
Focus on clear decision logicOften represented in simple statement types and supported by data:IF – THEN IF – AND – THEN IF – AND NOT – THEN |
2. Rulesets
Aggregate rules for more complex decisionsIntegrated flows between different required rules:Rule 1: (Output 1) – Rule 2 (Output 2) – Rule 6 Rule 6: (Output 1) – Rule 7 |
3. Rule Attestation
Verify success of automated decisionsAttestation of embedded and automated rules with key control indicators embedded within process and products.Principles embedded into automated software controls. |
60 minutes
Input: Governance rules and rulesets as defined in the Governance Automation Worksheet, Defined decision outcomes
Output: A defined measurement of effective decision outcomes, Approach to automate and/or report the effectiveness of automated governance
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
60 minutes
Input: Governance rules and rulesets as defined in the Governance Automation Worksheet, Defined decision outcomes
Output: Defined assurance and attestation requirements, Key control indicators that can be automated
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: IT senior leadership
Review implications and mitigations to make sure all have been considered.
Finalize the implementation plan and roadmap.
Completed Governance implementation plan and roadmap
Embed and Automate
| Step 3.1 – Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate | Step 3.2 – Plan Validation and Verification | Step 3.3 – Update Implementation Plan |
30 minutes
Input: Governance workbook, Updated governance model, Draft implementation plan and roadmap
Output: Finalized implementation plan and roadmap
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Implementation Plan
Participants: IT senior leadership
Through this project we have:
Contact your account representative for more information.
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.
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.
Avoid bureaucracy and achieve alignment with a minimalist approach. Align with your organizational context.
Establish data trust and accountability with strong governance.
Embed value and alignment confirmation into your governance to ensure you optimize IT value achievement for resource spend.
Strengthen the product/service owner role in your organization by focusing on core capabilities and proper alignment.
|
Sidney Hodgson
Senior Director, Industry Info-Tech Research Group
|
|
David Tomljenovic
Principal Research Advisor, Industry Info-Tech Research Group
|
|
Cole Cioran
Practice Lead, Applications and Agile Development Info-Tech Research Group
|
|
Crystal Singh
Research Director, Applications – Data and Information Management Info-Tech Research Group
|
|
Carlene McCubbin
Practice Lead, CIO Info-Tech Research Group
|
|
Denis Goulet
Senior Workshop Director Info-Tech Research Group
|
“2020 State of Data Governance and Automation Report.” Erwin.com, 28 Jan. 2020. Web.
“Adaptive IT Governance.” Google search, 15 Nov. 2020.
“Adaptive IT Governance Framework.” CIO Index, 3 Nov. 2011. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“Agile Governance Made Easy.” Agilist, n.d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“Automating Governance — Our Work.” Humanising Machine Intelligence, n.d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“Automation – Decisions.” IBM, 2020. Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.
Chang, Charlotte. “Accelerating Agile through effective governance.” Medium, 22 Sept. 2020. Web.
“COBIT 5: Enabling Processes.” ISACA, 2012. Web. Oct. 2016.
COBIT 2019. ISACA, Dec. 2018. Web.
Curtis, Blake. “The Value of IT Governance.” ISACA, 29 June 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
De Smet, Aaron. “Three Keys to Faster, Better Decisions.” McKinsey & Company, 1 May 2019. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“Decision Rules and Decision Analysis.” Navex Global, 2020. Web.
“Decisions Automation with Business Rules Management Solution.” Sumerge, 4 Feb. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“DevGovOps – Key factors for IT governance for enterprises in a DevOps world.” Capgemini, 27 Sept. 2019. Web.
Eisenstein, Lena. “IT Governance Checklist.” BoardEffect, 19 Feb. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“Establishing Effective IT and Data Governance.” Chartered Professional Accountants Canada, n.d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Gandzeichuk, Ilya. “Augmented Analytics: From Decision Support To Intelligent Decision-Making.” Forbes, 8 Jan. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Georgescu, Vlad. “What Is IT Governance? Understanding From First Principles.” Plutora, 18 Oct. 2019. Web.
Goodwin, Bill. “IT Governance in the Era of Shadow IT.” ComputerWeekly, 5 Aug. 2014. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“Governance of IT, OT and IOT.” ISACA Journal, 2019. Web.
Gritsenko, Daria, and Matthew Wood. “Algorithmic Governance: A Modes of Governance Approach.” Regulation & Governance, 10 Nov. 2020. Web.
Hansert, Philipp. “Adaptive IT Governance with Clausmark’s Bee4IT.” Bee360, 25 Oct. 2019. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Havelock, Kylie. “What Does Good Product Governance Look Like?” Medium. 8 Jan. 2020. Web.
Haven, Dolf van der. “Governance of IT with ISO 38500 - A More Detailed View” LinkedIn article, 24 Oct. 2016. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Hong, Sounman, and Sanghyun Lee. “Adaptive Governance and Decentralization: Evidence from Regulation of the Sharing Economy in Multi-Level Governance.” Government Information Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, April 2018, pp. 299–305. Web.
ISACA. “Monthly Seminar & Networking Dinner: CIO Dashboard.” Cvent, Feb. 2012. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
ISO/IEC 38500, ISO, 2018 and ongoing.
“IT Governance.” Kenway Consulting, n.d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“IT Governance in the Age of COVID 19.” Union of Arab Banks Webinar, 19-21 Oct. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Jaffe, Dennis T. “Introducing the Seven Pillars of Governance.” Triple Pundit, 15 Nov. 2011. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Janssen, Marijn, and Haiko van der Voort. “Agile and Adaptive Governance in Crisis Response: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.” International Journal of Information Management, vol. 55, December 2020. Web.
Jodya, Tiffany. “Automating Enterprise Governance within Delivery Pipelines.” Harness.io, 14 May 2020. Web.
Kumar, Sarvesh. “AI-Based Decision-Making Automation.” Singular Intelligence, 17 June 2019. Web.
“Lean IT Governance.” Disciplined Agile, n.d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Lerner, Mark. “Government Tech Projects Fail by Default. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way.” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 21 Oct. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Levstek, Aleš, Tomaž Hovelja, and Andreja Pucihar. “IT Governance Mechanisms and Contingency Factors: Towards an Adaptive IT Governance Model.” Organizacija, vol. 51, no. 4, Nov. 2018. Web.
Maccani, Giovanni, et al. “An Emerging Typology of IT Governance Structural Mechanisms in Smart Cities.” Government Information Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 4, Oct. 2020. Web.
Magowan, Kirstie. “IT Governance vs IT Management: Mastering the Differences.” BMC Blogs, 18 May 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Mazmanian, Adam. “Is It Time to Rethink IT Governance? ” Washington Technology, 26 Oct. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Mukherjee, Jayanto. “6 Components of an Automation (DevOps) Governance Model.” Sogeti, n.d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Ng, Cindy. “The Difference Between Data Governance and IT Governance.” Inside Out Security, updated 17 June 2020. Web.
Pearson, Garry. “Agile or Adaptive Governance Required?” Taking Care of the Present (blog), 30 Oct. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Peregrine, Michael, et al. “The Long-Term Impact of the Pandemic on Corporate Governance.” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 16 July 2020. Web.
Raymond, Louis, et al. “Determinants and Outcomes of IT Governance in Manufacturing SMEs: A Strategic IT Management Perspective.” International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, vol. 35, December 2019. Web.
Rentrop, Christopher. “Adaptive IT Governance – Foundation of a Successful Digitalization.” Business IT Cooperation Coordination Controlling (blog). May 2, 2018. Web.
Schultz, Lisen, et al. “Adaptive Governance, Ecosystem Management, and Natural Capital.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 112, no. 24, 2015, pp. 7369–74. Web.
Selig, Gad J. Implementing IT Governance: A Practical Guide to Global Best Practices in IT Management. Van Haren Publishing, 2008. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Sharma, Chiatan. “Rule Governance for Enterprise-Wide Adoption of Business Rules: Why Does a BRMS Implementation Need a Governance Framework?” Business Rules Journal, vol. 13, no. 4, April 2012. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Smallwood, Robert. “Information Governance, IT Governance, Data Governance – What’s the Difference?” The Data Administration Newsletter, 3 June 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Snowden, Dave. "Cynefin – weaving sense-making into the fabric of our world", Cognitive Edge, 20 October 2020.
“The Place of IT Governance in the Enterprise Governance.” Institut de la Gouvernance des Systemes d’Information, 2005. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
Thomas, Mark. “Demystifying IT Governance Roles in a Dynamic Business Environment.” APMG International, 29 Oct. 2020. Webinar. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.
“The Four Pillars of Governance Best Practice.” The Institute of Directors in New Zealand, 4 Nov. 2019. Web.
Wang, Cancan, Rony Medaglia, and Lei Zheng. “Towards a Typology of Adaptive Governance in the Digital Government Context: The Role of Decision-Making and Accountability.” Government Information Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, April 2018, pp. 306–22.
Westland, Jason. “IT Governance: Definitions, Frameworks and Planning.” ProjectManager.com, 17 Dec. 2019. Web.
Wilkin, Carla L., and Jon Riddett. “IT Governance Challenges in a Large Not-for-Profit Healthcare Organization: The Role of Intranets.” Electronic Commerce Research vol. 9, no. 4, 2009, pp. 351-74. Web.
Zalnieriute, Monika, et al. “The Rule of Law and Automation of Government Decision Making.” Modern Law Review, 25 Feb. 2019. Web.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
A business-led, top-management-supported initiative partnered with IT has the greatest chance of success.
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.
To build understanding and alignment between business and IT on what an ERP is and the goals for the project
Clear understanding of how the ERP supports the organizational goals
What business processes the ERP will be supporting
An initial understanding of the effort involved
1.1 Introduction to ERP
1.2 Background
1.3 Expectations and goals
1.4 Align business strategy
1.5 ERP vision and guiding principles
1.6 ERP strategy model
1.7 ERP operating model
ERP strategy model
ERP Operating model
Generate an understanding of the business processes, challenges, and application portfolio currently supporting the organization.
An understanding of the application portfolio supporting the business
Detailed understanding of the business operating processes and pain points
2.1 Build application portfolio
2.2 Map the level 1 ERP processes including identifying stakeholders, pain points, and key success indicators
2.3 Discuss process and technology maturity for each level 1 process
Application portfolio
Mega-processes with level 1 process lists
A project of this size has multiple stakeholders and may have competing priorities. This section maps those stakeholders and identifies their possible conflicting priorities.
A prioritized list of ERP mega-processes based on process rigor and strategic importance
An understanding of stakeholders and competing priorities
Initial compilation of the risks the organization will face with the project to begin early mitigation
3.1 ERP process prioritization
3.2 Stakeholder mapping
3.3 Competing priorities review
3.4 Initial risk register compilation
Prioritized ERP operating model
Stakeholder map.
Competing priorities list.
Initial risk register.
Select a future state and build the initial roadmap to set expectations and accountabilities.
Identification of the future state
Initial roadmap with expectations on accountability and timelines
4.1 Discuss future state options
4.2 Build initial roadmap
4.3 Review of final deliverable
Future state options
Initiative roadmap
Draft final deliverable
|
Analyst Perspective |
Phase 3: Plan Your Project |
|
Executive Summary |
Step 3.1: Stakeholders, risk, and value |
|
Phase 1: Build Alignment and Scope |
Step 3.2: Project set up |
|
Step 1.1: Aligning Business and IT |
Phase 4: Next Steps |
|
Step 1.2: Scope and Priorities |
Step 4.1: Build your roadmap |
|
Phase 2: Define Your ERP |
Step 4.2: Wrap up and present |
|
Step 2.1: ERP business model |
Summary of Accomplishment |
|
Step 2.2: ERP processes and supporting applications |
Research Contributors |
|
Step 2.3: Process pains, opportunities, and maturity |
Related Info-Tech Research |
|
Bibliography |
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a core tool that the business leverages to accomplish its goals. An ERP that is doing its job well is invisible to the business. The challenges come when the tool is no longer invisible. It has become a source of friction in the functioning of the business
ERP systems are expensive, their benefits are difficult to quantify, and they often suffer from poor user satisfaction. Post-implementation, technology evolves, organizational goals change, and the health of the system is not monitored. This is complicated in today’s digital landscape with multiple integration points, siloed data, and competing priorities.
Too often organizations jump into selecting replacement systems without understanding the needs of the organization. Alignment between business and IT is just one part of the overall strategy. Identifying key pain points and opportunities, assessed in the light of organizational strategy, will provide a strong foundation to the transformation of the ERP system.
Robert Fayle
Research Director, Enterprise Applications
Info-Tech Research Group
Organizations often do not know where to start with an ERP project. They focus on tactically selecting and implementing the technology but ignore the strategic foundation that sets the ERP system up for success. ERP projects are routinely reported as going over budget, over schedule, and they fail to realize any benefits.
ERP projects impact the entire organization – they are not limited to just financial and operating metrics. The disruption is felt during both implementation and in the production environment.
Missteps early on can cost time, financial resources, and careers. Roughly 55% of ERP projects reported being over budget, and two-thirds of organizations implementing ERP realized less than half of their anticipated benefits.
Obtain organizational buy-in and secure top management support. Set clear expectations, guiding principles, and critical success factors.
Build an ERP operating model/business model that identifies process boundaries, scope, and prioritizes requirements. Assess stakeholder involvement, change impact, risks, and opportunities.
Understand the alternatives your organization can choose for the future state of ERP. Develop an actionable roadmap and meaningful KPIs that directly align with your strategic goals.
Accountability for ERP success is shared between IT and the business. There is no single owner of an ERP. A unified approach to building your strategy promotes an integrated roadmap so all stakeholders have clear direction on the future state.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems facilitate the flow of information across business units. It allows for the seamless integration of systems and creates a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.
In many organizations, the ERP system is considered the lifeblood of the enterprise. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the enterprise to survive and grow.
A measured and strategic approach to change will help mitigate many of the risks associated with ERP projects, which will avoid the chances of these changes becoming the dreaded “career killers.”
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems facilitate the flow of information across business units. They allow for the seamless integration of systems and create a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.
In many organizations, the ERP system is considered the lifeblood of the enterprise. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the enterprise to survive and grow.
An ERP system:
50-70%
Statistical analysis of ERP projects indicates rates of failure vary from 50 to 70%. Taking the low end of those analyst reports, one in two ERP projects is considered a failure. (Source: Saxena and Mcdonagh)
85%
Companies that apply the principles of behavioral economics outperform their peers by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margin. (Source: Gallup)
40%
Nearly 40% of companies said functionality was the key driver for the adoption of a new ERP. (Source: Gheorghiu)
| Drivers of Dissatisfaction | |||
Business
|
Data
|
People and teams
|
Technology
|
Finance, IT, Sales, and other users of the ERP system can only optimize ERP with the full support of each other. The cooperation of the departments is crucial when trying to improve ERP technology capabilities and customer interaction.
While technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences, there are many other drivers of dissatisfaction. IT must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for ERP.
| 1. Build alignment and scope | 2. Define your ERP | 3. Plan your project | 4. Next Steps | |
| Phase Steps |
|
|
|
|
| Phase Outcomes | Discuss organizational goals and how to advance those using the ERP system. Establish the scope of the project and ensure that business and IT are aligned on project priorities. | Build the ERP business model then move on to the top level (mega) processes and an initial list of the sub-processes. Generate a list of applications that support the identified processes. Conclude with a complete view of the mega-processes and their sub-processes. | Map out your stakeholders to evaluate their impact on the project, build an initial risk register and discuss group alignment. Conclude the phase by setting the initial core project team and their accountabilities to the project. | Review the different options to solve the identified pain points then build out a roadmap of how to get to that solution. Build a communication plan as part of organizational change management, which includes the stakeholder presentation. |
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
|
ERP Strategy ReportComplete an assessment of processes, prioritization, and pain points, and create an initiative roadmap.
|
ERP Business ModelAlign your business and technology goals and objectives in the current environment. |
|
ERP Operating ModelIdentify and prioritize your ERP top-level processes. |
|
ERP Process PrioritizationAssess ERP processes against the axes of rigor and strategic importance. |
|
ERP Strategy RoadmapA data-driven roadmap of how to address the ERP pain points and opportunities. |
|
Aerospace organization assesses ERP future state from opportunities, needs, and pain points
Several issues plagued the aerospace and defense organization. Many of the processes were ad hoc and did not use the system in place, often relying on Excel. The organization had a very large pain point stemming from its lack of business process standardization and oversight. The biggest gap, however, was from the under-utilization of the ERP software.
By assessing the usage of the system by employees and identifying key workarounds, the gaps quickly became apparent. After assessing the organization’s current state and generating recommendations from the gaps, it realized the steps needed to achieve its desired future state. The analysis of the pain points generated various needs and opportunities that allowed the organization to present and discuss its key findings with executive leadership to set milestones for the project.
The overall assessment led the organization to the conclusion that in order to achieve its desired future state and maximize ROI from its ERP, the organization must address the internal issues prior to implementing the upgraded software.
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." |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between eight to twelve calls over the course of four to six months.
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | |
| Activities |
Introduction to ERP1.1 Introduction to ERP 1.2 Background 1.3 Expectations and goals 1.4 Align business strategy 1.5 ERP vision and guiding principles 1.6 ERP strategy model 1.7 ERP operating model |
Build the ERP operating model2.1 Build application portfolio 2.2 Map the level 1 ERP processes including identifying stakeholders, pain points, and key success indicators 2.3 Discuss process and technology maturity for each level 1 process |
Project set up3.1 ERP process prioritization 3.2 Stakeholder mapping 3.3 Competing priorities review 3.4 Initial risk register compilation 3.5 Workshop retrospective |
Roadmap and presentation review4.1 Discuss future state options 4.2 Build initial roadmap 4.3 Review of final deliverable |
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 |
|
|
|
|
|
Phase 1
|
Phase 2
|
Phase 3
|
Phase 4
|
Build a common language to ensure clear understanding of the organizational needs. Define a vision and guiding principles to aid in decision making and enumerate how the ERP supports achievement of the organizational goals. Define the initial scope of the ERP project. This includes the discussion of what is not in scope.
When faced with a challenge, prepare for the WHY.
Most organizations can answer “What?”
Some organizations can answer “How?”
Very few organizations have an answer for “Why?”
Each stage of the project will be difficult and present its own unique challenges and failure points. Re-evaluate if you lose sight of WHY at any stage in the project.
Business and IT have a shared understanding of how the ERP supports the organizational goals.
Every group has their own understanding of the ERP system, and they may use the same words to describe different things. For example, is there a difference between procurement of office supplies and procurement of parts to assemble an item for sale? And if they are different, do your terms differ (e.g., procurement versus purchasing)?
| Term(s) | Definition |
| HRMS, HRIS, HCM | Human Resource Management System, Human Resource Information System, Human Capital Management. These represent four capabilities of HR: core HR, talent management, workforce management, and strategic HR. |
| Finance | Finance includes the core functionalities of GL, AR, and AP. It also covers such items as treasury, financial planning and analysis (FP&A), tax management, expenses, and asset management. |
| Supply Chain | The processes and networks required to produce and distribute a product or service. This encompasses both the organization and the suppliers. |
| Procurement | Procurement is about getting the right products from the right suppliers in a timely fashion. Related to procurement is vendor contract management. |
| Distribution | The process of getting the things we create to our customers. |
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management, the software used to maintain records of our sales and non-sales contact with our customers. |
| Sales | The process of identifying customers, providing quotes, and converting those quotes to sales orders to be invoiced. |
| Customer Service | This is the process of supporting customers with challenges and non-sales questions related to the delivery of our products/services. |
| Field Service | The group that provides maintenance services to our customers. |
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
Example/working slide for your glossary. Consider this a living document and keep it up to date.
| Term(s) | Definition |
| HRMS, HRIS, HCM | Human Resource Management System, Human Resource Information System, Human Capital Management. These represent four capabilities of HR: core HR, talent management, workforce management, and strategic HR. |
| Finance | Finance includes the core functionalities of GL, AR, and AP. It also covers such items as treasury, financial planning and analysis (FP&A), tax management, expenses, and asset management. |
| Supply Chain | The processes and networks required to produce and distribute a product or service. This encompasses both the organization and the suppliers. |
| Procurement | Procurement is about getting the right products from the right suppliers in a timely fashion. Related to procurement is vendor contract management. |
| Distribution | The process of getting the things we create to our customers. |
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management, the software used to maintain records of our sales and non-sales contact with our customers. |
| Sales | The process of identifying customers, providing quotes, and converting those quotes to sales orders to be invoiced. |
| Customer Service | This is the process of supporting customers with challenges and non-sales questions related to the delivery of our products/services. |
| Field Service | The group that provides maintenance services to our customers. |
Guiding principles are high-level rules of engagement that help to align stakeholders from the outset. Determine guiding principles to shape the scope and ensure stakeholders have the same vision.
Guiding principles should be constructed as full sentences. These statements should be able to guide decisions.
EXAMPLES
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
We, [Organization], will select and implement an integrated software suite that enhances the growth and profitability of the organization through streamlined global business processes, real time data-driven decisions, increased employee productivity, and IT investment protection.
| Corporate Strategy | Unified Strategy | ERP Strategy |
|
|
|
ERP projects are more successful when the management team understands the strategic importance and the criticality of alignment. Time needs to be spent upfront aligning business strategies with ERP capabilities. Effective alignment between IT and the business should happen daily. Alignment doesn’t just to occur at the executive level alone, but at each level of the organization.
1-2 hours
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Corporate Strategy | ERP Benefits |
| End customer visibility (consumer experience) |
|
| Social responsibility |
|
| New business development |
|
| Employee experience |
|
A project scope statement and a prioritized list of projects that may compete for organizational resources.
Establishing the parameters of the project in a scope statement helps define expectations and provides a baseline for resource allocation and planning. Future decisions about the strategic direction of ERP will be based on the scope statement.
Well-executed requirements gathering will help you avoid expanding project parameters, drawing on your resources, and contributing to cost overruns and project delays. Avoid scope creep by gathering high-level requirements that lead to the selection of category-level application solutions (e.g. HRIS, CRM, PLM etc.) rather than granular requirements that would lead to vendor application selection (e.g. SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, etc.).
Out-of-scope items should also be defined to alleviate ambiguity, reduce assumptions, and further clarify expectations for stakeholders. Out-of-scope items can be placed in a backlog for later consideration.
| In Scope | Out of Scope |
| Strategy | High-level ERP requirements, strategic direction |
| Software selection | Vendor application selection, Granular system requirements |
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
The following systems are considered in scope for this project:
The following systems are out of scope for this project:
The following systems are in scope, in that they must integrate into the new system. They will not change.
Organizations typically have multiple projects on the table or in flight. Each of those projects requires resources and attention from business and/or the IT organization.
Don’t let poor prioritization hurt your ERP implementation.
BNP Paribas Fortis had multiple projects that were poorly prioritized resulting in the time to bring products to market to double over a three-year period. (Source: Neito-Rodriguez, 2016)
| Project | Timeline | Priority notes | Implications |
| Warehouse management system upgrade project | Early 2022 implementation | High | Taking IT staff and warehouse team, testing by finance |
| Microsoft 365 | October 2021-March 2022 | High | IT Staff, org impacted by change management |
| Electronic Records Management | April 2022 – Feb 2023 | High | Legislative requirement, org impact due to record keeping |
| Web site upgrade | Early fiscal 2023 |
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
List all your known projects both current and proposed. Discuss the prioritization of those projects, whether they are more or less important than your ERP project.
| Project | Timeline | Priority notes | Implications |
| Warehouse management system upgrade project | Early 2022 implementation | High | Taking IT staff and warehouse team, testing by finance |
| Microsoft 365 | October 2021-March 2022 | High | IT Staff, org impacted by change management |
| Electronic Records Management | April 2022 – Feb 2023 | High | Legislative requirement, org impact due to record keeping |
| Web site upgrade | Early fiscal 2023 | Medium | |
| Point of Sale replacement | Oct 2021– Mar 2022 | Medium | |
| ERP utilization and training on unused systems | Friday, Sept 17 | Medium | Could impact multiple staff |
| Managed Security Service RFP | This calendar year | Medium | |
| Mental Health Dashboard | In research phase | Low |
Phase 1
| Phase 2
| Phase 3
| Phase 4
|
|
|||
External Considerations
|
Organizational Drivers
|
Technology Considerations
|
Functional Requirements
|
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Environmental Factors | Technology Drivers | Business Needs |
|
|
|
|
|||
Functional Gaps
|
Technical Gaps
|
Process Gaps
|
Barriers to Success
|
Business Benefits
|
IT Benefits
|
Organizational Benefits
|
Enablers of Success
|
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Organizational Goals | Enablers | Barriers |
|
|
|
In business architecture, the primary view of an organization is known as a business capability map.
A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation rather than how.
Business capabilities:
A business capability map provides details that help the business architecture practitioner direct attention to a specific area of the business for further assessment.
If you do not have a documented process model, you can use the APQC Framework to help define your inventory of business processes.
APQC’s Process Classification Framework is a taxonomy of cross-functional business processes intended to allow the objective comparison of organizational performance within and among organizations.
APQC’s Process Classification Framework
2-4 hours
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Core Finance | Core HR | Workforce Management | Talent Management | Warehouse Management | Enterprise Asset Management | ||||||
| Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
| Planning & Budgeting | Strategic HR | Procurement | Customer Relationship Management | Facilities Management | Project Management | ||||||
| Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology | Process | Technology |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
1-2 hours
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
Inventory your applications and assess usage, satisfaction, and disposition
| Application Name | Satisfaction | Processes Supported | Future Disposition |
| PeopleSoft Financials | Medium and declining | ERP – shares one support person with HR | Update or Replace |
| Time Entry (custom) | Low | Time and Attendance | Replace |
| PeopleSoft HR | Medium | Core HR | Update or Replace |
| ServiceNow | High ITSM CSM: Med-Low |
ITSM and CSM CSM – complexity and process changes |
Update |
| Data Warehouse | High IT Business: Med-Low |
BI portal – Tibco SaaS datamart | Keep |
| Regulatory Compliance | Medium | Regulatory software – users need training | Keep |
| ACL Analytics | Low | Audit | Replace |
| Elite | Medium | Supply chain for wholesale | Update (in progress) |
| Visual Importer | Med-High | Customs and taxes | Keep |
| Custom Reporting application | Med-High | Reporting solution for wholesale (custom for old system, patched for Elite) | Replace |
For each mega-process:
Congratulations, you have made it to the “big lift” portion of the blueprint. For each of the processes that were identified in exercise 2.2.1, you will fill out the following six details:
It will take one to three hours per mega-process to complete the six different sections.
Note:
For each mega-process identified you will create a separate slide in the ERP Strategy Report. Default slides have been provided. Add or delete as necessary.
*A “stage gate” approach should be used: the next level begins after consensus is achieved for the previous level.
1 hour per mega-process
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
30+ minutes per mega-process
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
30 minutes per mega-process
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Establishing an order of importance can impact vendor selection and implementation roadmap; high priority areas are critical for ERP success.
Phase 1
| Phase 2
| Phase 3
| Phase 4
|
Identify which stakeholders to include and what their level of involvement should be during requirements elicitation based on relevant topic expertise.
| Sponsor | End User | IT | Business | |
| Description | An internal stakeholder who has final sign-off on the ERP project. | Front-line users of the ERP technology. | Back-end support staff who are tasked with project planning, execution, and eventual system maintenance. | Additional stakeholders that will be impacted by any ERP technology changes. |
| Examples |
|
|
|
|
| Value | Executive buy-in and support is essential to the success of the project. Often, the sponsor controls funding and resource allocation. | End users determine the success of the system through user adoption. If the end user does not adopt the system, the system is deemed useless and benefits realization is poor. | IT is likely to be responsible for more in-depth requirements gathering. IT possesses critical knowledge around system compatibility, integration, and data. | Involving business stakeholders in the requirements gathering will ensure alignment between HR and organizational objectives. |
Large-scale ERP projects require the involvement of many stakeholders from all corners and levels of the organization, including project sponsors, IT, end users, and business stakeholders. Consider the influence and interest of stakeholders in contributing to the requirements elicitation process and involve them accordingly.
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
Understanding the technical and strategic risks of a project can help you establish contingencies to reduce the likelihood of risk occurrence and devise mitigation strategies to help offset their impact if contingencies are insufficient.
| Risk | Impact | Likelihood | Mitigation Effort |
| Inadequate budget for additional staffing resources. | 2 | 1 | Use internal transfers and role-sharing rather than external hiring. |
| Push-back on an ERP solution. | 2 | 2 | Use formal communication plans, an ERP steering committee, and change management to overcome organizational readiness. |
| Overworked resources. | 1 | 1 | Create a detailed project plan that outlines resources and timelines in advance. |
Rating Scale: |
|||
| Impact: | 1- High Risk | 2- Moderate Risk | 3- Minimal Risk |
| Likelihood: | 1- High/Needs Focus | 2- Can Be Mitigated | 3- Remote Likelihood |
The biggest sources of risk in an ERP strategy are lack of planning, poorly defined requirements, and lack of governance.
Apply the following mitigation tips to avoid pitfalls and delays.
1-2 hours
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Risk | Impact | Likelihood | Mitigation Effort |
| Inadequate budget for additional staffing resources. | 2 | 1 | Use internal transfers and role-sharing rather than external hiring. |
| Push-back on an ERP solution. | 2 | 2 | Use formal communication plans, an ERP steering committee, and change management to overcome organizational readiness. |
| Overworked resources. | 1 | 1 | Create a detailed project plan that outlines resources and timelines in advance. |
| Project approval | 1 | 1 | Build a strong business case for project approval and allow adequate time for the approval process |
| Software does not work as advertised resulting in custom functionality with associated costs to create/ maintain | 1 | 2 | Work with staff to change processes to match the software instead of customizing the system thorough needs analysis prior to RFP creation |
| Under estimation of staffing levels required, i.e. staff utilized at 25% for project when they are still 100% on their day job | 1 | 2 | Build a proper business case around staffing (be somewhat pessimistic) |
| EHS system does not integrate with new HRMS/ERP system | 2 | 2 | |
| Selection of an ERP/HRMS that does not integrate with existing systems | 2 | 3 | Be very clear in RFP on existing systems that MUST be integrated to |
Rating Scale: |
|||
| Impact: | 1- High Risk | 2- Moderate Risk | 3- Minimal Risk |
| Likelihood: | 1- High/Needs Focus | 2- Can Be Mitigated | 3- Remote Likelihood |
By answering the seven questions the key stakeholders are indicating their commitment. While this doesn’t guarantee that the top two critical success factors have been met, it does create the conversation to guide the organization into alignment on whether to proceed.
30 minutes
There are no wrong answers. It should be okay to disagree with any of these statements. The goal of the exercise is to generate conversation that leads to support of the project and collaboration on the part of the participants.
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Question # | Question | Strongly disagree | Somewhat disagree | Neither agree nor disagree | Somewhat agree | Strongly agree |
| 1. | I have everything I need to succeed. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 2. | The right people are involved in the project. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 3. | I understand the process of ERP selection. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 4. | My role in the project is clear to me. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 5. | I am clear about the vision for this project. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6. | I am nervous about this project. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 7. | There is leadership support for the project. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Consider the core team functions when composing the project team. It is essential to ensure that all relevant perspectives (business, IT, etc.) are evaluated to create a well-aligned and holistic ERP strategy.
There may be an inclination towards a large project team when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limiting the size of the project team will enable effective decision making while still including functional business units like HR and Finance, as well as IT.
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
Of particular importance for this table is the commitment column. It is important that the organization understands the level of involvement for all roles. Failure to properly account for the necessary involvement is a major risk factor.
| Role | Candidate | Responsibility | Commitment |
| Project champion | John Smith |
|
20 hours/week |
| Steering committee |
|
10 hours/week | |
| Project manager |
|
40 hours/week | |
| Project team |
|
40 hours/week | |
| Subject matter experts by area |
|
5 hours/week |
Build a list of the core ERP strategy team members and then structure a RACI chart with the relevant categories and roles for the overall project.
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Project champion | Project advisor | Project steering committee | Project manager | Project team | Subject matter experts | |
| Determine project scope & vision | I | C | A | R | C | C |
| Document business goals | I | I | A | R | I | C |
| Inventory ERP processes | I | I | A | C | R | R |
| Map current state | I | I | A | R | I | R |
| Assess gaps and opportunities | I | C | A | R | I | I |
| Explore alternatives | R | R | A | I | I | R |
| Build a roadmap | R | A | R | I | I | R |
| Create a communication plan | R | A | R | I | I | R |
| Present findings | R | A | R | I | I | R |
Phase 1
| Phase 2
| Phase 3
| Phase 4
|
There are several different paths you can take to achieve your ideal future state. Make sure to pick the one that suits your needs as defined by your current state.
| CURRENT STATE | STRATEGY |
| Your existing application satisfies both functionality and integration requirements. The processes surrounding it likely need attention, but the system should be considered for retention. | MAINTAIN CURRENT SYSTEM |
| Your existing application is, for the most part, functionally rich, but may need some tweaking. Spend time and effort building and enhancing additional functionalities or consolidating and integrating interfaces. | AUGMENT CURRENT SYSTEM |
| Your ERP application portfolio consists of multiple apps serving the same functions. Consolidating applications with duplicate functionality is more cost efficient and makes integration and data sharing simpler. | OPTIMIZE: CONSOLIDATE AND INTEGRATE SYSTEMS |
| Your existing system offers poor functionality and poor integration. It would likely be more cost and time efficient to replace the application and its surrounding processes altogether. | TRANSFORM: REPLACE CURRENT SYSTEM |
Keep the system, change the process.
Your existing application satisfies both functionality and integration requirements. The processes surrounding it likely need attention, but the system should be considered for retention.
Maintaining your current system entails adjusting current processes and/or adding new ones, and involves minimal cost, time, and effort.
| INDICATORS | POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS |
| People Pain Points | |
|
|
| Process Pain Points | |
|
|
Add to the system.
Your existing application is for the most part functionally rich but may need some tweaking. Spend time and effort enhancing your current system.
You will be able to add functions by leveraging existing system features. Augmentation requires limited investment and less time and effort than a full system replacement.
| INDICATORS | POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS |
| Technology Pain Points | |
|
|
| Data Pain Points | |
|
|
Get rid of one system, combine two, or connect many.
Your ERP application portfolio consists of multiple apps serving the same functions.
Consolidating your systems eliminates the need to manage multiple pieces of software that provide duplicate functionality. Reducing the number of ERP applications makes integration and data sharing simpler.
| INDICATORS | POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS |
| Technology Pain Points | |
|
|
| Data Pain Points | |
|
|
Start from scratch.
You’re transitioning from an end-of-life legacy system. Your existing system offers poor functionality and poor integration. It would likely be more cost and time efficient to replace the application and its surrounding processes all together.
| INDICATORS | POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS |
| Technology Pain Points | |
|
|
| Data Pain Points | |
|
|
| Process Pains | |
|
|
1-2 hours
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Note:
Your roadmap should be treated as a living document that is updated and shared with the stakeholders on a regular schedule.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
| Initiative | Owner | Start Date | Completion Date |
| Create final workshop deliverable | Info-Tech | 16 September, 2021 | |
| Review final deliverable | Workshop sponsor | ||
| Present to executive team | Oct 2021 | ||
| Build business case | CFO, CIO, Directors | 3 weeks to build 3-4 weeks process time |
|
| Build an RFI for initial costings | 1-2 weeks | ||
| Stage 1 approval for requirements gathering | Executive committee | Milestone | |
| Determine and acquire BA support for next step | 1 week | ||
| Requirements gathering – level 2 processes | Project team | 5-6 weeks effort | |
| Build RFP (based on informal approval) | CFO, CIO, Directors | 4th calendar quarter 2022 | Possible completion January 2023 2-4 weeks |
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
A communication plan is necessary because not everyone will react positively to change. Therefore, you must be prepared to explain the rationale behind any initiatives that are being rolled out.
“The most important thing in project management is communication, communication, communication. You have to be able to put a message into business terms rather than technical terms.” (Lance Foust, I.S. Manager, Plymouth Tube Company)
| Project Goals | Communication Goals | Required Resources | Communication Channels |
| Why is your organization embarking on an ERP project? | What do you want employees to know about the project? | What resources are going to be utilized throughout the ERP strategy? | How will your project team communicate project updates to the employees? |
| Streamline processes and achieve operational efficiency. | We will focus on mapping and gathering requirements for (X) mega-processes. | We will be hiring process owners for each mega-process. | You will be kept up to date about the project progress via email and intranet. Please feel free to contact the project owner if you have any questions. |
1 hour
Record this information in the ERP Strategy Report Template.
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
Use the communication planning template to track communication methods needed to convey information regarding ERP initiatives.
This is designed to help your organization make ERP initiatives visible and create stakeholder awareness.
| Audience | Purpose | Delivery/ Format | Communicator | Delivery Date | Status/Notes |
| Front-line employees | Highlight successes | Bi-weekly email | CEO | Mondays | |
| Entire organization | Highlight successes Plans for next iteration |
Monthly townhall | Senior leadership | Last Thursday of every month | Recognize top contributors from different parts of the business. Consider giving out prizes such as coffee mugs |
| Iteration demos | Show completed functionality to key stakeholders | Iteration completion web conference | Delivery lead | Every other Wednesday | Record and share the demonstrations to all employees |
After completing the activities and exercises within this blueprint, the final step of the process is to present the deliverable to senior management and stakeholders.
“When delivering the strategy and next steps, break the project down into consumable pieces. Make sure you deliver quick wins to retain enthusiasm and engagement.
By making it look like a different project you keep momentum and avoid making it seem unattainable.” (Scott Clark, Innovation Credit Union)
“To successfully sell the value of ERP, determine what the high-level business problem is and explain how ERP can be the resolution. Explicitly state which business areas ERP is going to touch. The business often has a very narrow view of ERP and perceives it as just a financial system. The key part of the strategy is that the organization sees the broader view of ERP.” (Scott Clark, Innovation Credit Union)
1 hour
Download the ERP Strategy Report Template
ERP technology is critical to facilitating an organization’s flow of information across business units. It allows for seamless integration of systems and creates a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making. ERP implementation should not be a one-and-done exercise. There needs to be an ongoing optimization to enable business processes and optimal organizational results.
Build an ERP Strategy and Roadmap allows organizations to proactively implement continuous assessment and optimization of their enterprise resource planning system, including:
This formal ERP optimization initiative will drive business-IT alignment, identify IT automation priorities, and dig deep into continuous process improvement.
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
| Name | Title | Organization |
| Anonymous | Anonymous | Software industry |
| Anonymous | Anonymous | Pharmaceutical industry |
| Boris Znebel | VP of Sales | Second Foundation |
| Brian Kudeba | Director, Administrative Systems | Fidelis Care |
| David Lawrence | Director, ERP | Allegheny Technologies Inc. |
| Ken Zima | CIO | Aquarion Water Company |
| Lance Foust | I.S. Manager | Plymouth Tube Company |
| Pooja Bagga | Head of ERP Strategy & Change | Transport for London |
| Rob Schneider | Project Director, ERP | Strathcona County |
| Scott Clark | Innovation Credit Union | |
| Tarek Raafat | Manager, Application Solutions | IDRC |
| Tom Walker | VP, Information Technology | StarTech.com |
Gheorghiu, Gabriel. "The ERP Buyer’s Profile for Growing Companies." Selecthub. 2018. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.
"Maximizing the Emotional Economy: Behavioral Economics." Gallup. n.d. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.
Neito-Rodriguez, Antonio. Project Management | How to Prioritize Your Company's Projects. 13 Dec. 2016. Accessed 29 Nov 2021. Web.
"A&D organization resolves organizational.“ Case Study. Panorama Consulting Group. 2021. PDF. 09 Nov. 2021. Web.
"Process Frameworks." APQC. n.d. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.
Saxena, Deepak and Joe Mcdonagh. "Evaluating ERP Implementations: The Case for a Lifecycle-based Interpretive Approach." The Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 29-37. 22 Feb. 2019. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.
Reduced infection rates in compromised areas are providing hope that these difficult times will pass. However, organizations are facing harsh realities in real time. With significant reductions in revenue, employers are facing pressure to quickly implement cost-cutting strategies, resulting in mass layoffs of valuable employees.
Employees are an organization’s greatest asset. When faced with cost-cutting pressures, look for redeployment opportunities that use talent as a resource to get through hard times before resorting to difficult layoff decisions.
Make the most of your workforce in this unprecedented situation by following McLean & Company’s process to initiate redeployment efforts and reduce costs. If all else fails, follow our guidance on planning for layoffs and considerations when doing so.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Set a strategy with senior leadership, brainstorm underused and understaffed employee segments and departments, then determine an approach to redeployments and layoffs.
Collect key information, prepare and redeploy, and roll up information across the organization.
Plan for layoffs, execute on the layoff plan, and communicate to employees.
Monitor departmental performance, review organizational performance, and determine next steps.
Understand what your department’s purpose is through articulating its strategy in three steps:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Consider and record your department’s values, principles, orientation, and capabilities.
Define your department’s strategy through your understanding of your department combined with everything that you do and are working to do.
Communicate your department’s strategy to your key stakeholders.
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.
Understand what makes up your application department beyond the applications and services provided.
Articulating your guiding principles, values, capabilities, and orientation provides a foundation for expressing your department strategy.
1.1 Identify your team’s values and guiding principles.
1.2 Define your department’s orientation.
A summary of your department’s values and guiding principles
A clear view of your department’s orientation and supporting capabilities
Lay out all the details that make up your application department strategy.
A completed application department strategy canvas containing everything you need to communicate your strategy.
2.1 Write your application department vision statement.
2.2 Define your application department goals and metrics.
2.3 Specify your department capabilities and orientation.
2.4 Prioritize what is most important to your department.
Your department vision
Your department’s goals and metrics that contribute to achieving your department’s vision
Your department’s capabilities and orientation
A prioritized roadmap for your department
Lay out your strategy’s communication plan.
Your application department strategy presentation ready to be presented to your stakeholders.
3.1 Identify your stakeholders.
3.2 Develop a communication plan.
3.3 Wrap-up and next steps
List of prioritized stakeholders you want to communicate with
A plan for what to communicate to each stakeholder
Communication is only the first step – what comes next?
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Create a prioritized action plan for documentation based on business need.
Adapt policy templates to meet your business requirements.
Improve policy adherence and service effectiveness through procedure standardization and documentation.
"Most IT organizations struggle to create and maintain effective policies and procedures, despite known improvements to consistency, compliance, knowledge transfer, and transparency.
The numbers are staggering. Fully three-quarters of IT professionals believe their policies need improvement, and the same proportion of organizations don’t update procedures as required.
At the same time, organizations that over-document and under-document perform equally poorly on key measures such as policy quality and policy adherence. Take a practical, step-by-step approach that prioritizes the documentation you need now. Leave the rest for later."
(Andrew Sharp, Research Manager, Infrastructure & Operations Practice, Info-Tech Research Group)This blueprint supports templates for key policies and procedures that help Infrastructure & Operations teams to govern and manage internal operations. For security policies, see the NIST SP 800-171 aligned Info-Tech blueprint, Develop and Deploy Security Policies.
A policy is a governing document that states the long-term goals of the organization and in broad strokes outlines how they will be achieved (e.g. a Data Protection Policy).
In the context of policies, a procedure is composed of the steps required to complete a task (e.g. a Backup and Restore Procedure). Procedures are informed by required standards and recommended guidelines. Processes, guidelines, and standards are three pillars that support the achievement of policy goals.
A process is higher level than a procedure – a set of tasks that deliver on an organizational goal.
Better policies and procedures reduce organizational risk and, by strengthening the ability to execute processes, enhance the organization’s ability to execute on its goals.
Build, deliver, and support Infrastructure assets in a consistent way, which ultimately reduces costs associated with downtime, errors, and rework. A good manual process is the foundation for a good automated process.
Use documentation for knowledge transfer. Routine tasks can be delegated to less-experienced staff.
Comply with laws and regulations. Policies are often required for compliance, and formally documented and enforced policies help the organization maintain compliance by mandating required due diligence, risk reduction, and reporting activities.
Build an open kitchen. Other areas of the organization may not understand how Infra & Ops works. Your documentation can provide the answer to the perennial question: “Why does that take so long?”
Governance goals must be supported with effective, well-aligned procedures and processes. Use Info-Tech’s research to support the key Infrastructure & Operations processes that enable your business to create value.
Half of all organizations believe their policy suite is insufficient. (Info-Tech myPolicies Survey Data (N=59))
Too much documentation and a lack of documentation are both ineffective. (Info-Tech myPolicies Survey Data (N=59))
77% of IT professionals believe their policies require improvement. (Kaspersky Lab)
We’ve developed a suite of effective policy templates for every Infra & Ops manager based on Info-Tech’s IT Management & Governance Framework.
Look for these symbols as you work through the deck. Prioritize and focus on the policies you work on first based on the value of the policy to the enterprise and the existing gaps in your governance structure.
Phases |
1. Identify policy and procedure gaps | 2. Develop policies | 3. Document effective procedures |
Steps |
|
|
|
Outcomes |
Action list of policy and procedure gaps | New or updated Infrastructure & Operations policies | Procedure documentation |
Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.
This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.
This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.
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." |
Contact Info-Tech to set up a Guided Implementation with a dedicated advisor who will walk you through every stage of your policy development project.
Asset Management: Manage hardware and software assets across their lifecycle to protect assets and manage costs.
Availability and Capacity Management: Balance current and future availability, capacity, and performance needs with cost-to-serve.
Business Continuity Management: Continue operation of critical business processes and IT services.
Change Management: Deliver technical changes in a controlled manner.
Configuration Management: Define and maintain relationships between technical components.
Problem Management: Identify incident root cause.
Operations Management: Coordinate operations.
Release and Patch Management: Deliver updates and manage vulnerabilities in a controlled manner.
Service Desk: Respond to user requests and all incidents.
Policy: Directives, rules, and mandates that support the overarching, long-term goals of the organization.
Take advantage of your Info-Tech advisory membership by scheduling review sessions with an analyst. We provide high-level feedback to ensure your documentation is clear, concise, and consistent and aligns with the governance objectives you’ve identified.
1(c) 30 minutes
Reinvent the wheel? I don’t think so!
Always check to see if a gap can be addressed with existing tools before drafting a new policy
Some problems can’t be solved by better documentation (or by documentation alone). Consider additional strategies that address people, process, and technology.
1(d) 30 minutes
| Score | Business risk of missing documentation | Business benefit of value of documentation |
1 |
Low: Affects ad hoc activities or non-critical data. | Low: Minimal impact. |
2 |
Moderate: Impacts productivity or internal goodwill. | Moderate: Required periodically; some cross-training opportunities. |
3 |
High: Impacts revenue, safety, or external goodwill. | High: Save time for common or ongoing processes; extensive improvement to training/knowledge transfer. |
Documentation pulls resources away from other important programs and projects, so ultimately it must be a demonstrably higher priority than other work. This exercise is designed to align documentation efforts with business goals.
To download the full suite of templates all at once, click the “Download Research” button on the research landing page on the website.
Understanding makes compliance possible. Create policy with the goal of making compliance as easy as possible. Use positive, simple language to convey your intentions and rationale to your audience. Staff will make an effort adhere to your policy when they understand the need and are able to comply with the terms.
Highly effective policies are easy to navigate. Your policies should be “skimmable.” Very few people will fully read a policy before accepting it. Make it easy to navigate so the reader can easily find the policy statements that apply to them.
Ensure that policies are aligned with other organizational policies and procedures. It detracts from compliance if different policies prescribe different behavior in the same situation. Moreover, your policies should reflect the corporate culture and other company standards. Use your policies to communicate rules and get employees aligned with how your company works.
"One of the issues is the perception that policies are rules and regulations. Instead, your policies should be used to say ‘this is the way we do things around here.’" (Mike Hughes CISA CGEIT CRISC, Principal Director, Haines-Watts GRC)
Reading and understanding policies shouldn’t be challenging, and it shouldn’t significantly detract from productive time. Long policies are more difficult to read and understand, increasing the work required for employees to comply with them. Put it this way: How often do you read the Terms and Conditions of software you’ve installed before accepting them?
"If the policy’s too large, people aren’t going to read it. Why read something that doesn’t apply to me?" (Carole Fennelly, Owner and Principal, cFennelly Consulting)
"I always try to strike a good balance between length and prescriptiveness when writing policy. Your policies … should be short and describe the problem and your approach to solving it. Below policies, you write standards, guidelines, and SOPs." (Michael Deskin, Policy and Technical Writer, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission)
INPUT: List of prioritized policies
OUTPUT: Written policy drafts ready for review
Materials: Policy templates
Participants: Policy writer, Signing authority
No policy template will be a perfect fit for your organization. Use Info-Tech’s research to develop your organization’s program requirements. Customize the policy templates to support those requirements.
Use the following template to create a policy that outlines the goals and mandate for your service and support organization:
Support the program and associated policy statements using Info-Tech’s research:
Use the following templates to create policies that define effective patch, release, and change management:
Ensure the policy is supported by using the following Info-Tech research:
Start by outlining the requirements for effective asset management:
Support ITAM policies with the following Info-Tech research:
"Many of the large data breaches you hear about… nobody told the sysadmin the client data was on that server. So they weren’t protecting and monitoring it." (Carole Fennelly, Owner and Principal, cFennelly Consulting)
Set the direction and requirements for effective BCM:
Support the BCM policy with the following Info-Tech research:
Governance goals must be supported with effective, well-aligned procedures and processes. Use Info-Tech’s research to support the key Infrastructure & Operations processes that enable your business to create value.
Set the direction and requirements for effective availability and capacity management:
Support the policy with the following Info-Tech research:
Security policies support the organization’s larger security program. We’ve created a dedicated research blueprint and a set of templates that will help you build security policies around a robust framework.
Review and download Info-Tech's blueprint Develop and Deploy Security Policies.
Customize Info-Tech’s policy framework to align your policy suite to NIST SP 800-171. Given NIST’s requirements for the control of confidential information, organizations that align their policies to NIST standards will be in a strong governance position.
2(b) Review period: 1-2 weeks
INPUT: Draft policies
OUTPUT: Reviewed policy drafts ready for approval
Materials: Policy drafts
Participants: Policy stakeholders
Allow staff the opportunity to provide input on policy development. Giving employees a say in policy development helps avoid obstacles down the road. This is especially true if you’re trying to change behavior rather than lock it in.
INPUT: Draft policies
OUTPUT: Reviewed policy drafts ready for approval
Materials: Policy drafts
Participants: Policy stakeholders
Preventive controls are designed to discourage or pre-empt policy breaches before they occur. Training, approvals processes, and segregation of duties are examples of preventive controls. (Ohio University)
Detective controls help enforce the policy by identifying breaches after they occur. Forensic analysis and event log auditing are examples of detective controls. (Ohio University)
Not all policies require the same level of enforcement. Policies that are required by law or regulation generally require stricter enforcement than policies that outline best practices or organizational values.
Identify controls and enforcement mechanisms that are in line with policy requirements. Build control and enforcement into procedure documentation as needed.
Standards are requirements that support policy adherence. Server builds and images, purchase approval criteria, and vulnerability severity definitions can all be examples of standards that improve policy adherence.
Where reasonable, use automated controls to enforce standards. If you automate the control, consider how you’ll handle exceptions.
If no standards exist – or best practices can’t be monitored and enforced, as standards require – write guidelines to help users remain in compliance with the policy.
Create Procedures: We’ll cover procedure development and documentation in Phase 3.
In general, failing to follow or strictly enforce a policy creates a risk for the business. If you’re not confident a policy will be followed or enforced, consider using policy statements as guidelines or standards as an interim measure as you update procedures and communicate and roll out changes that support adherence and enforcement.
"A lot of board members and executive management teams… don’t understand the technology and the risks posed by it." (Carole Fennelly, Owner and Principal, cFennelly Consulting)
Role |
Responsibilities |
Executive sponsor |
|
Program lead |
|
Policy writer |
|
IT infrastructure SMEs |
|
Legal expert |
|
"Whether at the level of a government, a department, or a sub-organization: technology and policy expertise complement one another and must be part of the conversation." (Peter Sheingold, Portfolio Manager, Cybersecurity, MITRE Corporation)
Support these processes... |
...with these blueprints... |
...to create SOPs using these templates. |
| Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan | DRP Summary | |
| Implement IT Asset Management | HAM SOP and SAM SOP | |
| Optimize Change Management | Change Management SOP | |
| Standardize the Service Desk | Service Desk SOP |
3(b) 30 minutes
OUTPUT: Steps in the current process for one SOP
Materials: Tabletop, pen, and cue cards
Participants: Process owners, SMEs
Don’t get weighed down by tools. Relying on software or other technological tools can detract from the exercise. Use simple tools such as cue cards to record steps so that you can easily rearrange steps or insert steps based on input from the group.
Review the tabletop exercise. What gaps exist in current processes?
How can the processes be made better? What are the outputs and checkpoints?
OUTPUT: Identify steps to optimize the SOP
Materials: Tabletop, pen, and cue cards
Participants: Process owners, SMEs
A note on colors: Use white cards to record steps. Record gaps on yellow cards (e.g. a process step not documented) and risks on red cards (e.g. only one person knows how to execute a step) to highlight your gaps/to-dos and risks to be mitigated or accepted.
If it’s necessary to clarify complex process flows during the exercise, you can also use green cards for decision diamonds, purple for document/report outputs, and blue for subprocesses.
Download the following workflow examples:
|
Start, End, and Connector: Traditional flowcharting standards reserve this shape for connectors to other flowcharts or other points in the existing flowchart. Unified Modeling Language (UML) also uses the circle for start and end points. |
|
Start and End: Traditional flowcharting standards use this for start and end. However, Info-Tech recommends using the circle shape to reduce the number of shapes and avoid confusion with other similar shapes. |
|
Process Step: Individual process steps or activities (e.g. create ticket or escalate ticket). If it’s a series of steps, then use the subprocess symbol and flowchart the subprocess separately. |
|
Subprocess: A series of steps. For example, a critical incident SOP might reference a recovery process as one of the possible actions. Marking it as a subprocess, rather than listing each step within the critical incident SOP, streamlines the flowchart and avoids overlap with other flowcharts (e.g. the recovery process). |
|
Decision: Represents decision points, typically with Yes/No branches, but you could have other branches depending on the question (e.g. a “Priority?” question could branch into separate streams for Priority 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 issues). |
|
Document/Report Output: For example, the output from a backup process might include an error log. |
"It isn’t unusual for us to see infrastructure or operations documentation that is wildly out of date. We’re talking months, even years. Often it was produced as one big effort and then not reliably maintained." (Gary Patterson, Consultant, Quorum Resources)
Use Info-Tech’s research Create Visual SOP Documents to further evaluate document management practices and toolsets.
Carole Fennelly provides pragmatic cyber security expertise to help organizations bridge the gap between technical and business requirements. She authored the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Solaris and Red Hat benchmarks, which are used globally as configuration standards to secure IT systems. As a consultant, Carole has defined security strategies, and developed policies and procedures to implement them, at numerous Fortune 500 clients. Carole is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Security Compliance Specialist (CSCS), and Certified HIPAA Professional (CHP).
Marko is an IT Audit Manager at audit2advise, where he delivers audit, risk advisory, and project management services. He has worked as a Security Officer, Quality Manager, and Consultant at some of Germany’s largest companies. He is a CISA and is ITIL v3 Intermediate and ITGCP certified.
Martin is a digital transformation enabler who has been involved in various fields of IT for more than 30 years. At Glenfis, he leads large Governance and Service Management projects for various customers. Since 2002, he has been the course manager for ITIL® Foundation, ITIL® Service Management, and COBIT training. He has published two books on ISO 20000 and ITIL.
Myles Suer, according to LeadTails, is the number 9 influencer of CIOs. He is also the facilitator for the CIOChat, which has executive-level participants from around the world in such industries as banking, insurance, education, and government. Myles is also the Industry Solutions Marketing Manager at Dell Boomi.
Peter leads tasks that involve collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sponsors and MITRE colleagues and connect strategy, policy, organization, and technology. He brings a deep background in homeland security and strategic analysis to his work with DHS in the immigration, border security, and cyber mission spaces. Peter came to MITRE in 2005 but has worked with DHS from its inception.
Dr. Austin is a professor of Information Systems at Ivey Business School and an affiliated faculty member at Harvard Medical School. Before his appointment at Ivey, he was a professor of Innovation and Digital Transformation at Copenhagen Business School, and, before that, a professor of Technology and Operations Management at the Harvard Business School.
Ron is a senior IT leader with over 20 years of management experiences from engineering to IT Service Management and operations support. He is known for joining organizations and leading enhanced process efficiency and has improved software, hardware, infrastructure, and operations solution delivery and support. Ron has worked for global and Canadian firms including BlackBerry, DoubleClick, Cogeco, Infusion, Info-Tech Research Group, and Data Communications Management.
Scott is an accomplished IT executive with 26 years of experience in technical and leadership roles. In his current role, Scott provides strategic leadership, vision, and oversight for an IT portfolio supporting 31,000 users consisting of services utilized by campuses located in North America, Asia, and Europe; oversees the University’s Command Center; and chairs the UC Cyberinfrastructure Alliance (UCCA), a group of research IT providers that collectively deliver services to the campus and partners.
Steve has 20 years of experience in information security design, implementation, and assessment. He has provided information security services to a wide variety of organizations, including government agencies, hospitals, universities, small businesses, and large enterprises. With his background as a systems administrator, security consultant, security architect, and information security director, Steve has a strong understanding of both the strategic and tactical aspects of information security. Steve has significant hands-on experience with security controls, operating systems, and applications. Steve has a master's degree in Information Science from the University of Washington.
Tony has over 25 years of international IT leadership experience, within high tech, computing, telecommunications, finance, banking, government, and retail industries. Throughout his career, Tony has led and successfully implemented key corporate initiatives, contributing millions of dollars to the top and bottom line. He established Read & Associates in 2002, an international IT management and program/project delivery consultancy practice whose aim is to provide IT value-based solutions, realizing stakeholder economic value and network advantage. These key concepts are presented in his new book: The IT Value Network: From IT Investment to Stakeholder Value, published by J. Wiley, NJ.
“About Controls.” Ohio University, ND. Web. 2 Feb 2018.
England, Rob. “How to implement ITIL for a client?” The IT Skeptic. Two Hills Ltd, 4 Feb. 2010. Web. 2018.
“Global Corporate IT Security Risks: 2013.” Kaspersky Lab, May 2013. Web. 2018.
“Information Security and Technology Policies.” City of Chicago, Department of Innovation and Technology, Oct. 2014. Web. 2018.
ISACA. COBIT 5: Enabling Processes. International Systems Audit and Control Association. Rolling Meadows, IL.: 2012.
“IT Policy & Governance.” NYC Information Technology & Telecommunications, ND. Web. 2018.
King, Paula and Kent Wada. “IT Policy: An Essential Element of IT Infrastructure”. EDUCAUSE Review. May-June 2001. Web. 2018.
Luebbe, Max. “Simplicity.” Site Reliability Engineering. O’Reilly Media. 2017. Web. 2018.
Swartout, Shawn. “Risk assessment, acceptance, and exception with a process view.” ISACA Charlotte Chapter September Event, 2013. Web. 2018.
“User Guide to Writing Policies.” Office of Policy and Efficiency, University of Colorado, ND. Web. 2018.
“The Value of Policies and Procedures.” New Mexico Municipal League, ND. Web. 2018.
You are looking to lose your dependency on Active Directory (AD), and you need to tackle infrastructure technical debt, but there are challenges:
Don’t allow Active Directory services to dictate your enterprise innovation and modernization strategies. Determine if you can safely remove objects and move them to a cloud service where your Azure AD Domain Services can handle your authentication and manage users and groups.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Build all new systems with cloud integration in mind. Many applications built in the past had built-in AD components for access, using Kerberos and NTLM. This dependency has prevented organizations from migrating away from AD. When assessing new technology and applications, consider SaaS or cloud-native apps rather than a Microsoft-dependent application with AD ingrained in the code.
Understand what Active Directory is and why Azure Active Directory does not replace it.
It’s about Kerberos and New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM).
![]() |
Many organizations that want to innovate and migrate from on-premises applications to software as a service (SaaS) and cloud services are held hostage by their legacy Active Directory (AD). Microsoft did a good job taking over from Novell back in the late 90s, but its hooks into businesses are so deep that many have become dependent on AD services to manage devices and users, when in fact AD falls far short of needed capabilities, restricting innovation and progress. Despite Microsoft’s Azure becoming prominent in the world of cloud services, Azure AD is not a replacement for on-premises AD. While Azure AD is a secure authentication store that can contain users and groups, that is where the similarities end. In fact, Microsoft itself has an architecture to mitigate the shortcomings of Azure AD by recommending organizations migrate to a hybrid model, especially for businesses that have an in-house footprint of servers and applications. If you are a greenfield business and intend to take advantage of software, infrastructure, and platform as a service (SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS), as well as Microsoft 365 in Azure, then Azure AD is for you and you don’t have to worry about the need for AD. John Donovan |
Legacy AD was never built for modern infrastructure |
When Microsoft built AD as a free component for the Windows Server environment to replace Windows NT before the demise of Novell Directory Services in 2001, it never meant Active Directory to work outside the corporate network with Microsoft apps and devices. While it began as a central managing system for users and PCs on Microsoft operating systems, with one user per PC, the IT ecosystem has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, with cloud adoption, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, and everything as a service. To make matters worse, work-from-anywhere has become a serious security challenge. |
|---|---|
Build all new systems with cloud integration in mind |
Many applications built in the past had built-in AD components for access, using Kerberos and NTLM. This dependency has prevented organizations from migrating away from AD. When assessing new technology and applications, consider SaaS or cloud-native apps rather than a Microsoft-dependent application with AD ingrained in the code. Ensure you are engaged when the business is assessing new apps. Stop the practice of the business purchasing apps without IT’s involvement; for example, if your marketing department is asking you for your Domain credentials for a vendor when you were not informed of this purchase. |
Hybrid AD is a solution but not a long-term goal |
Economically, Microsoft has no interest in replacing AD anytime soon. Microsoft wants that revenue and has built components like Azure AD Connect to mitigate the AD dependency issue, which is basically holding your organization hostage. In fact, Microsoft has advised that a hybrid solution will remain because, as we will investigate, Azure AD is not legacy AD. |
Your Challenge |
Common Obstacles |
Info-Tech’s Approach |
|---|---|---|
You are looking to lose your dependency on Active Directory, and you need to tackle infrastructure technical debt, but there are challenges.
|
|
|
Info-Tech Insight
Don’t allow Active Directory services to dictate your enterprise innovation and modernization strategies. Determine if you can safely remove objects and move them to a cloud service where your Azure AD Domain Services can handle your authentication and manage users and groups.
From NT to the cloud
| AD 2001 | Exchange Server 2003 | SharePoint 2007 | Server 2008 R2 | BYOD Security Risk | All in Cloud 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
AD is the backbone of many organizations’ IT infrastructure
73% of organizations say their infrastructure is built on AD.
82% say their applications depend on AD data.
89% say AD enables authenticated access to file servers.
90% say AD is the main source for authentication.
Source: Dimensions research: Active Directory Modernization :
Info-Tech Insight
Organizations fail to move away from AD for many reasons, including:
Physical and logical structure
Authentication, authorization, and auditing

AD creates infrastructure technical debt and is difficult to migrate away from.

Info-Tech Insight
Due to the pervasive nature of Active Directory in the IT ecosystem, IT organizations are reluctant to migrate away from AD to modernize and innovate.
Migration to Microsoft 365 in Azure has forced IT departments’ hand, and now that they have dipped their toe in the proverbial cloud “lake,” they see a way out of the mounting technical debt.
Neglecting Active Directory security
98% of data breaches came from external sources.
85% of data breach took weeks or even longer to discover.
The biggest challenge for recovery after an Active Directory security breach is identifying the source of the breach, determining the extent of the breach, and creating a safe and secure environment.
Info-Tech Insight
Neglecting legacy Active Directory security will lead to cyberattacks. Malicious users can steal credentials and hijack data or corrupt your systems.
AD event logs
84% of organizations that had a breach had evidence of that breach in their event logs.
It’s widely estimated that Active Directory remains at the backbone of 90% of Global Fortune 1000 companies’ business infrastructure (Lepide, 2021), and with that comes risk. The risks include:
AD is dependent on Windows Server

"Azure Active Directory is not designed to be the cloud version of Active Directory. It is not a domain controller or a directory in the cloud that will provide the exact same capabilities with AD. It actually provides many more capabilities in a different way.
That’s why there is no actual ‘migration’ path from Active Directory to Azure Active Directory. You can synchronize your on-premises directories (Active Directory or other) to Azure Active Directory but not migrate your computer accounts, group policies, OU etc."
– Gregory Hall,
Brand Representative for Microsoft
(Source: Spiceworks)

Note: AD Federated Services (ADFS) is not a replacement for AD. It’s a bolt-on that requires maintenance, support, and it is not a liberating service.
Many companies are:
Given these trends, Active Directory is becoming obsolete in terms of identity management and permissions.
One of the core principles of Azure AD is that the user is the security boundary, not the network.
Kerberos is the default authentication and authorization protocol for AD. Kerberos is involved in nearly everything from the time you log on to accessing Sysvol, which is used to deliver policy and logon scripts to domain members from the Domain Controller.
Info-Tech Insight
If you are struggling to get away from AD, Kerberos and NTML are to blame. Working around them is difficult. Azure AD uses SAML2.0 OpenID Connect and OAuth2.0.
| Feature | Azure AD DS | Self-managed AD DS |
|---|---|---|
| Managed service | ✓ | ✕ |
| Secure deployments | ✓ | Administrator secures the deployment |
| DNS server | ✓ (managed service) | ✓ |
| Domain or Enterprise administrator privileges | ✕ | ✓ |
| Domain join | ✓ | ✓ |
| Domain authentication using NTLM and Kerberos | ✓ | ✓ |
| Kerberos-constrained delegation | Resource-based | Resource-based and account-based |
| Custom OU structure | ✓ | ✓ |
| Group Policy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Schema extensions | ✕ | ✓ |
| AD domain/forest trusts | ✓ (one-way outbound forest trusts only) | ✓ |
| Secure LDAP (LDAPS) | ✓ | ✓ |
| LDAP read | ✓ | ✓ |
| LDAP write | ✓ (within the managed domain) | ✓ |
| Geo-distributed deployments | ✓ | ✓ |
Source: “Compare self-managed Active Directory Domain Services...” Azure documentation, 2022
How AD poses issues that impact the user experience
IT organizations are under pressure to enable work-from-home/work-from-anywhere.
When considering retiring Active Directory from your environment, look at alternatives that can assist with those legacy application servers, handle Kerberos and NTML, and support LDAP.
What to look for
If you are embedded in Windows systems but looking for an alternative to AD, you need a similar solution but one that is capable of working in the cloud and on premises.
Aside from protocols and supporting utilities, also consider additional features that can help you retire your Active Directory while maintaining highly secure access control and a strong security posture.
These are just a few examples of the many alternatives available.
The business is now driving your Active Directory migration
What IT must deal with in the modern world of work:
Organizations are making decisions that impact Active Directory, from enabling work-from-anywhere to dealing with malicious threats such as ransomware. Mergers and acquisitions also bring complexity with multiple AD domains.
The business is putting pressure on IT to become creative with security strategies, alternative authentication and authorization, and migration to SaaS and cloud services.
Discovery |
Assessment |
Proof of Concept |
Migration |
Cloud Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ☐ Catalog your applications.
☐ Define your users, groups and usage. ☐ Identify network interdependencies and complexity. ☐ Know your security and compliance regulations. ☐ Document your disaster recovery plan and recovery point and time objectives (RPO/RTO). |
☐ Build a methodology for migrating apps to IaaS. ☐ Develop a migration team using internal resources and/or outsourcing. ☐ Use Microsoft resources for specific skill sets. ☐ Map on-premises third-party solutions to determine how easily they will migrate. ☐ Create a plan to retire and archive legacy data. |
☐ Test your workload: Start small and prove value with a phased approach. ☐ Estimate cloud costs. ☐ Determine the amount and size of your compute and storage requirements. ☐ Understand security requirements and the need for network and security controls. ☐ Assess network performance. ☐ Qualify and test the tools and solutions needed for the migration. |
☐ Create a blueprint of your desired cloud environment. ☐ Establish a rollback plan. ☐ Identify tools for automating migration and syncing data. ☐ Understand the implications of the production-day data move. |
☐ Keep up with the pace of innovation. ☐ Leverage 24/7 support via skilled Azure resources. ☐ Stay on top of system maintenance and upgrades. ☐ Consider service-level agreement requirements, governance, security, compliance, performance, and uptime. |
Manage the Active Directory in the Service Desk
SoftwareReviews: Microsoft Azure Active Directory
“2012 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2012. Web.
“2022 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2012. Web.
“22 Best Alternatives to Microsoft Active Directory.” The Geek Page, 16 Feb 2022. Accessed 12 Sept. 2022.
Altieri, Matt. “Infrastructure Technical Debt.” Device 42, 20 May 2019. Accessed Sept 2022.
“Are You Ready to Make the Move from ADFS to Azure AD?’” Steeves and Associates, 29 April 2021. Accessed 28 Sept. 2022.
Blanton, Sean. “Can I Replace Active Directory with Azure AD? No, Here’s Why.” JumpCloud, 9 Mar 2021. Accessed Sept. 2022.
Chai, Wesley, and Alexander S. Gillis. “What is Active Directory and how does it work?” TechTarget, June 2021. Accessed 10 Sept. 2022.
Cogan, Sam. “Azure Active Directory is not Active Directory!” SamCogan.com, Oct 2020. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“Compare Active Directory to Azure Active Directory.” Azure documentation, Microsoft Learn, 18 Aug. 2022. Accessed 12 Sept. 2022.
"Compare self-managed Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory, and managed Azure Active Directory Domain Services." Azure documentation, Microsoft Learn, 23 Aug. 2022. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“Dimensional Research, Active Directory Modernization: A Survey of IT Professionals.” Quest, 2017. Accessed Sept 2022.
Grillenmeier, Guido. “Now’s the Time to Rethink Active Directory Security.“ Semperis, 4 Aug 2021. Accessed Oct. 2013.
“How does your Active Directory align to today’s business?” Quest Software, 2017, accessed Sept 2022
Lewis, Jack “On-Premises Active Directory: Can I remove it and go full cloud?” Softcat, Dec.2020. Accessed 15 Sept 2022.
Loshin, Peter. “What is Kerberos?” TechTarget, Sept 2021. Accessed Sept 2022.
Mann, Terry. “Why Cybersecurity Must Include Active Directory.” Lepide, 20 Sept. 2021. Accessed Sept. 2022.
Roberts, Travis. “Azure AD without on-prem Windows Active Directory?” 4sysops, 25 Oct. 2021. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“Understanding Active Directory® & its architecture.” ActiveReach, Jan 2022. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“What is Active Directory Migration?” Quest Software Inc, 2022. Accessed Sept 2022.
Oh, you thought you were alone in facing some embarrassing moments? I can reassure you; you are not. Most companies face a myriad of issues with their IT. The key is to manage them to support your business efficiently.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Assess the stakeholder's influence, interest, standing, and support to determine priority for future actions
Develop your stakeholder management and communication plans
Measure and monitor the success of your stakeholder management process.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Assess your current state, define your cost allocation model, and define roles and responsibilities.
Define dashboards and reports, and document account structure and tagging requirements.
Establish governance for tagging and cost control, define processes for right-sizing, and define processes for purchasing commitment discounts.
Document process interactions, establish program KPIs, and build implementation roadmap and communication plan.
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Establish clear lines of accountability and document roles and responsibilities to effectively manage cloud costs.
Chargeback/showback model to provide clear accountability for costs.
Understanding of key areas to focus on to improve cloud cost management capabilities.
1.1 Assess current state
1.2 Determine cloud cost model
1.3 Define roles and responsibilities
Cloud cost management capability assessment
Cloud cost model
Roles and responsibilities
Establish visibility into cloud costs and drivers of those costs.
Better understanding of what is driving costs and how to keep them in check.
2.1 Develop architectural patterns
2.2 Define dashboards and reports
2.3 Define account structure
2.4 Document tagging requirements
Architectural patterns; service cost cheat sheet
Dashboards and reports
Account structure
Tagging scheme
Develop processes, procedures, and policies to control cloud costs.
Improved capability of reducing costs.
Documented processes and procedures for continuous improvement.
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
Tagging policy
Cost control policy
Right-sizing process
Commitment purchasing process
Notifications and Alerts
Document next steps to implement and improve cloud cost management program.
Concrete roadmap to stand up and/or improve the cloud cost management program.
4.1 Document process interaction changes
4.2 Define cloud cost program KPIs
4.3 Build implementation roadmap
4.4 Build communication plan
Changes to process interactions
Cloud cost program KPIs
Implementation roadmap
Communication plan
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Build a plan to mitigate the risks associated with backing data up in the cloud.
Assess if the cloud is a good fit for your organization’s backup data.
Build a cloud challenge contingency plan.
Perform a gap analysis to determine cloud backup implementation initiatives.
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.
Understand how cloud backup will affect backup and recovery processes
Determine backup and recovery objectives
Assess the value proposition of cloud backup
A high-level understanding of the benefits of moving to cloud backup
A best-fit analysis of cloud backup in comparison to organizational needs
1.1 Document stakeholder goals for cloud backup
1.2 Document present backup processes
1.3 Document ideal backup processes
1.4 Review typical benefits of cloud backup
Documented stakeholder goals
Current backup process diagrams
Ideal backup process diagram
Identify candidate data sets for cloud-based backup
Determine RPOs and RTOs for candidate data sets
Identify potential value specific to each data set for targeting backup at the cloud
Evaluate organizational readiness for targeting backup at the cloud
Documented recovery objectives
Recommendations for cloud backup based on actual organizational needs and readiness
2.1 Document candidate data sets
2.2 Determine recovery point and recovery time objectives for candidate data sets
2.3 Identify potential value of cloud-based backup for candidate data sets
2.4 Discuss the risk and value of cloud-based backup versus an on-premises solution
2.5 Evaluate organizational readiness for cloud backup
2.6 Identify data sets to move to the cloud
Validated list of candidate data sets
Specific RPOs and RTOs for core data sets
An assessment of the value of cloud backup for data sets
A tool-based recommendation for moving backups to the cloud
Understand different cloud provider models and their specific risks
Identification of how cloud backup will affect IT infrastructure and personnel
Strategize ways to mitigate the most common challenges of implementing cloud backup
Understand the client/vendor relationship in cloud backup
Understand the affect of cloud backup on data security
Verified best-fit cloud provider model for organizational needs
Verified strategy for meeting the most common challenges for cloud-based backup
A strong understanding of how cloud backup will change IT
Strategies for approaching vendors to ensure a strong footing in negotiations and clear expectations for the client/vendor relationship
3.1 Discuss the impact of cloud backup on infrastructure and IT environment
3.2 Create a cloud backup risk contingency plan
3.3 Document compliance and security regulations
3.4 Identify client and vendor responsibilities for cloud backup
3.5 Discuss and document the impact of cloud backup on IT roles and responsibilities
3.6 Compile a list of implementation intiatives
3.7 Evaluate the financial case for cloud backup
Cloud risk assessment
Documented contingency strategies for probabe risks
Negotiation strategies for dealing with vendors
A committed go/no-go decision on the value of cloud backup weighted against the effort of implementation
Create a road map for implementing cloud backup
Determine any remaining gaps between the present state and the ideal state for cloud backup
Understand the steps and time frame for implementing cloud backup
Allocate roles and responsibilities for the implementation intitiative
A validated implementation road map
4.1 Perform a gap analysis to generate a list of implementation intiatives
4.2 Prioritize cloud backup initiatives
4.3 Assess risks and dependencies for critical implementation initiatives
4.4 Assign ownership over implementation tasks
4.5 Determine road map time frame and structure
4.6 Populate the roadmap with cloud backup initiatives
A validated gap analysis
A prioritized list of cloud backup initiatives
Documented dependencies and risks associated with implementation tasks
A roadmap for targeting backups at the cloud
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Acquire a holistic perspective of the development team, process, and tools to identify the bottlenecks and inefficiency points that are significantly delaying releases.
Identify the development guiding principles and artifact management practices and build automation and continuous integration processes and tools that best fit the context and address the organization’s needs.
Prioritize lean implementation initiatives in a gradual, phased approach and map the critical stakeholders in the lean transformation.
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.
Assess the current state of your development environment.
Select a pilot project to demonstrate the value of your optimization.
Realization of the root causes behind the bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your current development process.
Valuation of your current development tools.
Selection of a pilot project that will be used to gather the metrics in order obtain buy-in for wider optimization initiatives.
1.1 Assess your readiness to transition to lean development.
1.2 Conduct a SWOT analysis and value-stream assessment of your current development process.
1.3 Evaluate your development tools.
1.4 Select a pilot project.
Lean development readiness assessment
Current state analysis of development process
Value assessment of existing development tools
Pilot project selection
Establish your development guiding principles.
Enhance the versioning and management of your development artifacts.
Automatically build and continuously integrate your code.
Grounded and well-understood set of guiding principles that are mapped to development tasks and initiatives.
Version control strategy of development artifacts, including source code, adapted to support lean development.
A tailored approach to establish the right environment to support automated build, testing, and continuous integration tools.
2.1 Assess your alignment to the lean principles.
2.2 Define your lean development guiding principles.
2.3 Define your source code branching approach.
2.4 Define your build automation approach.
2.5 Define your continuous integration approach.
Level of alignment to lean principles
Development guiding principles
Source code branching approach
Build automation approach.
Continuous integration approach
Prioritize your optimization initiatives to build an implementation roadmap.
Identify the stakeholders of your lean transformation.
Phased implementation roadmap that accommodates your current priorities, constraints, and enablers.
Stakeholder engagement strategy to effectively demonstrate the value of the optimized development environment.
3.1 Identify metrics to gauge the success of your lean transformation.
3.2 List and prioritize your implementation steps.
3.3 Identify the stakeholders of your lean transformation.
List of product, process, and tool metrics
Prioritized list of tasks to optimize your development environment
Identification of key stakeholders
More than any other time, our world is changing. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.
A new threat will impact your organization's operations at some point. Make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences and that you understand where those threats may originate.
Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks from vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Use this research to identify and quantify the potential operational impacts caused by vendors. Utilize Info-Tech's approach to look at the operational impact from various perspectives to better prepare for issues that may arise.
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.
Organizations must be mindful that operational risks come from internal and external vendor sources. Missing either component in the overall risk assessment can significantly impact day-to-day business processes that cost revenue, delay projects, and lead to customer dissatisfaction.
Research Director, Vendor Management
Info-Tech Research Group
Your ChallengeMore than any other time, our world is changing rapidly. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level. A new threat will impact your organization's operations at some point. Make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences and that you understand where those threats may originate. |
Common ObstaclesIdentifying and managing a vendor’s potential operational impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes may affect operations. Organizational leadership is often taken unaware during crises, and their plans lack the flexibility to adjust to significant market upheavals. |
Info-Tech's ApproachVendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks from vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them. Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings. Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors. Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts with our Operational Risk Impact Tool. |
Organizations must evolve their risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to threats in the market. Ongoing monitoring of the vendors tied to company operations, and understanding where those vendors impact your operations, is imperative to avoiding disasters.
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.
The IT market is constantly reacting to global influences. By anticipating changes, leaders can set expectations and work with their vendors to accommodate them.
When the unexpected happens, being able to adapt quickly to new priorities ensures continued long-term business success.
Below are some things no one expected to happen in the last few years:
27%Businesses are changing their internal processes around TPRM in response to the Pandemic. |
70%Of organizations attribute a third-party breach to too much privileged access. |
85%Of breaches involved human factors (phishing, poor passwords, etc.). |
Operational risk is the risk of losses caused by flawed or failed processes, policies, systems, or events that disrupt business operations.
- WikipediaVendors operating within your secure perimeter can open your organization to substantial risk.
Frequently monitor your internal process around vendor management to ensure safe operations.
You may have solid policies, but if your employees and vendors are not following them, they will not protect the organization.
Failing to ensure that your vendor-supported systems are properly configured and that your vendors are meeting your IT change control and configuration standards is more commonplace than expected. Proper oversight and management of your support vendors are crucial to ensure they are meeting expectations in this regard.
Most companies have policies and procedures around IT change and configuration control, security standards, risk management, vendor performance standards, etc. While having these processes is a good start, failure to perform continuous monitoring and management of these leads to increased risks of incidents.
Awareness of the supply chain's complications, and each organization's dependencies, are increasing for everyone. However, most organizations still do not understand the chain of n-party vendors that support their specific vendors or how interruptions in their supply chains could affect them. The 2022 Toyota shutdown due to Kojima is a perfect example of how one essential parts vendor could shut down your operations.
It is important to identify where potential risks to your operations may come from to manage and potentially eliminate them from impacting your organization.
Most organizations realize that their vendors could operationally affect them if an incident occurs. Still, they fail to follow the chain of events that might arise from those incidents to understand the impact fully.
Operational risk impacts often come from unexpected places and have unforeseen impacts. Knowing where your vendors place in critical business processes and those vendors' business continuity plans concerning your organization should be a priority for those who manage the vendors.
Vendors routinely get acquired in the IT space. Does your organization have appropriate safeguards from inadvertently entering a negative relationship? Do you have plans around replacing critical vendors purchased in such a manner?
If one of your critical vendors goes down, do you know how they intend to re-establish business? Do you know how you factor into their priorities?
Do you understand where in the business processes vendor-supported systems lie? Do you have contingencies around disruptions that account for those pieces missing from the process?
See the blueprint Build an IT Risk Management Program
Review your operational plans for new risks on a regular basis.
Keep in mind Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I).
Impact (I) tends to remain the same, while Likelihood (L) is becoming closer to 100% as threat actors become more prevalent
Organizations need to review their organizational risk plans, considering the placement of vendors in their operations.
Pandemics, extreme weather, and wars that affect global supply chains are current realities, not unlikely scenarios.
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.
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.
Download the Operational Risk Impact Tool
Input
|
Output
|
Materials
|
Participants
|
Being overly reliant on a single talented individual can impose risk to your operations. Make sure you include resiliency in your skill sets for critical business practices.
Organizations must evolve their operational risk assessments considering their vendor portfolio.
Ongoing monitoring of the market and the vendors tied to company operations is imperative to avoiding disaster.
“Weak Cybersecurity is taking a toll on Small Businesses.” Tripwire. August 7, 2022.
SecureLink 2022 White Paper SL_Page_EA+PAM (rocketcdn.me)
Member Poll March 2021 "Guide: Evolving Work Environments Impact of Covid-19 on Profile and Management of Third Parties.“ Shared Assessments. March 2021.
“Operational Risk.” Wikipedia.
Tonello, Matteo. “Strategic Risk Management: A Primer for Directors.” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, August 23, 2012.
Frigo, Mark L., and Richard J. Anderson. “Embracing Enterprise Risk Management: Practical Approaches for Getting Started.” COSO, 2011.
Hybrid work is here, but there is no consensus among industry leaders on how to do it right. IT faces the dual challenge of supporting its own employees while enabling the success of the broader organization. In the absence of a single best practice to adopt, how can IT departments make the right decisions when it comes to the new world of hybrid?
Read this concise report to learn:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Read this report to learn how IT departments are using the latest trends in hybrid work for greater IT effectiveness. Understand what work models are best for IT, how IT can support a remote organization, and how hybrid work changes team dynamics.
The pandemic has catapulted hybrid work to the forefront of strategic decisions an organization needs to make. According to our State of Hybrid Work in IT survey conducted in July of 2022, nearly all organizations across all industries are continuing some form of hybrid or remote work long-term (n=518). Flexible work location options are the single greatest concern for employees seeking a new job. IT departments are tasked with not only solving hybrid work questions for their own personnel but also supporting a hybrid-first organization, which means significant changes to technology and operations.
Faced with decisions that alter the very foundation of how an organization functions, IT leaders are looking for best practices and coming up empty. The world of work has changed quickly and unexpectedly. If you feel you are “winging it” in the new normal, you are not alone.
95% of organizations are continuing some form of hybrid or remote work.
n=518
47% of respondents look at hybrid work options when evaluating a new employer, vs. 46% who look at salary.
n=518
Your organization, your employees, your goals – your hybrid work
The days of a “typical” workplace have passed. When it comes to the new world of hybrid work, there is no best-of-breed example to follow.
Among the flood of contradictory decisions made by industry leaders, your IT organization must forge its own path, informed by the needs of your employees and your organizational goals.
All IT work models can support the broader organization. However, IT is more effective in a hybrid work mode.
Stay informed on where your industry is headed, but learn from, rather than follow, industry leaders.
All industries reported primarily using partial, balanced & full hybrid work models.
All industries reported some fully remote work, ranging from 2-10% of organizations surveyed.
Construction and healthcare & life sciences did not require any fully in-office work. Other industries, between 1-12% required fully in-office work.
The uncomfortable truth about hybrid work is that there are many viable models, and the “best of breed” depends on who you ask. In the post-pandemic workspace, for every work location model there is an industry leader that has made it functional. And yet this doesn’t mean that every model will be viable for your organization.
In the absence of a single best practice, rely on an individualized cost-benefit assessment rooted in objective feasibility criteria. Every work model – whether it continues your status quo or overhauls the working environment – introduces risk. Only in the context of your particular organization does that risk become quantifiable.
Don’t make the mistake of emulating the tech giants, unless they are your direct competition. Instead, look to organizations that have walked your path in terms of scope, organizational goals, industry, and organizational structure.
|
External |
Internal |
|---|---|
|
Political Economic Social Technological Legal Environmental |
Operations Culture Resources Risk Benefit Employee Preferences |
Comparative
Your competitors
Info-Tech Insight
Remember, your competitors are not just those who compete for the same customers but also those who compete for your employees.
IT has two roles: to effectively support the broader organization and to function effectively within the department. It therefore has two main stakeholder relationships: the organization it supports and the employees it houses. Hybrid work impacts both. Don't make the mistake of overweighting one relationship at the expense of the other. IT will only function effectively when it addresses both.
|
IT and the organization
|
Diagnostic tool: Business Vision |
|
IT and its employees
|
Diagnostic tool: |
|
|
|
Small <100 |
Medium 101-5,000 |
Large >5,000 |
|
Employees |
100% of industries, organizational sizes, and position levels reported some form of hybrid or remote work.
| 5% | 21% | 30% | 39% | 5% |
|
No Remote |
Partial Hybrid |
Balanced Hybrid |
Full Hybrid |
Full Remote Work |
| 28% | 27% | 22% | 26% | 13% | 4% |
|
None |
Internet/home phone |
Just internet |
Home office setup |
Home utilities |
Other |
n=518
Home office setup: One-time lump-sum payment
Home utilities: Gas, electricity, lights, etc.
Other: Office supplies, portion of home rent/mortgage payments, etc.
Section 1
The promise of hybrid work for IT department effectiveness and the costs of making it happen
In this section:
IT’s effectiveness, meaning its ability to enable organizational goal attainment, is its ultimate success metric. In the post-pandemic world, this indicator is intimately tied to IT’s work location model, as well as IT’s ability to support the work location model used by the broader organization.
In 2022, 90% of organizations have embraced some form of hybrid work (n=516). And only a small contingent of IT departments have more than 90% of roles still working completely in office, with no remote work offered (n=515).
This outcome was not unexpected, given the unprecedented success of remote work during the pandemic. However, the implications of this work model were far less certain. Would productivity remain once the threat of layoffs had passed? Would hybrid work be viable in the long term, once the novelty wore off? Would teams be able to function collaboratively without meeting face to face? Would hybrid allow a great culture
to continue?
All signs point to yes. For most IT departments, the benefits of hybrid work outweigh its costs. IT is significantly more effective when some degree of remote or hybrid work is present.
Remote Work Effectiveness Paradox
When IT itself works fully onsite, lower effectiveness is reported (6.2). When IT is tasked with supporting fully, 100% remote organizations (as opposed to being fully remote only within IT), lower effectiveness is reported then as well (5.9). A fully remote organization means 100% virtual communication, so the expectations placed on IT increase, as do the stakes of any errors. Of note, hybrid work models yield consistent effectiveness scores when implemented at both the IT and organizational levels.
Despite the challenges initially posed by hybrid and remote organizations, IT has thrived through the pandemic and into this newly common workplace.
Most organizations have experienced an unchanged or increased level of service requests and incidents. However, for the majority of organizations, service desk support has maintained (58%) or improved (35%). Only 7% of IT organizations report decreased service desk support.
Is your service desk able to offer the same level of support compared to the pre-pandemic/pre-hybrid work model?
How has the volume of your service requests/incidents changed?
Has hybrid work impacted your customer satisfaction scores?
It is interesting to note that service request volumes have evolved similarly across industries, mirroring the remarkable consistency with which hybrid work has been adopted across disparate fields, from construction to government.
Of note are two industries where the volume of service requests mostly increased: government and media, information, telecom & technology.
With the global expansion of digital products and services through the pandemic, it’s no surprise to see volumes increase for media, information, telecom & technology. With government, the shift from on premises to rapid and large-scale hybrid or remote work for administrative and knowledge worker roles likely meant additional support from IT to equip employees and end users with the necessary tools to carry out work offsite.
How has the volume of your service requests/incidents changed?
Hybrid and remote work have been associated with greater productivity and organizational benefits since before the pandemic. During emergency remote work, doubts arose about whether productivity would be maintained under such extreme circumstances and were quickly dispelled. The promise of remote productivity held up.
Now, cautiously entering a “new normal,” the question has emerged again. Will long-term hybrid work bring the same benefits?
The expectations have held up, with hybrid work benefits ranging from reduced facilities costs to greater employee performance.
Organizational hybrid work may place additional strain on IT,
but it is clear IT can handle the challenge. And when it does,
the organizational benefits are tremendous.
88% of respondents reported increased or consistent Infrastructure & Operations customer satisfaction scores.
What benefits has the organization achieved as a result of moving to a hybrid work model?
Of the organizations surveyed, the vast majority reported significant changes to both the process and the technology side of IT operations. Four key processes affected by the move to hybrid were:
Within Infrastructure & Operations, the area with the greatest degree
of change was network architecture (reported by 44% of respondents), followed closely by service desk (41%) and recovery workspaces and mitigations (40%).
63% of respondents reported changes to conference room technology to support hybrid meetings.
IT Infrastructure & Operations changes, upgrades, and modernization
What process(es) had the highest degree of change in response to supporting hybrid work?
Forty-five percent of respondents reported significant changes to deployment as a result of hybrid work, with an additional 42% reporting minor changes. Only 13% of respondents stated that their deployment processes remained unchanged following the shift to hybrid work.
With the ever-increasing globalization of business, deployment modernization practices such as the shift to zero touch are no longer optional or a bonus. They are a critical part of business operation that bring efficiency benefits beyond just supporting hybrid work.
The deployment changes brought on by hybrid span across industries. Even in manufacturing, with the greatest proportion of respondents reporting “no change” to deployment practices (33%), most organizations experienced some degree of change.
Has a hybrid work model led you to make any changes to your deployment, such as zero touch, to get equipment to end users?
Over half of respondents reported significantly decreased reliance on printed copies as a result of hybrid. While these changes were on the horizon for many organizations even before the pandemic, the necessity of keeping business operations running during lockdowns meant that critical resources could be invested in these processes. As a result, digitization has leapt forward.
This represents an opportunity for businesses to re-evaluate their relationships with printing vendors. Resources spent on printing can be reduced or reallocated, representing additional savings as a result of moving to hybrid. Additionally, many respondents report a willingness – and ability – from vendors to partner with organizations in driving innovation and enabling digitization.
With respect to changes pertaining to hard copies/printers as a result of your hybrid work model:
The majority (63%) of respondents reported making significant changes to conference room technology as a result of hybrid work. A significant proportion (30%) report that such changes were not needed, but this includes organizations who had already set up remote communication.
An important group is the remaining 8% of respondents, who cite budgetary restrictions as a key barrier in making the necessary technology upgrades. Ensure the business case for communication technology appropriately reflects the impact of these upgrades, and reduce the impact of legacy technology where possible:
Have you made changes/upgrades
to the conference room technology to support hybrid meetings?
(E.g. Some participants joining remotely, some participants present in a conference room)
|
Metrics
|
Resources Create a Work-From-Anywhere IT Strategy Stabilize Infrastructure & Operations During Work-From-Anywhere Sustain Work-From-Home in the New Normal |
For a comprehensive list of resources, visit
Info-Tech’s Hybrid Workplace Research Center
Section 2
Cultivate the dream team in a newly hybrid world
In this section:
Since before the pandemic, the intangibles of having a job that works with your lifestyle have been steadily growing in importance. Considerations like flexible work options, work-life balance, and culture are more important to employees now than they were two years ago, and employers must adapt.
Salary alone is no longer enough to recruit the best talent, nor is it the key to keeping employees engaged and productive. Hybrid work options are the single biggest concern for IT professionals seeking new employment, just edging out salary. This means employers must not offer just some work flexibility but truly embrace a hybrid environment.
What are you considering when looking at a potential employer?
Declining economic conditions suggest that a talent market shift may be imminent. Moving toward a recession may mean less competition for top talent, but this doesn't mean hybrid will be left behind as a recruitment tactic.
Just over half of IT organizations surveyed are considering expanding hybrid work or moving to fully remote work even in a recession. Hybrid work is a critical enabler of organizational success when resources are scarce, due to the productivity benefits and cost savings it has demonstrated. Organizations that recognize this and adequately invest in hybrid tools now will have equipped themselves with an invaluable tool for weathering a recession storm, should one come.
What impact could a potential recession in the coming year have on your decisions around your work location?
The potential for a recession has a greater impact on the workforce decisions of small organizations. They likely face greater financial pressures than medium and large-sized organizations, pressures that could necessitate halting recruitment efforts or holding firm on current salaries and health benefits.
A reliance on intangible benefits, like the continuation of hybrid work, may help offset some of negative effects of such freezes, including the risk of lower employee engagement and productivity. Survey respondents indicated that hybrid work options (47%) were slightly more important to them than salary/compensation (46%) and significantly more important than benefits (29%), which could work in favor of small organizations in keeping the critical employees needed to survive an economic downturn.
|
Small |
Medium | Large |
| 90% | 82% | 66% |
Currently considering some form of hiring/salary freeze or cutbacks, if a recession occurs
NOTES
n=520
Small: <101 employees
Medium: 101-5000 employees
Large: >5,000 employees
One advantage of hybrid over remote work is the ability to maintain an in-office presence, which provides a failsafe should technology or other barriers stand in the way of effective distance communication. To take full advantage of this, teams should coordinate tasks with location, so that employees get the most out of the unique benefits of working in office and remotely.
Activities to prioritize for in-office work:
Activities to prioritize for remote work:
As a leader, what are your greatest concerns with hybrid work?
When it comes to leading a hybrid team, there is no ignoring the impact of distance on communication and team cohesion. Among leaders’ top concerns are employee wellbeing and the ability to pick up on signs of demotivation among team members.
The top two tactics used by managers to mitigate these concerns center on increasing communication:
Tactics most used by highly effective IT departments
The most effective hybrid team management tools focus on overcoming the greatest obstacle introduced by remote work: barriers to communication and connection.
The most effective IT organizations use a variety of tactics. For managers looking to improve hybrid team effectiveness, the critical factor is less the tactic used and more the ability to adapt their approach to their team’s needs and incorporate team feedback. As such, IT effectiveness is linked to the total number of tactics used by managers.
IT department effectiveness
Not all hybrid work models are created equal. IT leaders working with hybrid teams have many decisions to make, from how many days will be spent in and out of office to how much control employees get over which days they work remotely.
Employee and manager preferences are largely aligned regarding the number of days spent working remotely or onsite: Two to three days in office is the most selected option for both groups, although overall manager preferences lean slightly toward more time spent in office.
Comparison of leader and employee preference for days in-office
Do employees have a choice in the days they work in office/offsite?
For most organizations, employees get a choice of which days they spend working remotely. This autonomy can range from complete freedom to a choice between several pre-approved days depending on team scheduling needs.
Organizations’ success in establishing hybrid team autonomy varies greatly post pandemic. Responses are roughly equally split between staff feeling more, less, or the same level of autonomy as before the pandemic. Evaluated in the context of most organizations continuing a hybrid approach, this leads to the conclusion that not all hybrid implementations are being conducted equally effectively when it comes to employee empowerment.
As an employee, how much control do you have over the decisions related to where, when, and how you work currently?
A strong case can be made for fostering autonomy and empowerment on hybrid teams. Employees who report lower levels of control than before the pandemic also report lower engagement indicators, such as trust in senior leadership, motivation, and intention to stay with the organization. On the other hand, employees experiencing increased levels of control report gains in these areas.
The only exception to these gains is the sense of team connectedness, which employees experiencing more control report as lower than before the pandemic. A greater sense of connectedness among employees reporting decreased control may be related to more mandatory in-office time or a sense of connection over shared team-level disengagement.
These findings reinforce the need for hybrid teams to invest in team building and communication practices and confirm that significant benefits are to be had when a sense of autonomy can be successfully instilled.
Employees who experience less control than before the pandemic report lowered engagement indicators ... except sense of connectedness
Employees who experience more control than before the pandemic report increased engagement indicators ... except sense of connectedness
|
The Power of Intentionality When the pandemic hit, technology was not in question. Flexible work options had been available and widely used, and the technology to support them was in place. The leadership team turned their focus to ensuring their culture survived and thrived. They developed a laser-focused approach for engaging their employees by giving their leaders tools to hold conversations. The dialogue was ongoing to allow the organization to adapt to the fast pace of changing conditions. Every tactic, plan, and communication started with the question, “What outcome are we striving for?” With a clear outcome, tools were created and leaders supported to drive the desired outcome. |
“We knew we had the technology in place. Our concern was around maintaining our strong culture and ensuring continued engagement and connection with our employees.” – Lisa Gibson, Chief of Staff, Microsoft Canada |
Metrics
| Resources Webinar: Effectively Manage Remote Teams Build a Better Manager: Manage Your People |
For a comprehensive list of resources, visit
Info-Tech’s Hybrid Workplace Research Center
|
BE INTENTIONAL
|
|
INVOLVE EMPLOYEES
|
|
ALLOW CHOICE
|
|
BE TRANSPARENT
|
Info-Tech Insight
Hybrid and remote teams require more attention, connection, and leadership from managers. The shift from doing the day-to-day to effectively leading is critical for the success of nontraditional work models. As hybrid and remote work become engrained in society, organizations must ensure that the concept of the “working manager” is as obsolete as the rotary telephone.
“8 Unexpected Benefits of Online Learning for Development.” Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), 14 Oct. 2020. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.
“2021 Global Workplace Report.” NTT, 2021. Accessed 6 July 2022.
“Advantages of Online Learning for Leadership Development: What Our Research Says.” CCL, 8 Dec. 2020. 5 Nov. 2021.
“Annual Work Trend Index Report – Great Expectations: Making Hybrid Work Work.” Microsoft WorkLab, 2022. Accessed 6 July 2022.
Aten, Jason. “Google’s Employees Return to the Office Today. This Former Exec Says Hybrid Work Won’t Last.” Inc.Com, 4 April 2022. Web.
Bariso, Justin. “Google Spent 2 Years Researching What Makes a Great Remote Team. It Came Up With These 3 Things.” Inc.Com, 8 April 2019. Web.
Berger, Chloe. “What Is ‘Hybrid Guilt’? Going to Office Part-Time May Be Worst Option.” Fortune, 22 Aug. 2022. Web.
Brodkin, Jon. “After Remote-Work Ultimatum, Musk Reveals Plan to Cut 10% of Tesla Jobs.” Ars Technica, 3 June 2022. Web.
Brown, Brené, host. “Brené with Scott Sonenshein on Why We’ll Never Be the Same Again (and Why It’s Time to Talk About It).” Dare to Lead with Brené Brown, 11 April 2022. Brené Brown, https://brenebrown.com/podcast/why-well-never-be-the-same-again-and-why-its-time-to-talk-about-it/.
Burgess, Mark. “Most Asset Managers Operating Under Hybrid Work Model: Survey.” Advisor’s Edge, 13 Sept. 2022. Web.
Caminiti, Susan. “Workers Want Hybrid but Say It’s Exhausting Them. Here’s How Companies Can Fix That.” CNBC, 8 Feb. 2022. Web.
Capossela, Chris. “The next Chapter of Our Hybrid Workplace: Update on Our Washington State Work Sites.” The Official Microsoft Blog, 14 Feb. 2022. Web.
Carrigan, John. “Meta Embraces ‘Work From Anywhere’ Ahead of Return to Office.” Human Resources Director, 25 March 2022. Web.
Chaturvedi, H., and Ajoy Kumar Dey. The New Normal: Reinventing Professional Life and Familial Bonding in the Post COVID 19 Era. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. “Alternative Work Options.” Mass.Gov, n.d. Accessed 17 Sept. 2022.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. “Hybrid Work for Commonwealth Employees.” Mass.Gov, n.d. Accessed 17 Sept. 2022.
“COVID-19 and the Future of Business.” IBM, 21 Sept. 2020. Web.
Daniel, Will. “The Layoffs at Tesla Show That White-Collar Workers Are Screwed, Hedge Funder Famous from ‘The Big Short’ Predicts.” Fortune, 29 June 2022. Web.
D’Auria, Gemma, and Aaron De Smet. “Leadership in a Crisis: Responding to Coronavirus.” McKinsey, 16 March 2020. Web.
Dave, Paresh. “Google Mandates Workers Back to Silicon Valley, Other Offices from April 4.” Reuters, 3 March. 2022. Web.
Delaney, Kevin. “What We Know Now About the Business Impact of Hybrid Work.” Time, 6 Sept. 2022. Web.
Dobson, Sarah. “Legal Considerations for Hybrid Work.” Canadian HR Reporter, 15 Sept. 2022. Web.
Dondo, Jean. “Hybrid Work Is the Way for More Than a Quarter of Canadian Investment Firms.” Wealth Professional, 14 Sept. 2022. Web.
Elias, Jennifer. “Twitter to Reopen Offices March 15, Though Remote Work Remains an Option.” CNBC, 3 March 2022. Web.
Esade Business & Law School. “Leadership After Covid-19: Learning To Navigate The Unknown Unknowns.” Forbes, 30 March 2021. Web.
“Famous Companies Without Offices.” The Hoxton Mix, 19 Oct. 2021. Web.
Gerdeman, Dina. “COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace. What Should Companies Do Now?” HBS Working Knowledge, 8 March 2021. Web.
Gleason, Mike. “Apple’s Hybrid Work Plans Draw Worker Pushback.” SearchUnifiedCommunications, TechTarget, 24 Aug. 2022. Web.
Gleeson, Brent. “13 Tips For Leading And Managing Remote Teams.” Forbes, 26 Aug. 2020. Web.
Gratton, Lynda. “How to Do Hybrid Right.” Harvard Business Review, 1 May 2021. Web.
“Guide: Understand team effectiveness.” re:Work, Google, n.d. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.
Hardy, Karen. “Your Business Has Decided on Hybrid Work… Now What?” CIO, 12 Sept. 2022. Web.
Hirsch, Arlene S. “How to Boost Employee Performance in a Hybrid Work Environment.” SHRM, 6 Sept. 2022. Web.
“How to Get Hybrid Work Right.” CBRE Canada, 14 June 2022. Web.
“Hybrid Work: When Freedom Benefits from Rules.” Audi, 12 Sept. 2022. Accessed 18 Sept. 2022.
“Hybrid Workplace | Global Culture Report.” O.C. Tanner, 2022, Web.
“Intel Is Hiring for Various Roles with Temporary Remote Work Benefits.” SightsIn Plus, 11 June 2022. Web.
Iyer, Viswanathan. “Council Post: Hybrid Work: Beyond The Point Of No Return.” Forbes, 14 Sept. 2022. Web.
Johnson, Ricardo. “Securing Hybrid Work All Starts with Zero-Trust.” SC Media, 29 Aug. 2022. Web.
Jones, Jada. “The Rules of Work Are Changing, and Hybrid Work Is Winning.” ZDNET, 1 Sept. 2022. Web.
Kowitt, Beth. “Inside Google’s Push to Nail Hybrid Work and Bring Its 165,000-Person Workforce Back to the Office Part-Time.” Fortune, 17 May 2022. Web.
Kumra, Gautam, and Diaan-Yi Lin. “The Future of (Hybrid) Work.” McKinsey, 2 Sept. 2022. Web.
Lagowska, Urszula, et al. “Leadership under Crises: A Research Agenda for the Post-COVID-19 Era.” Brazilian Administration Review, vol. 17, no. 2, Aug. 2020. Web.
Larson, Barbara Z., et al. “A Guide to Managing Your (Newly) Remote Workers.” Harvard Business Review, 18 March 2020. Web.
“Leadership During COVID-19: Resources for Times of Uncertainty.” CCL, n.d. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.
“Managing Remote Employees: How to Lead From a Distance.” CCL, 7 April 2020. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.
“Managing Remote Teams.” Know Your Team, n.d. Web. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.
Mayhem, Julian. “Virtual Leadership - Essential Skills for Managing Remote Teams.” VirtualSpeech, 4 Nov. 2020. Web.
McKendrick, Joe. “Keeping Hybrid Workers In Sync, Digitally And In-Person.” Forbes, 22 Aug. 2022. Web.
McKenna, Karissa, et al. “Webinar: Build Leadership Skills for the New World of Work.” CCL, 15 June 2020. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.
Mearian, Lucas. “Microsoft Edges Back to ‘Normal’ with Workplace Reopening Plan.” Computerworld, 14 Feb. 2022. Web.
“Meta Careers.” Meta, n.d. Accessed 17 Sept. 2022.
Miller, Mark. “5 Tips to Make Your Hybrid Work Model More Effective.” Entrepreneur, 25 Aug. 2022. Web.
Nica, Irina. “How to Manage a Remote Team: 14 Effective Tips for Your Business.” Business 2 Community, 8 July 2021. Web.
O’Halloran, Joe. “Organisations Struggle to Support IT in a Hybrid Work Model.” ComputerWeekly.com, 17 June 2022. Web.
Ong, Ivan. “Council Post: Why Hybrid Work Is The Way To Go.” Forbes, 12 Sept. 2022. Web.
Osborne, Charlie. “The End of Fully Remote Work? Google Begins Shift to the Hybrid Office.” ZDNet. 3 March 2022. Web.
Pazzanese, Christina. “Back to Office? Stay Remote? Go Hybrid?” Harvard Gazette, 24 Aug. 2022. Web.
“PinFlex.” Pinterest Careers, n.d. Accessed 17 Sept. 2022.
Rand, Ben. “Does Hybrid Work Actually Work? Insights from 30,000 Emails.” Harvard Business School – Working Knowledge, 6 Sept. 2022. Web.
“Remote Locations, Working with Flexibility.” Amazon.jobs, n.d. Accessed 17 Sept. 2022.
Renjen, Punit. “The Heart of Resilient Leadership: Responding to COVID-19.” Deloitte Insights, 16 March 2020. Web.
Shih, Clara. “Keeping Hybrid Employees Engaged.” Harvard Business Review, 11 Aug. 2022. Web.
Singerman, Michelle. “Is the Hybrid Work Model Working? CPAs Spill the Beans.” Chartered Professional Accountants Canada, 24 Aug. 2022. Web.
Stern, Stefan. “Hybrid Working: Why the Office-Home Balance Is Still a Challenge.” Financial Times, 4 Sept. 2022.
Subramaniam, Vanmala, et al. “Ready to Go Back to the Office? Employers and Workers Are Divided over the Fate of Remote Work.” The Globe and Mail, 1 Sept. 2022. Web.
Tong, Goh Chiew. “Inflation and Hybrid Work ‘skyrocketed’ Demand for Flexible Workspace, WeWork Says.” CNBC, 6 Sept. 2022. Web.
Tsipursky, Gleb. “Commentary: The Psychology behind Why Some Leaders Are Resisting a Hybrid Work Model.” Fortune, 8 June 2021. Web.
Turner, Jack. “Tesla Doubles Down on Remote Working Ban, Tracks Office Attendance.” Tech.Co, 3 July 2022. Web.
“Virtual Leadership Styles for Remote Businesses.” Maryville Online, 4 Feb. 2021. Web.
“Webinar: How Leaders Can Build Organizational Resilience.” CCL, 15 June 2020. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.
“Why GitLab Uses the Term All-Remote to Describe Its 100% Remote Workforce.” GitLab, 2022. Accessed 17 Sept. 2022.
Wigert, Ben, and Sangeeta Agrawal. “Returning to the Office: The Current, Preferred and Future State of Remote Work.” Gallup, 31 Aug. 2022. Web.
Wingard, Jason. “Elon Musk’s Big Bet Against Remote Work: Will Tesla Win?” Forbes, 4 June 2022. Web.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Use this research to identify and quantify the potential financial impacts of vendors’ poor performance. Use Info-Tech’s approach to look at the financial impact from various perspectives to better prepare for issues that may arise.
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.

Vendors are becoming more influential and essential to the operation of organizations. Often the sole risk consideration of a business is whether the vendor meets a security standard, but vendors can negatively impact organizations’ budgets in various ways. Fortunately, though inherent risk is always present, organizations can offset the financial impacts of high-risk vendors by employing due diligence in their vendor management practices to help manage the overall risks.
Frank Sewell
Research Director, Vendor Management
Info-Tech Research Group
| Your Challenge
As vendors become more prevalent in organizations, organizations increasingly need to understand and manage the potential financial impacts of vendors’ actions. It is only a matter of time until a vendor mistake impacts your organization. Make sure you are prepared to manage the adverse financial consequences. |
Common Obstacles
Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential financial impact requires multiple people in the organization across several functions – and those people all need educating on the potential risks. Organizational leadership is often unaware of decisions on organizational risk appetite and tolerance, and they assume there are more protections in place against risk impact than there truly are. |
Info-Tech’s Approach
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. |
Companies without good vendor management risk initiatives will take on more risk than they should. Solid vendor management practices are imperative –organizations must evolve to ensure that vendors deliver services according to performance objectives and that risks are managed accordingly.

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.
In this blueprint, we’ll explore financial risks and their impacts.
Identifying negative actions is paramount to assessing the overall financial impact on your organization, starting in the due diligence phase of the vendor assessment and continuing throughout the vendor lifecycle.

Loss of business represents the largest share of the breach
38%Avg. $1.59M |
Global average cost of a vendor breach
$4.2M |
Percentage of breaches in 2020 caused by business associates
40.2%23.2% YoY(year over year) |
| (Source: “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021,” IBM, 2021) | (Source: “Vendor Risk Management – A Growing Concern,” Stern Security, 2021) | |
Hospitals often rely on vendors to manage their data center environments but rarely understand the downstream financial impacts if that vendor fails to perform.
For example, a vendor implements a patch out of cycle with no notice to the IT group. Suddenly all IT systems are down. It takes 12 hours for the IT teams to return systems to normal. The downstream impacts are substantial.
Assessing financial impacts is an ongoing, educative, and collaborative multidisciplinary process that vendor management initiatives are uniquely designed to coordinate and manage for organizations.
| Insight 1 | Vendors are becoming more and more crucial to organizations’ overall operations, and most organizations have a poor understanding of the potential impacts they represent.
Is your vendor solvent? Do they have enough staff to accommodate your needs? Has their long-term planning been affected by changes in the market? Are they unique in their space? |
| Insight 2 | Financial impacts from other risk types deserve just as much focus as security alone, if not more.
Examples include penalties and fines, loss of revenue due to operational impacts, vendor replacement costs, hidden costs in poorly understood contracts, and lack of contractual protections. |
| Insight 3 | There is always an inherent risk in working with a vendor, but organizations should financially quantify how much each risk may impact their budget.
A significant concern for organizations is quantifying different types of risks. When a risk occurs, the financial losses are often poorly understood, with unbudgeted financial impacts. |
Inherent risks from negative actions are pervasive throughout the entire vendor lifecycle. Collaboratively understanding those risks and working together to put proper management in place enables organizations to get the most value out of the relationship with the least amount of risk.

|
Visit Info-Tech’s VMO ROI Calculator and Tracker |
Input: List of identified potential risk scenarios scored by likelihood and financial impact, List of potential management of the scenarios to reduce the risk
Output: Comprehensive financial risk profile on the specific vendor solution
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Financial Risk Impact Tool to help drive discussion
Participants: Vendor Management – Coordinator, IT Operations, Legal/Compliance/Risk Manager, Finance/Procurement
Vendor management professionals are in an excellent position to collaboratively 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 negative outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.
Download the Financial Risk Impact Tool
Never underestimate the value of keeping the relationship moving forward.Examples of items and activities to monitor include; | ![]() | |
|
| |
Info-Tech InsightMany organizations do not have the resources to dedicate to annual risk assessments of all vendors. Consider timing ongoing risk assessments to align with contract renewal, when you have the most leverage with the vendor. | Visit Info-Tech’s Risk Register Tool | |
|
![]() |
|
![]() |
![]() |
Design and Build an Effective Contract Lifecycle Management Process
|
![]() |
Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk
|
![]() |
Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
|
While most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:
While most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:
Use Info-Tech’s ready-made dashboards for executives to ensure you:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This blueprint guides you through reviewing Info-Tech’s IT dashboards for your audience and organization, then walks you through practical exercises to customize the dashboards to your audience and organization. The blueprint also gives practical guidance for delivering your dashboards and actioning your metrics.
IT dashboards with visuals and metrics that are aligned and organized by CIO priority and that allow you to customize with your own data, eliminating 80% of the dashboard design work.
The IT Dashboard Workbook accompanies the Establish High Value IT Metrics and Dashboards blueprint and guides you through customizing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to your audience, crafting your messages, delivering your dashboards to your audience, actioning metrics results, and addressing audience feedback.
Reference the IT Metrics Library for ideas on metrics to use and how to measure them.
Reference the HR Metrics Library for ideas on metrics to use and how to measure them.
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.
Introduce the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to give the participants an idea of how they can be used in their organization.
Understand the importance of starting with the audience and understanding audience needs before thinking about data and metrics.
Explain how audience needs translate into metrics.
Understanding of where to begin when it comes to considering dashboards and metrics (the audience).
Identified audience and needs and derived metrics from those identified needs.
1.1 Review the info-Tech IT Dashboards and document impressions for your organization.
1.2 Identify your audience and their attributes.
1.3 Identify timeline and deadlines for dashboards.
1.4 Identify and prioritize audience needs and desired outcomes.
1.5 Associate metrics to each need.
1.6 Identify a dashboard for each metric.
Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
Completed Tabs 2 and 3 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Provide guidance on how to derive metrics and assess data.
Understand the importance of considering how you will measure each metric and get the data.
Understand that measuring data can be costly and that sometimes you just can’t afford to get the measure or you can’t get the data period because the data isn’t there.
Understand how to assess data quality and readiness.
2.1 Complete a data inventory for each metric on each dashboard: determine how you will measure the metric, the KPI, any observation biases, the location of the data, the type of source, the owner, and the security/compliance requirements.
2.2 Assess data quality for availability, accuracy, and standardization.
2.3 Assess data readiness and the frequency of measurement and reporting.
Completed Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Guide participants in customizing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with the data identified in previous steps.
This step may vary as some participants may not need to alter the Info-Tech IT Dashboards other than to add their own data.
Understanding of how to customize the dashboards to the participants’ organization.
3.1 Revisit the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and use the identified metrics to determine what should change in them.
3.2 Build your dashboards by editing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your changes as planned in Step 3.1.
Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs.
Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Finalized dashboards.
Guide participants in learning how to create a story around the dashboards.
Guide participants in planning to action metrics and where to record results.
Guide participants in how to address results of metrics and feedback from audience about dashboards.
Participants understand how to speak to their dashboards.
Participants understand how to action metrics results and feedback about dashboards.
4.1 Craft your story.
4.2 Practice delivering your story.
4.3 Plan to action your metrics.
4.4 Understand how to record and address your results.
Completed Tabs 6 and 7 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Finalize work outstanding from previous steps and answer any questions.
Participants have thought about and documented how to customize the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to use in their organization, and they have everything they need to customize the dashboards with their own metrics and visuals (if necessary).
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.
5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization.
Completed IT Dashboard Workbook
CIOs naturally gravitate toward data and data analysis. This is their strength. They lean into this strength, using data to drive decisions, track performance, and set targets because they know good data drives good decisions.
However, when it comes to interpreting and communicating this complex information to executives who may be less familiar with data, CIOs struggle, often falling back on showing IT activity level data instead of what the executives care about. This results in missed opportunities to tell IT’s unique story, secure funding, reveal important trends, or highlight key opportunities for the organization.
Break through these traditional barriers by using Info-Tech’s ready-made IT dashboards. Spend less time agonizing over visuals and layout and more time concentrating on delivering IT information that moves the organization forward.

Diana MacPherson
Senior Research Analyst, CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
Your ChallengeWhile most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:
|
Common ObstaclesCIOs often experience these challenges because they:
|
Info-Tech’s ApproachUse Info-Tech’s ready-made dashboards for executives to ensure you:
|
The purpose of a dashboard is to drive decision making. A well designed dashboard presents relevant, clear, concise insights that help executives make data-driven decisions.
CIOs struggle to select the right metrics and dashboards to communicate IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress to their executives. CIOs:
The bottom line: CIOs often communicate to the wrong audience, about the wrong things, in the wrong amount, using the wrong metrics, at the wrong time.
In a survey of 500 executives, organizations that struggled with dashboards identified the reasons as:
61% Inadequate context
54% Information overload
— Source: Exasol
When asked which performance indicators should be implemented in your business, CXOs and CIOs both agree that IT needs to improve its metrics across several activity areas: technology performance, cost and salary, and risk.
The Info-Tech IT Dashboards center key metrics around these activities ensuring you align your metrics to the needs of your CXO audience.
Info-Tech CEO/CIO Alignment Survey Benchmark Report n=666
The top six areas that a CIO needs to prioritize and measure outcomes, no matter your organization or industry, are:
Executives recognize the benefits of dashboards:
87% of respondents to an Exasol study agreed that their organization’s leadership team would make more data-driven decisions if insights were presented in a simpler and more understandable way
(Source: Exasol)
We created dashboards for you so you don’t have to!
Phase Steps
Phase Outcomes
Phase Steps
Phase Outcomes
Phase Steps
Phase Outcomes
Phase Steps
Phase Outcomes
Phase Steps
Phase Outcomes
Choose the path that works for you
The Info-Tech IT Dashboards address several needs:
The need for easy-to-consume data is on the rise making dashboards a vital data communication tool.
70%: Of employees will be expected to use data heavily by 2025, an increase from 40% in 2018.
— Source: Tableau
A dashboard’s primary purpose is to drive action. It may also serve secondary purposes to update, educate, and communicate, but if a dashboard does not drive action, it is not serving its purpose.
Start with the audience. Resist the urge to start with the data. Think about who your audience is, what internal and external environmental factors influence them, what problems they need to solve, what goals they need to achieve, then tailor the metrics and dashboards to suit.
Avoid showing IT activity-level metrics. Instead use CIO priority-based metrics to report on what matters to the organization. The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by the CIO priorities: risks, financials, talent, and strategic initiatives.
Dashboards show the what not the why. Do not assume your audience will draw the same conclusions from your graphs and charts as you do. Provide the why by interpreting the results, adding insights and calls to action, and marking key areas for discussion.
A dashboard is a communication tool and should reflect the characteristics of good communication. Be clear, concise, consistent, and relevant.
Action your data. Act and report progress on your metrics. Gathering metrics has a cost, so if you do not plan to action a metric, do not measure it.
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
|
|
Key deliverable: DashboardsReady-made risk, financials, talent, and strategic initiatives dashboards that organize your data in a visually appealing way so you can concentrate on the metrics and communication. |
|
|
IT Dashboard WorkbookThe IT Dashboard Workbook keeps all your metrics, data, and dashboard work in one handy file! |
|
|
IT Dashboard GuideThe IT Dashboard Guide provides the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and information about how to use them. |
CIO Benefits
Business Benefits
Realize measurable benefits after using Info-Tech’s approach:
Determining what you should measure, what visuals you should use, and how you should organize your visuals, is time consuming. Calculate the time it has taken you to research what metrics you should show, create the visuals, figure out how to categorize the visuals, and layout your visuals. Typically, this takes about 480 hours of time. Use the ready-made Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook to quickly put together a set of dashboards to present your CXO. Using these tools will save approximately 480 hours.
A study at the University of Minnesota shows that visual presentations are 43% more effective at persuading their audiences (Bonsignore). Estimate how persuasive you are now by averaging how often you have convinced your audience to take a specific course of action. After using the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and visual story telling techniques described in this blueprint, average again. You should be 43% more persuasive.
Further value comes from making decisions faster. Baseline how long it takes, on average, for your executive team to make a decision before using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards then time how long decisions take when you use your Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. Your audience should reach decisions 21% faster according to studies at Stanford University and the Wharton School if business (Bonsignore).
ChallengeYear after year, the CIO of a construction company attended business planning with the Board to secure funding for the year. One year, the CEO interrupted and said, “You're asking me for £17 million. You asked me for £14 million last year and you asked me for £12 million the year before that. I don't quite understand what we get for our money.” The CEO could not understand how fixing laptops would cost £17 million and for years no one had been able to justify the IT spend. |
SolutionsThe CIO worked with his team to produce a simple one-page bubble diagram representing each IT department. Each bubble included the total costs to deliver the service, along with the number of employees. The larger the bubble, the higher the cost. The CIO brought each bubble to life as he explained to the Board what each department did. The Board saw, for example, that IT had architects who thought about the design of a service, where it was going, the life cycle of that service, and the new products that were coming out. They understood what those services cost and knew how many architects IT had to provide for those services. |
RecommendationsThe CEO remarked that he finally understood why the CIO needed £17 million. He even saw that the costs for some IT departments were low for the amount of people and offered to pay IT staff more (something the CIO had requested for years). Each year the CIO used the same slide to justify IT costs and when the CIO needed further investment for things like security or new products, an upgrade, or end of life support, the sign-offs came very quickly because the Board understood what IT was doing and that IT wasn't a bottomless pit. |
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."
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.
Activities
1.1 Review the info-Tech IT Dashboards and document impressions for your organization.
1.2 Identify your audience’s attributes.
1.3 Identify timeline and deadlines for dashboards.
1.4 Identify and prioritize audience needs and desired outcomes.
1.5 Associate metrics to each need.
1.6 Identify a dashboard for each metric.
Deliverables
1. Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
2. Completed Tabs 2 and 3 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Activities
2.1 Complete a data inventory for each metric on each dashboard: determine how you will measure the metric, the KPI, any observation biases, the location of the data, the type of source, and the owner and security/compliance requirements.
2.2 Assess data quality for availability, accuracy, and standardization.
2.3 Assess data readiness and frequency of measurement and reporting.
Deliverables
1. Completed Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Activities
3.1 Revisit the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and use the identified metrics to determine what should change on the dashboards.
3.2 Build your dashboards by editing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your changes as planned in Step 3.1.
Deliverables
1. Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs.
2. Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
3. Finalized dashboards.
Activities
4.1 Craft your story.
4.2 Practice delivering your story.
4.3 Plan to action your metrics.
4.4 Understand how to record and address your results.
Deliverables
1. Completed Tabs 6 and 7 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Activities
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days
5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
Deliverables
1. Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization.
2. Completed IT Dashboard Workbook.
workshops@infotech.com
1-888-670-8889

An IT dashboard is…
a visual representation of data, and its main purpose is to drive actions. Well-designed dashboards use an easy to consume presentation style free of clutter. They present their audience with a curated set of visuals that present meaningful metrics to their audience.
Dashboards can be both automatically or manually updated and can show information that is dynamic or a snapshot in time.
Use the link below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and consider the following:
Download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Cognitively
Emotionally
Visual clues
Persuasion
— Source: (Vogel et al.)
This phase will walk you through the following:
This phase involves the following participants:
We created a compelling way to organize IT dashboards so you don’t have to. The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO Priorities, and these are consistent irrespective of industry or organization. This is a constant that you can organize your metrics around.
The categories represent a constant around which you can change the order; for example, if your CXO is more focused on Financials, you can switch the Financials dashboard to appear first.
The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are aimed at a CXO audience so if your audience is the CXO, then you may decide to change very little, but you can customize any visual to appeal to your audience.
Phase 1 will get you started with your audience.
Reliable, accurate data plays a critical role in dashboards, but data is only worthwhile if it is relevant to the audience who consumes it, and dashboards are only as meaningful as the data and metrics they represent.
Instead of starting with the data, start with the audience. The more IT understands about the audience, the more relevant the metrics will be to their audience and the more aligned leadership will be with IT.
Don’t forget yourself and who you are. Your audience will have certain preconceived notions about who you are and what you do. Consider these when you think about what you want your audience to know.
|
46% executives identify lack of customization to individual user needs as a reason they struggle with dashboards. |
If you find yourself thinking about data and you haven’t thought about your audience, pull yourself back to the audience.
| Ask first | Ask later |
| Who is this dashboard for? | What data should I show? |
| How will the audience use the dashboard to make decisions? | Where do I get the data? |
| How can I show what matters to the audience? | How much effort is required to get the data? |
It is crucial to think about who your audience is so that you can translate their needs into metrics and create meaningful visuals for your dashboards.
Activities:
1.1.1 Examine Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Jot down your thoughts below. You can refer to this later as you consider your audience.
Consider:
Activities:
1.2.1 Document your audience’s needs in the IT Dashboard Workbook.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Validate the needs you’ve uncovered with the audience to ensure you have not misinterpreted them and clarify the desired timeline and deadline for the dashboard.
| Typical Audience | Needs |
| Senior Leadership |
|
| Board of Directors |
|
| Business Partners |
|
| CFO |
|
Select three to five of the highest priority needs for each audience to include on a dashboard.
Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 2. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove after you have completed your updates.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
This phase will walk you through the following:
This phase involves the following participants:
When you present metrics that your audience cares about, you:
29% of respondents to The Economist Intelligence Unit survey cited inadequate collaboration between IT and the business as one of the top barriers to the organization’s digital objectives.
— Source: Watson, Morag W., et al.
The Info-Tech IT Dashboards use measures for each dashboard that correspond with what the audience (CXO) cares about. You can find these measures in the IT Dashboard Workbook. If your audience is the CXO, you may have to change a little but you should still validate the needs and metrics in the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Phase 2 covers the process of translating needs into metrics.
Activities:
2.1.1 Compare the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your audience’s needs.
2.1.2 Document prioritized audience needs and the desired outcome of each in the IT Dashboard Workbook.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards contain a set of monthly metrics tailored toward a CXO audience.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Any changes to the Info-Tech IT Dashboards?
Consider:
When it’s not immediately apparent what the link between needs and metrics is, brainstorm desired outcomes.
Now that you’ve examined the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and considered the needs of your audience, it is time to understand the outcomes and goals of each need so that you can translate your audience’s needs into metrics.
Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 3. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove it after you have completed your updates.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Once you know the desired outcomes, you can identify meaningful metrics
Avoid the following oversights when selecting your metrics.
Activities:
2.2.1 Derive metrics using the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Now that you have completed the desired outcomes, you can determine if you are meeting those desired outcomes. If you struggle with the metrics, revisit the desired outcomes. It could be that they are not measurable or are not specific enough.
Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 3. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove it after you have completed your updates.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Download IT Metrics Library
Download HR Metrics Library
Activities:
2.3.1 Review the metrics and identify which dashboard they should appear on.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Once you have identified all your metrics from Step 2.2, identify which dashboard they should appear on. As with all activities, if the Info-Tech IT Dashboard meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information.
This phase will walk you through the following:
This phase involves the following participants:
Once appropriate service metrics are derived from business objectives, the next step is to determine how easily you can get your metric.
40% of organizations say individuals within the business do not trust data insights.
— Source: Experian, 2020
Phase 3 covers the process of identifying data for each metric, creating a data inventory, assessing the readiness of your data, and documenting the frequency of measuring your data. Once complete, you will have a guide to help you add data to your dashboards.
Activities:
3.1.1 Download the IT Dashboard Workbook and complete the data inventory section on Tab 4.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 4. The pre-populated text is arranged into the tables according to the dashboard they appear on; you may need to scroll down to see all the dashboard tables.
Create a data inventory by placing each metric identified on Tab 3 into the corresponding dashboard table. Complete each column as described below.
Metrics Libraries: Use the IT Metrics Library and HR Metrics Library for ideas for metrics to use and how to measure them.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Activities:
3.2.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to complete an assessment of data quality on Tab 4.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Document the data quality on Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook by filling in the data availability, data accuracy, and data standardization columns as described below.
Data quality is a struggle for many organizations. Consider how much uncertainty you can tolerate and what would be required to improve your data quality to an acceptable level. Consider cost, technological resources, people resources, and time required.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Activities:
3.3.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to determine the readiness of your data.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Once the data quality has been documented and examined, complete the Data Readiness section of Tab 4 in the Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook. Select a readiness classification using the definitions below. Use the readiness of your data to determine the level of effort required to obtain the data and consider the constraints and cost/ROI to implement new technology or revise processes and data gathering to produce the data.
Remember: Although in most cases, simple formulas that can be easily understood are the best approach, both because effort is lower and data that is not manipulated is more trustworthy, do not abandon data because it is not perfect but instead plan to make it easier to obtain.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Activities:
3.4.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to determine the readiness of your data and how frequently you will measure your data.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Document the planned frequency of measurement for all your metrics on Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
For each metric, determine how often you will need to refresh it on the dashboard and select a frequency from the drop down. The Info-tech IT Dashboards assume a monthly refresh.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
This phase will walk you through the following:
This phase involves the following participants:
Now that you have linked metrics to the needs of your audience and you understand how to get your data, it is time to start building your dashboards.
— Source: American Management Association
Phase 4 guides you through using the Info-Tech IT Dashboard visuals for your audience’s needs and your story.
Activities:
4.1.1 Plan and validate dashboard metrics, data, level of effort and visuals.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Sample A:
Sample B:
Identify the purpose of the visualization. Determine which of the four categories below aligns with the story and choose the appropriate visual to display the data.

Scatterplots

Histogram

Scatterplot

Pie chart

Table

Bar graph

Line chart
(Calzon)
To compare categories, use a bar chart:
Conclusion: Visualizing the spend in various areas helps prioritize.
To show trends, use a line graph:
Conclusion: Overlaying a trend line on revenue per employee helps justify headcount costs.
To show simple results, text is sometimes more clear:
Conclusion: Text with meaningful graphics conveys messages quickly.
To display relative percentages of values, use a pie chart:
Conclusion: Displaying proportions in a pie chart gives an at-a-glance understanding of the amount any area uses.
Select colors that will enhance the story
Keep the design simple and clear
Example
Leverage this checklist to ensure you are creating the perfect visuals and graphs for your presentation.
Checklist:
Click the links below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook. Open the IT Dashboard Workbook and select Tab 5. For each dashboard, represented by its own table, open the corresponding Info-Tech IT Dashboard as reference.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Activities:
4.2.1 Update the visuals on the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with data and visuals identified in the IT Dashboard Workbook.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
Do not worry about the Key Insights or Calls to Action; you will create this in the next step when you plan your story.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Activities:
4.3.1 Craft Your Story
4.3.2 Finalize Your Dashboards
4.3.3 Practice Delivering Your Story With Your Dashboards
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
IT dashboards are valuable tools to provide insights that drive decision making.
“Data storytelling is a universal language that everyone can understand – from people in STEM to arts and psychology.” — Peter Jackson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Exasol
Storytelling provides context, helping the audience understand and connect with data and metrics.
— Exasol
For more visual guidance, download the IT Dashboard Guide
Time is a non-renewable resource. The message crafted must be considered a value-adding communication to your audience.
Be Consistent
Be Clear
Be Relevant
Be Concise
Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 6. The workbook contains grey text that reflects a sample story about the Info-Tech IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the sample text as reference, then remove after you have entered your information.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Tip: Aim to be brief and concise with any text. Dashboards simplify information and too much text can clutter the visuals and obscure the message.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Ideally you can present your dashboard to your audience so that you are available to clarify questions and add a layer of interpretation that would crowd out boards if added as text.
Don’t overwhelm your audience with information and data. You spent time to craft your dashboards so that they are clear and concise, so spend time practicing delivering a message that matches your clear, concise dashboards
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Think about the message you are trying to convey and how your body can support that delivery. Hands, stance, and frame all have an impact on what might be conveyed.
If you want your audience to lean in and be eager about your next point, consider using a pause or softer voice and volume.
State the main points of your dashboard confidently. While this should be obvious, it needs to be stated explicitly. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.
Present in a way that is genuine to you and your voice. Whether you have an energetic personality or a calm and composed personality, the presentation should be authentic to you.
Look each member of the audience in the eye at least once during your presentation or if you are presenting remotely, look into the camera. Avoid looking at the ceiling, the back wall, or the floor. Your audience should feel engaged – this is essential to keeping their attention.
Avoid reading the text from your dashboard, and instead paraphrase it while maintaining eye/camera contact.
You are responsible for the response of your audience. If they aren’t engaged, it is on you as the communicator.
This phase will walk you through the following:
This phase involves the following participants:
Don’t fail on execution! The whole reason you labor to create inviting visuals and meaningful metrics is to action those metrics. The metrics results inform your entire story! It’s important to plan and do, but everything is lost if you fail to check and act.
70%: of survey respondents say that managers do not get insights from performance metrics to improve strategic decision making.
60%: of survey respondents say that operational teams do not get insights to improve operation decision making.
(Bernard Marr)
“Metrics aren’t a passive measure of progress but an active part of an organization’s everyday management….Applying the “plan–do–check–act” feedback loop…helps teams learn from their mistakes and identify good ideas that can be applied elsewhere”
(McKinsey)
Activities:
5.1.1 For each dashboard, add a baseline and target to existing metrics and KPIs.
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
To action your metrics, you must first establish what your baselines and targets are so that you can determine if you are on track.
To establish baselines:
If you do not have a baseline. Run your metric to establish one.
To establish targets:
Actions for Success:
How will you ensure you can get this metric? For example, if you would like to measure delivered value, to make sure the metric is measurable, you will need to ensure that measures of success are documented for an imitative and then measured once complete.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
Activities:
5.2.1 Record and Action Results
This phase involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step:
After analyzing your results, use this information to update your dashboards. Revisit Tab 6 of the IT Dashboard Workbook to update your story. Remember to record any audience feedback about the dashboards in the Audience Feedback section.
Action your measures as well as your metrics
What should be measured can change over time as your organization matures and the business environment changes. Understanding what creates business value for your organization is critical. If metrics need to be changed, record metrics actions under Identified Actions on Tab 7. A metric will need to be addressed in one of the following ways:
Don’t be discouraged if you need to update your metrics a few times before you get it right. It can take some trial and error to find the measures that best indicate the health of what you are measuring.
Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook
If a metric deviates from your target, you may need to analyze how to correct the issue then run the metric again to see if the results have improved.
Identify Root Cause
Root Cause Analysis can include problem exploration techniques like The 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, or affinity mapping.
Select a Solution
Once you have identified a possible root cause, use the same technique to brainstorm and select a solution then re-run your metrics.
Consider Tension Metrics
Consider tension metrics when selecting a solution. Will improving one area affect another? A car can go faster but it will consume more fuel – a project can be delivered faster but it may affect the quality.
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.
workshops@infotech.com
1-888-670-8889
The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

Review the Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Determine how you can use the Info-Tech IT Dashboards in your organization and the anticipated level of customization.

Plan your dashboards
Complete the IT Dashboard Workbook to help plan your dashboards using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards.

John Corrado
Head of IT
X4 Pharmaceuticals
As head of IT, John is charged with the creation of strategic IT initiatives that align with X4s vision, mission, culture, and long-term goals and is responsible for the organization’s systems, security, and infrastructure. He works closely developing partnerships with X4tizens across the organization to deliver value through innovative programs and services.

Grant Frost
Chief Information & Security Officer
Niagara Catholic School Board
Grant Frost is an experienced executive, information technologist and security strategist with extensive experience in both the public and private sector. Grant is known for, and has extensive experience in, IT transformation and the ability to increase capability while decreasing cost in IT services.

Nick Scozzaro
CEO and Co-Founder of MobiStream and ShadowHQ
ShadowHQ
Nick got his start in software development and mobility working at BlackBerry where he developed a deep understanding of the technology landscape and of what is involved in both modernizing legacy systems and integrating new ones. Working with experts across multiple industries, he innovated, learned, strategized, and ultimately helped push the boundaries of what was possible.

Joseph Sanders
Managing Director of Technology/Cyber Security Services
Kentucky Housing Corporation
In his current role Joe oversees all IT Operations/Applications Services that are used to provide services and support to the citizens of Kentucky. Joe has 30+ years of leadership experience and has held several executive roles in the public and private sector. He has been a keynote speaker for various companies including HP, IBM, and Oracle.

Jochen Sievert
Director Performance Excellence & IT
Zeon Chemicals
Jochen moved to the USA from Duesseldorf, Germany in 2010 to join Zeon Chemicals as their IT Manager. Prior to Zeon, Jochen has held various technical positions at Novell, Microsoft, IBM, and Metro Management Systems.
Info-Tech Contributors
Ibrahim Abdel-Kader, Research Analyst
Donna Bales, Principal Research Director
Shashi Bellamkonda, Principal Research Director
John Burwash, Executive Counselor
Tony Denford, Research Lead
Jody Gunderman, Senior Executive Advisor
Tom Hawley, Managing Partner
Mike Higginbotham, Executive Counselor
Valence Howden, Principal Research Director
Dave Kish, Practice Lead
Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead
Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director
Gary Rietz, Executive Counselor
Steve Schmidt, Senior Managing Partner
Aaron Shum, Vice President, Security & Privacy
Ian Tyler-Clarke, Executive Counselor
Plus, an additional four contributors who wish to remain anonymous.
|
|
Build an IT Risk TaxonomyUse this blueprint as a baseline to build a customized IT risk taxonomy suitable for your organization. |
|
|
Create a Holistic IT DashboardThis blueprint will help you identify the KPIs that matter to your organization. |
|
|
Develop Meaningful Service MetricsThis blueprint will help you Identify the appropriate service metrics based on stakeholder needs. |
|
|
IT Spend & Staffing BenchmarkingUse this benchmarking service to capture, analyze, and communicate your IT spending and staffing. |
|
|
Key Metrics for Every CIOThis short research piece highlights the top metrics for every CIO, how those align to your CIO priorities, and action steps against those metrics. |
|
|
Present Security to Executive StakeholdersThis blueprint helps you identify communication drivers and goals and collect data to support your presentation. It provides checklists for building and delivering a captivating security presentation. |
“10 Signs You Are Sitting on a Pile of Data Debt.” Experian, n.d. Web.
“From the What to the Why: How Data Storytelling Is Key to Success.” Exasol, 2021. Web.
Bonsignore, Marian. “Using Visual Language to Create the Case for Change.” Amarican Management Association. Accessed 19 Apr. 2023.
Calzon, Bernardita. “Top 25 Dashboard Design Principles, Best Practices & How To’s.” Datapine, 5 Apr. 2023.
“Data Literacy.” Tableau, n.d. Accessed 3 May 2023.
“KPIs Don’t Improve Decision-Making In Most Organizations.” LinkedIn, n.d. Accessed 2 May 2023.
Miller, Amanda. “A Comprehensive Guide to Accessible Data Visualization.” Betterment, 2020. Accessed May 2022.
“Performance Management: Why Keeping Score Is so Important, and so Hard.” McKinsey. Accessed 2 May 2023.
Vogel, Douglas, et al. Persuasion and the Role of Visual Presentation Support: The UM/3M Study. Management Information Systems Research Center School of Management University of Minnesota, 1986.
Watson, Morag W., et al. ”IT’s Changing Mandate in an Age of Disruption.” The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited, 2021.
Build a chatbot that creates value for your business
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you building a chatbot proof of concept is a good idea, review our methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you to successfully complete this project. Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Build the right metrics to measure the success of your chatbot POC
Architect the chatbot to maximize business value
Now take your chatbot proof of concept to production
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This research will help you choose an appropriate measurement framework, set effective measures. and communicate and review your performance measures. Use Info-Tech's process to set meaningful measures that will inspire employees and drive performance.
This tool will help you set departmental goals based on organizational mission and business goals and choose appropriate measures and weightings for each goal. Use this template to plan a comprehensive employee measurement system.
This tool will help you set departmental goals based on your organizational mission and business goals, choose appropriate measures and weightings for each goal, and visualize you progress toward set goals. Use this template to plan and implement a comprehensive employee measurement system from setting goals to communicating results.
Feedback and coaching will improve performance, increase employee engagement, and build stronger employee manager relationships. Giving feedback is an essential part of a manger's job and if done timely can help employees to correct their behavior before it becomes a bigger problem.
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.
Ensure that individual goals are informed by business ones.
Individuals understand how their goals contribute to organizational ones.
1.1 Understand how your department contributes to larger organizational goals.
1.2 Determine the timelines you need to measure employees against.
1.3 Set Business aligned department, team, and individual goals.
Business-aligned department and team goals
Business-aligned individual goals
Create holistic performance measures.
Holistic performance measures are created.
2.1 Choose your employee measurement framework: generic or individual.
2.2 Define appropriate employee measures for preestablished goals.
2.3 Determine employee measurement weightings to drive essential behaviors.
Determined measurement framework
Define employee measures.
Determined weightings
Learn how to communicate measures to stakeholders and review measures.
Learn how to communicate to stakeholders and coach employees through blockers.
3.1 Learn how to communicate selected performance measures to stakeholders.
3.2 How to coach employees though blockers.
3.3 Reviewing and updating measures.
Effective communication with stakeholders
Coaching and feedback
When to update
Train managers in relevant areas.
Training delivered to managers.
4.1 Deliver Build a Better Manager training to managers.
4.2
Manager training delivered
Your ChallengeIn today’s competitive environment, managers must assess and inspire employee performance in order to assess the achievement of business goals. Despite the importance of performance measures, many leaders struggle with choosing appropriate metrics. Performance measures are often misaligned with the larger strategy, gamed by employees, or are too narrow to provide an accurate picture of employee achievements. |
Common ObstaclesManagers who invest time in creating more effective performance measures will be rewarded with increased employee engagement and better employee performance. Too little time setting holistic employee measures often results in unintended behaviors and gaming of the system. Conversely, too much time setting employee measures will result in overreporting and underperforming employees. |
Info-Tech’s ApproachInfo-Tech helps managers translate organizational goals to employee measures. Communicating these to employees and other stakeholders will help managers keep better track of workforce productivity, maintain alignment with the organization’s business strategy, and improve overall results. |
Performance measures are not about punishing bad performance, but inspiring higher performance to achieve business goals.
Significant components of employee engagement are tied to employee performance measures.
Impact of Engagement on Performance
Source: McLean & Company Employee Engagement Survey Jan 2020-Jan 2023; N=5,185 IT Employees; were either Engaged or Disengaged (Almost Engaged and Indifferent were not included)
Engaged employees don’t just work harder, they deliver higher quality service and products.
Engaged employees are significantly more likely to agree that they regularly accomplish more than what’s expected of them, choose to work extra hours to improve results, and take pride in the work they do.
Without this sense of pride and ownership over the quality-of-service IT provides, IT departments are at serious risk of not being able to deliver quality service, on-time and on-budget.
Create meaningful performance measures to drive employee engagement by helping employees understand how they contribute to the organization.
Too many ineffective performance measures create more work for the manager rather than inspire employee performance. Determine if your measures are worth tracking – or if they are lacking.
Meaningful performance measures are: |
Ineffective performance measures are: |
|
Clearly linked to organizational mission, values, and objectives. Based on a holistic understanding of employee performance. Relevant to organizational decision-making. Accepted by employees and managers. Easily understood by employees and managers. Valid: relevant to the role and goals and within an employee’s control. Reliable: consistently applied to assess different employees doing the same job. |
Difficult to track, update, and communicate. Easily gamed by managers or employees. Narrowly focused on targets rather than the quality of work. The cause of unintended outcomes or incentive for the wrong behaviors. Overly complex or elaborate. Easily manipulated due to reliance on simple calculations. Negotiable without taking into account business needs, leading to lower performance standards. |
Phase Steps
1.1 Create business-aligned department and team goals
1.2 Create business-aligned individual goals
Phase Outcomes
Understand how your department contributes to larger organizational goals.
Determine the timelines you need to measure employees against.
Set business-aligned department, team, and individual goals.
Phase Steps
1.1 Choose measurement framework
1.2 Define employee measures
1.3 Determine weightings
Phase Outcomes
Choose your employee measurement framework: generic or individual.
Define appropriate employee measures for preestablished goals.
Determine employee measurement weightings to drive essential behaviors.
Ensure employee measures are communicated to the right stakeholders.
Phase Steps
1.1 Communicate to stakeholders
1.2 Coaching and feedback
1.3 When to update
Phase Outcomes
Communicate selected performance measure to stakeholders.
Learn how to coach employees though blockers.
Understand how to review and when to update measures.
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."
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 four to six calls over the course of two to four months.
Your organization already has a digital strategy, but there is a lack of understanding of what digital means across the enterprise. Digital investments have been made in the past but failed to yield or demonstrate business value. Given the pace of change, the current digital strategy is outdated, and new digital opportunities need to be identified to inform the technology innovation roadmap.
Turn your digital strategy into a compelling change story that will create a unified vision of how you want to transform your business.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Knowing which digital opportunities create the greatest business value requires a structured approach to ideate, prioritize, and understand the value they create for the business to help inform the creation of your business case for investment approval.
Your Challenge | Common Obstacles | Solution |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Info-Tech Insight
Turn your existing digital strategy into a compelling change story that will create a unified vision of how you want to transform your business.

By this point you have leveraged industry roundtables to better understand the art of the possible, exploring global trends, shifts in market forces, customer needs, emerging technologies, and economic forecasts to establish your business objectives and innovation goals. Now you need to formalize digital business strategy. | Phase 1: Industry Trends Report
Phase 2: Digital Maturity Assessment
Phase 3: Zero-In on Business Objectives
Business and innovation goals are established through stakeholder interviews and a heatmap of your current capabilities for transformation. |


The goal of this phase is to ensure the scope of the current digital strategy reflects the right opportunities to allocate capital to resources, assets, and capabilities to drive strategic growth and operational efficiency.
There are three key activities outlined in this deck that that can be undertaken by industry members to help evolve their current digital business strategy.

Formalize your digital business strategy | Methodology | ||
Members Engaged
Info-Tech
| Phase 1: New Digital Opportunities | Phase 2: Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Phase 3: Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
Content Leveraged
|
|
|
|
Deliverable: Client’s Digital Business Strategy | Phase 1: Deliverable
| Phase 2: Deliverables
| Phase 3: Deliverables
|
LEAPFROG IDEAS
The concept was originally developed in the area of industrial organizations and economic growth. Leapfrogging is the notion that organizations can identify opportunities to skip one or several stages ahead of their competitors.
DIGITAL OPPORTUNITIES
Opening of new possibilities to transform or change your business model and create operational efficiencies and customer experiences through the adoption of digital platforms, solutions, and capabilities.
INITIATIVES
Breakdown of opportunities into actionable initiatives that creates value for organizations through new or changes to business models, operational efficiencies, and customer experiences.
Host an ideation session to turn trends into growth opportunities with new leapfrog ideas.
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
Identify New Digitally Enabled Opportunities | Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
| 1.1 IDENTIFY AND ASSEMBLE YOUR KEY STAKEHOLDERS | Build support and eliminate blind spots It is important to make sure the right stakeholders participate in this working group. Designing a digital strategy will require debate, insights, and business decisions from a broad perspective across the enterprise. The focus is on the value to be generated from digital. | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
| 1.2 ESTABLISH GUIDING PRINCIPLES | Define the guardrails to focus your ideas All ideas are great until you need one that works. Establish guiding principles that will help you establish the perimeters for turning big ideas into opportunities. | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
| 1.3 LEVERAGE STRATEGIC FORESIGHT TO IDENTIFY LEAPFROG IDEAS | Create space to elicit “big ideas” Leverage industry roundtables and trend reports imagining how digital solutions can help drive strategic growth and operational efficiency. Brainstorm new opportunities and discuss their viability to create value and better experiences for your stakeholders. | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
Identify digitally enabled opportunities | Industry Roundtables and Trend Reports Industry Trends Report
Business Documents
Digital Maturity Assessment
| Activity: 2-4 hours |
Members Engaged
Info-Tech
| Hold a visioning session with key business executives (e.g., CIO, CEO, CFO, CCO, and COO) and others as needed. Here is a proposed agenda of activities for the ideation session:
| |
Content Leveraged
| ||
Deliverable:
|
Set yourself up for success with these three steps.
CIOs tasked with designing digital strategies must add value to the business. Given the goal of digital is to transform the business, CIOs will need to ensure they have both the mandate and support from the business executives. Designing the digital strategy is more than just writing up a document. It is an integrated set of business decisions to create a competitive advantage and financial returns. Establishing a forum for debates, decisions, and dialogue will increase the likelihood of success and support during execution. | 1. Confirm your role | 2. Identify Stakeholders | 3. Diverse Perspective |
The digital strategy aims to transform the business. Given the scope, validate your role and mandate to lead this work. Identify a business executive to co-sponsor. | Identify key decision-makers and influencers who can help make rapid decisions as well as garner support across the enterprise. | Don’t be afraid to include contrarians or naysayers. They will help reduce any blind spots but can also become the greatest allies through participation. |
Guiding principles help define the parameters of your digital strategy. They act as priori decisions that establish the guardrails to limit the scope of opportunities from the perspective of people, assets, capabilities, and budgets that are aligned with the business objectives. Consider these components when brainstorming guiding principles:
Consider these three components when brainstorming
Breadth | Digital strategy should span people, culture, organizational structure, governance, capabilities, assets, and technology. The guiding principle should cover a 3600 view across the entire organization. |
|---|---|
Planning Horizon | Timing should anchor stakeholders to look to the long-term with an eye on the foreseeable future i.e., business value realization in one, two, and three years. |
| Depth | Needs to encompass more than the enterprise view of lofty opportunities but establish boundaries to help define actionable initiatives (i.e., individual projects). |
| 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 and modification and use it enterprise-wide in compliance with our data governance policy. |
| 6.Controlled technical diversity | We control the variety of what 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. |
| 11.Digital by default | We always put digital solutions at the core of our plans for all viable solutions across the organization. |
| 12.Customer-centricity by design | We design new products and services with the goal to drive greater engagement and experiences with our customers. |
What is Strategic Foresight?
In times of increasing uncertainty, rapid change, market volatility, and complexity, the development of strategies can be difficult. Strategic foresight offers a solution.
Strategic foresight refers to an approach that uses a range of methodologies, such as scanning the horizon for emerging changes and signals, analyzing megatrends, and developing multiple scenarios to identify opportunities (source: OECD, 2022). However, it cannot predict the future and is distinct from:
Why is Strategic Foresight useful?
Explore Info-Tech’s Strategic Foresight Process Tool
“When situations lack analogies to the past, it’s hard to envision the future.”
- J. Peter Scoblic, HBR, 2020
Uncover important business and industry trends that can inform possibilities for technology innovation. Explore trends in areas such as:
Market research is critical in identifying factors external to your organization and identifying technology innovation that will provide a competitive edge. It’s important to evaluate the impact each trend or opportunity will have in your organization and market. Visit Info-Tech’s Trends & Priorities Research Center Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to get started. |
Images are from Info-Tech’s Rethinking Higher Education Report and 2023 Tech Trends Report |
Understand how the environment is evolving in your industry
Scan the horizon to detect early signs of future changes or threats.
Horizon scanning involves scanning, analyzing, and communicating changes in an organization’s environment to prepare for potential threats and opportunities. Much of what we know about the future is based around the interactions and trajectory of macro trends, trends, and drivers. These form the foundations for future intelligence.
Macro Trends | A macro trend captures a large-scale transformative trend on a global scale that could impact your addressable market |
|---|---|
Industry Trend | An industry trend captures specific use cases of the macro trend in relation to your market and industry. Consider this in terms of shifts in your market dynamics i.e., competitors, size, transaction, international trade, supply/demand, etc. |
Driver(s) | A driver is an underlying force causing the trend to occur. There can be multiple causal forces, or drivers, that influence a trend, and multiple trends can be influenced by the same causal force. |
Identify signals of change in the present and their potential future impacts.
Macro trends capture a global shift that can change the market and the industry. Here are examples of macro-trends to consider when scanning the horizon for your own organization:
Talent Availability | Customer Expectations | Emerging Technologies | Regulatory System | Supply Chain Continuity |
Decentralized workforce Hybrid workforce Diverse workforce Skills gap Digital workforce Multigenerational workforce | Personalization Digital experience Data ownership Transparency Accessibility On-demand Mobility | AI & robotics Virtual world Ubiquitous connectivity Genomics (nano, bio, smart….) Big data | Market control Economic shifts Digital regulation Consumer protection Global green | Resource scarcity Sustainability Supply chain digitization Circular supply chains Agility Outsource |
Understand which trends create opportunities or risks for your organization.
Key Concepts:
Once an organization has uncovered a set of trends that are of potential importance, a judgment must be made on which of the trends should be prioritized to understand their impact on your market and ultimately, the implications for your business or organization. Consider the following criteria to help you prioritize your trends.
Impact to Industry: The degree of impact the trend will have on your industry and market to create possibilities or risks for your business. Will this trend create opportunities for the business? Or does it pose a risk that we need to mitigate?
Relevance to Organization. The relevance of the trend to your organization. Does the trend align with the mission, vision, and business objectives of your organization?
Activity: 2-4hours
In order to determine which trends will have an impact on your industry and are relevant to your organization, you need to use a gating approach to short-list those that may create opportunities to capitalize on while you need to manage the ones that pose risk.
Impact | What does this trend mean for my industry and market? |
| |
Relevance | What opportunity or risk does it pose to my business/organization? |
| |
![]() | ![]() |
Info-Tech Insight
While the scorecard may produce a ranking based on weighted metrics, you need to leverage the group discussion to help contextualize and challenge assumptions when validating the priority. The room for debate is important to truly understand whether a trend is a fad or a fact that needs to be addressed.
Determining the root cause(s) of a trend is an important precursor to understanding the how, why, and to what extent a trend will impact your industry and market.
Trend analysis can be a valuable approach to reduce uncertainties about the future and an opportunity to understand the underlying drivers (forces) that may be contributing to a shift in pattern. Understanding the drivers is important to help determine implication on your organization and potential opportunities.

INDUSTRY
Healthcare Exemplar
Macro Trends (Transformative change) | Industry Trend (A pattern of change…) | Drivers (“Why”….) |
Accessibility | Increase in wait times | Aging population leading to global workforce shortage |
New models of care e.g., diversify scope of practice | Address capacity issues |
Understanding the drivers is not about predicting the future. Don’t get stuck in “analysis paralysis.” The key objective is to determine what opportunities and risks the trend and its underlying driver pose to your business. This will help elicit leapfrog opportunities that can be funneled into actionable initiatives.
Other examples…
Dimensions | Macro-Trends | Industry Trend | Driver |
Social | Demographic shift | Global shortage of healthcare workers | Workforce age |
Customer expectations | Patients as partners | Customer demographics | |
Technology | AI and robotics | Early detection of cancer | Patient outcomes |
Ubiquitous connectivity | Virtual health | Capacity | |
Economic | Recession | Cost-savings | Sustainability |
Consumer spending | Value-for-money | Prioritization | |
Environment | Climate change | Shift in manufacturers | ESG compliant vendors |
Pandemic | Supply chain disruption | Local production | |
Political | Regulatory | Consolidation of professional colleges | Operational efficiency |
De-regulation | New models of care | New service (business) model |
Industry
Healthcare
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Precision Medicine (Genomics)
Precision Medicine has become very popular over the recent years fueled by research but also political and patient demands to focus more on better outcomes vs. profits. A cancer care center in Canada wanted to look at what was driving this popularity but more importantly, what this potentially meant to their current service delivery model and operations and what opportunities and risks they needed to address in the foreseeable future. They determined the following drivers:

INDUSTRY
Healthcare Exemplar
Category | Macro-Trends | Industry Trends (Use-Case) | Drivers | Impact to Industry | Impact to Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Talent Availability | Diverse workforce | Aboriginal health | Systemic inequities | Brand and legal | Policies in place |
Hybrid workforce | Virtual care | COVID-19 and infectious disease | New models of care | New digital talent | |
Customer Expectation | Personalization | On-demand care | Patient experience | Patients as consumers | New operating model |
Digital experience | Patient portals | Democratization of data | Privacy and security | Capacity | |
Emerging Technologies | Internet of Things (IoT) | Smart glucometers | Greater mobility | System redesign | Shift from hospital to home care |
Quantum computing | Genomic sequencing | Accelerate analysis | Improve quality of data analysis | Faster to clinical trial and delivery | |
Regulatory System | Consumer protection | Protect access to sensitive patient data | HIPPA legislation | Restrict access to health record | Electronic health records |
Global green | Green certification for redev. projects | Political optics | Higher costs | Contract management | |
Supply Chain | Supply chain disruptions | Surgical strategic sourcing | Preference cards | Quality | Organizational change management |
New pharma entrants | Telco’s move into healthcare | Demand/supply | Funding model | Resource competition |
Turn trends into growth opportunities.
To thrive in the digital age, organizations must innovate big, leverage internal creativity, and prepare for flexibility.
In this digital era, organizations are often playing catch up to a rapidly evolving technological landscape and following a strict linear approach to innovation. However, this linear catch-up approach does not help companies get ahead of competitors. Instead, organizations must identify avenues to skip one or several stages of technological development to leapfrog ahead of their competitors.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
– Alan Kay
Leapfrogging takes place when an organization introduces disruptive innovation into the market and sidesteps competitors, who are unable to mobilize to respond to the opportunities.
Go from trend insights into ideas for opportunities
Brainstorm ways to generate leapfrog ideas from trend insights.
Dealing with trends is one of the most important tasks for innovation. It provides the basis of developing the future orientation of the organization. However, being aware of a trend is one thing, to develop strategies for response is another.
To identify the impact the trend has on the organization, consider the four areas of growth for the organization:
INDUSTRY: Healthcare
SOURCE: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Machine Learning Sensor to Sniff Out Cancer
Challenge | Solution | Results |
|---|---|---|
Timely access to diagnostic services is a key indicator of a cancer patient’s prognosis i.e., outcome. Early detection of cancer means the difference between life and death for cancer patients. Typically, cancer biomarkers need to be present to detect cancer. Often the presence of these biomarkers is late in the disease state when the cancer cells have likely spread, resulting in suspicions of cancer only when the patient does not feel well or suspects something is wrong. | Researchers in partnership with IBM Watson at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) have created a tool that can sniff for and identify cancer in a blood sample using machine learning. Originally, MSK worked with IBM Watson to identify machine learning as an emerging technology that could drive early cancer detection without the use of cancer biomarkers. But they needed to find specific use cases. After a series of concept prototypes, they were able to use machine learning to detect patterns in blood cells vs. cancer biomarkers to detect cancer disease. | Machine learning was an emerging trend that researchers at MSK felt held great promise. They needed to turn the trend into tangible opportunities by identifying some key use cases that could be prototyped. Computational tools in oncology have the ability to greatly reduce clinician labor, improve the consistency of variant classification, and help accelerate the analytics of vast amounts of clinical data that would be prone to errors and delays when done manually. |
Additional Examples in the Appendix
Example of leapfrog ideas that can generate opportunities for consideration
Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
|---|---|---|---|---|
What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New stakeholder segment | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services and experiences |
Virtualize Registration | Empower patients as consumers of healthcare partners | Direct B2C to close gap between providers and patients by removing middle administrative overhead. | 24/7 On-Demand Patient Portal | Leverage AI to develop chatbots and on-demand |
Phase 1 Deliverable
Example of output from phase 1 ideation session
Business Objectives | New Customers (Customer Experience) | New Markets (Health Outcomes) | New Business or Operating Models (Operational Excellence) | New Service Offering (Value for Money) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Description: | Focus on improving experiences for patients and providers | Improve quality and standards of care to continually drive better health outcomes | Deliver care better, faster, and more efficiently | Reduce cost per capital of delivery care and increase value for services |
Trends: |
|
|
|
|
Digital Opportunities: |
|
|
|
|
Build a better understanding of the opportunities and their impact on your business.
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
Identify New Digitally Enabled Opportunities | Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
2.1 CREATE OPPORTUNITY PROFILES | Evaluate each opportunity Some opportunities will have an immediate and significant impact on your business. Some may have a significant impact but on a longer time scale or some may be unlikely to have a significant impact at all. Understanding these trends is an important context for your digital business strategy. | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
| 2.2 UNDERSTAND THE IMPACT OF OPPORTUNITIES ON BUSINESS CAPABILITIES | Understand the impact across your value chains Each opportunity has the potential to impact multiple areas of your business. Prioritize where to start acting on new opportunities based on your business objectives and capabilities. You need to assess their impacts across value chains. Does the opportunity impact existing value chain(s) or create a new value chain? | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
Discussion Framework:
In your discussion, evaluate each opportunity to assess assumptions, value drivers, and benefits.
Ideas matter, but not all ideas are created equal. Now that you have elicited opportunities, discuss the assumptions, risks, and benefits associated with each new digital opportunity.
Design Thinking
Leverage the guiding principles as the guardrails to limit the scope of your new digital opportunities. You may want to consider taking a design-thinking approach to innovation by discussing the merits of each opportunity based on:
Feasibility: Able to Execute. Do we have the capabilities to deliver e.g., the right skills, partners, technology, and leadership?
Viability: Delivers Value. Will this idea meet business goals e.g., cost, revenue, and benefits?
Transform the Business | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Must Prioritize | Should Plan | Drive Digital Experiences | |
Build Digital Capabilities | High Value/Low Complexity
| High Value/High Complexity
| |
Low Value/Low Complexity
| Low Value/High Complexity
| ||
Could Have | Don’t Need | ||
Transform Operations | |||
IMPACT ↑ | COMPLEXITY ⇒ |
Example:
An example of a template to capture the output of discussion.
Description of Opportunity: ADT is a critical function of registration that triggers patient identification to support services and billing. Currently, ADT is a heavily manual process with a high degree of errors as a result of human intervention. There is an opportunity to leverage intelligent automation by using RPA and AI. | Alignment With Business Objectives Improve patient outcome Drive operational efficiency and effectiveness Better experiences for patients | Business Architecture This opportunity may impact the following business capabilities:
| |
Benefits & Outcomes
| Key Risks & Assumptions
| ||
Opportunity Owner VP, Health Information Management (HIM) | Incremental Value Reduce errors in patient identity |
| |
Each opportunity has the potential to impact multiple areas of your business. Prioritize where to start acting on new opportunities based on your business objectives and capabilities.
You will need:
| Activity: 1-2 hours
|
| + | |
Prioritized Opportunities for Transformation | ⇒![]() |
This will help identify the impact on your business capabilities.
As we identify and prioritize the opportunities available to us, we need to assess impacts on value chains. Does the opportunity directly impact an existing value chain? Or does it open us to the creation of a new value chain?

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

In this example, intelligent automation for referral and admission would create opportunity to virtualize repeatable tasks.
Understand the impact of opportunities across the value chain and possibilities of new or better stakeholder experiences.
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
Identify New Digitally Enabled Opportunities | Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
| 3.1 IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDER PERSONA | Understand WHO gains value from the value chain To define a stakeholder scenario, you need to understand whom we are mapping for. Developing stakeholder personas is a great way to understand their needs through a lens of empathy. | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
| 3.2 BUILD A STAKEHOLDER JOURNEY | Identify opportunities to transform the stakeholder experience A stakeholder or customer journey helps teams visualize the impact of a given opportunity through a value chain. This exercise uncovers the specific initiatives and features that should be considered in the evolution of the digital strategy. | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
| 3.3 BREAKDOWN OPPORTUNITIES INTO INITIATIVES ALIGNED TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES | Unlock key initiatives to deliver value Opportunities need to be broken down into actionable initiatives that can be turned into business cases with clear goals, benefits realization, scope, work plans, and investment ask. | Consider:
| Avoid:
|
Conduct a journey mapping exercise to further refine and identify value streams to transform.
Stakeholder Journey Mapping | Digital Business Strategy Blueprint | Activity: 4-6 hours Our analysts can guide and support you, where needed.
Key Concepts: Value Stream: a set of activities to create and capture value for and from the end consumer. Value Chain: a string of end-to-end processes that creates value for the consumer. Journey Scenario: a specific use case across a value chain (s). |
Members Engaged
Info-Tech
|
| |
Content Leveraged
| ||
Deliverable:
|
Download the Define Your Digital Business Strategy blueprint for Customer Journey Mapping Activities
From value chain to journey scenario.
Stakeholder personas and scenarios help us build empathy towards our customers. It helps put us into the shoes of a stakeholder and relate to their experience to solve problems or understand how they experience the steps or processes required to accomplish a goal. A user persona is a valuable basis for stakeholder journey mapping.
A stakeholder persona is a fictitious profile to represent a customer or a user segment. Creating this persona helps us understand who your customers really are and why they are using your service or product.
A stakeholder scenario describes the situation the journey map addresses. Scenarios can be real (for existing products and services) or anticipated.
Learn more about applying design thinking methodologies
To define a stakeholder scenario, we need to understand who we are mapping for. In each value chain, we identified a stakeholder who gains value from that value chain. We now need to develop a stakeholder persona: a representation of the end user to gain a strong understanding of who they are, what they need, and their pains and gains.
One of the best ways to flesh out your stakeholder persona is to engage with the stakeholders directly or to gather the input of those who may engage with them within the organization.
For example, if we want to define a journey map for a student, we might want to gather the input of students or teaching faculty that have firsthand encounters with different student types and are able to define a common student type.
Info-Tech Insight
Run a survey to understand your end users and develop a stronger picture of who they are and what they are seeking to gain from your organization.
For your digital strategy, leverage the existing and opportunity value chains identified in phases 1 and 2 for journey mapping.
Identify two existing value chains to be transformed. In section 1, we identified existing value chains to be transformed. For example, your stakeholder persona is a registration clerk who is part of the Health Information Management team responsible for registering and adjudicating patient identity. | ![]() |
Identify one new value chain. In section 2, we identified a new value chain. However, for a new opportunity, the scenario is more complex as it may capture many different areas of a value chain. Subsequently, a journey map for a new opportunity may require mapping all parts of the value chain. | ![]() |
Stakeholder demographics Name: Anne Age: 35 Occupation: HIM Clerk Location: Unity Hospital System | Pains What are their frustrations, fears, and anxieties?
|
What do they need to do? What do they want to get done? How will they know they are successful?
| Gains What are their wants, needs, hopes, and dreams?
|
Now that we understand who we are mapping for, we need to define a journey statement to capture the stakeholder journey.
Leverage the following format to define the journey statement.
“As a [stakeholder], I need to [prioritized value chain task], so that I can [desired result or overall goal].”

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

Embrace design-thinking methodologies to elevate the stakeholder journey and build a competitive advantage for your organization.
0. Name: Annie Smith
Age: 35
Occupation: HIM Registration Clerk for Unity Hospital System
![]() | 0.Stakeholder Persona A fictitious profile of a representative stakeholder group that shares a common yet discrete set of characteristics that embodies how they think, feel, and act. 1. Journey (Value Chain) Describes the end-to-end steps or processes that a customer takes across the value chain that groups a set of activities, interactions, touch-points, and experiences. 2. Persona’s Goals Exemplifies what the persona is thinking and wanting across each specific step of their journey. 3. Nature of Activity (see detailed definition in this section) This section captures two key components: 1) the description of the action or interaction between the personas to achieve their goals, and 2) the classification of the activity to determine the feasibility for automation. The type is based on four main characteristics: 1) routine cognitive, 2) non-routine cognitive , 3) routine manual, and 4) non-routine manual. 4. Type of Touch-Point The channel by which a persona interacts or touches products, services, the organization, or information. 5. Key Moments & Pain Points Captures the emotional experience and value of the persona across each step and interaction. 6. Metrics This section captures the KPIs used to measure the experience, process or activity today. Future KPIs will need to be developed to measure the opportunities. 7. Opportunities refer to both the possible initiatives to address the persona’s pain points, and the ability to enable business goals. |
Example
We identified opportunities for automation
Categorize the activity type to identify opportunities for automation. While there is no perfect framework for automation, this 4x4 matrix provides a general guide to identifying automation opportunities for consideration.


Info-Tech Insight
Automation is more than a 1:1 relationship between the defined task or job and automation. When considering automation, look for opportunities to: 1) streamline across multiple processes, 2) utilize artificial intelligence to augment or virtualize manual tasks, and 3) create more structured data to allow for improved data quality over the long-term.
Stakeholder: HIM Clerks
Journey: Follow-up visit of 80-year-old diabetes patient at diabetic clinic outpatient
Journey (Value Chain) | Appointment | Registration | Identity Reconciliation | Eligibility Verification | Treatment Consult |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Persona’s Goals |
|
|
|
|
|
Nature of Activity | Priority | Priority | Investigate – ROI | Investigate – ROI | Defer |
Type of Touchpoint |
|
|
|
|
|
Pain Points & Gains |
|
|
|
|
|
Metrics | Time to appointment | Time to enrollment | Patient mis-match | Provider mis-match | Percentage of errors in billing codes |
Opportunities |
|
|
|
|
|
Opportunity 1 Virtual Registration | » | Business Goals | ||||
Initiatives | Health Outcomes | Stakeholder Experience | New Models of Care | Operational Efficiency | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
Opportunity 2 Machine Learning Pre-Cancer Diagnosis | » | Business Goals | ||||
Initiatives | Health Outcomes | Stakeholder Experience | New Models of Care | Operational Efficiency | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Info-Tech Insight
Evaluate if an opportunity will require a series of discrete activities to execute and/or if they can be a stand-alone initiative.
After completing all three phases of activities in this blueprint, you will have compiled a list of new and planned digital initiatives for prioritization and business case development in the next phase.
Example: Consolidated List of Digital Initiatives | The next step will focus on prioritizing and building a business case for your top digital initiatives.
|
Additional Examples
Examples of leapfrog ideas that can generate opportunities for consideration
Example 1 Finance | Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New customer segments | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services, and experiences | |
Open banking | Account integrators (AISPs) | Payment integrators | Data monetization | Social payments | |
Example 2: Retail | Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New customer segments | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services, and experiences | |
Virtual cashier (RFID Enablement) | Big-box retailers | Brick & mortar stores | Automated stores driving new customer experiences | Digital cart |
Every idea is a good one, unless you need one that works.
Additional Exemplars in Appendix
Examples of leapfrog ideas that can generate opportunities for consideration
Example 3: Manufacturing | Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New customer segments | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services, and experiences | |
IT/OT convergence | Value-added resellers | New geographies | Train quality-control algorithms and sell as a service to other manufacturers | Quality control as a service |
Persona Journey Map: International/Domestic Departure
Persona: Super Traveler
Name: Annie Smith
Age: 35
Occupation: Engineer, Global Consultant
Journey Activity Name: Inspired to Travel
Persona’s Goals | What Am I Thinking?
|
|---|---|
Nature of Activity | What Am I Doing?
|
Type of Touchpoint |
|
Key moments & pain points | How Am I Feeling?
|
Metrics |
|
Opportunities |
|
Tech Trends and Priorities Research Center
Industry Reference Architecture
Contact Your Account Manager
![]() Joanne Lee Principal, Research Director, CIO Strategy Info-Tech Research Group | ![]() Kim Osborne-Rodgriguez Research Director, CIO Strategy Info-Tech Research Group |
Joanne is an executive with over 25 years of in digital technology and management consulting across both public and private entities from solution delivery to organizational redesign across Canada and globally. Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Joanne was a management consultant within KPMG’s CIO management consulting services and the Western Canada 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. Joanne holds a Master’s in Business and Health Policy from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science (Nursing) from the University of British Columbia. | Kim is a professional engineer and Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) with over a decade of experience in management and engineering consulting spanning healthcare, higher education, and commercial sectors. She has worked on some of the largest hospital construction projects in Canada, from early visioning and IT strategy through to design, specifications, and construction administration. She brings a practical and evidence-based approach to digital transformation, with a track record of supporting successful implementations. Kim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics Engineering from University of Waterloo. |
![]() Jack Hakimian Vice President, Research Info-Tech Research Group |
Charl Lombard President, Digital Transformation Consulting Info-Tech Research Group |
Jack has more than 25 years of technology and management consulting experience. He has served multi-billion dollar organizations in multiple industries including Financial Services and Telecommunications. Jack also served a number of large public sector institutions. Prior to joining the Info-Tech Research Group, he worked for leading consulting players such as Accenture, Deloitte, EY, and IBM. Jack led digital business strategy engagements as well as corporate strategy and M&A advisory services for clients across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is a seasoned technology consultant who has developed IT strategies and technology roadmaps, led large business transformations, established data governance programs, and managed the deployment of mission-critical CRM and ERP applications. He is a frequent speaker and panelist at technology and innovation conferences and events and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering as well as an MBA from the ESCP-EAP European School of Management. | Charl has more than 20 years of professional services experience, “majoring” in digital transformation and strategic topics. He has led multiple successful Digital Transformation programs across a range of industries like Information technology, hospitality, Advanced Industries, High Tech, Entertainment, Travel and Transport, Insurance & Financial Services, Metals & Mining, Electric Power, Renewable Energy, Telecoms, Manufacturing) across different geographics (i.e., North America, EU, Africa) in both private and public sectors. Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Charl was the Vice President of Global Product Management and Strategy (Saber Hospitality Solution), Associate President, McKinsey Transformation Practice, e-Business Practice for PwC, and tech start-up founder and investor. Charl is a frequent speaker at innovation and digital transformation conferences and holds an MBA from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. |
![]() Mike Tweedie Practice Lead, CIO Strategy Info-Tech Research Group |
Michael Alemany Vice President, Digital Transformation Consulting Info-Tech Research Group |
Mike Tweedie brings over 25 years of experience as a technology executive. He’s led several large transformation projects across core infrastructure, application, and IT services as the head of Technology at ADP Canada. He was also the Head of Engineering and Service Offerings for a large French IT services firm, focused on cloud adoption and complex ERP deployment and management. Mike holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Ryerson University. | Michael is a leader in Info-Tech’s digital transformation consulting practice. He brings over 10 years of experience working with companies across a range of industries. His work experience includes ~4.5 years at McKinsey & Company where he led large-scale transformations for fortune 500 companies. Prior to joining Info-Tech, he worked for Sabre Corp., an SaaS platform provider for the travel and hospitality sector, leading Product Strategy & Operations. Michael holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a B.S in Business Strategy from Brigham Young University. |
![]() Duane Cooney Executive Counselor, Healthcare Info-Tech Research Group |
Denis Goulet Senior Workshop Director Info-Tech Research Group |
Duane brings over 30 years of experiences a healthcare IT leader with a passion for the transformation of people, processes, and technology. He has led large-scale health technology transformation and operations across the enterprise. Before joining Info-Tech, Duane served as the Deputy CIO, Senior Information Technology Director, and Enterprise Architect for both public not-for-profit and private sectors. He has a Bachelors in Computer Science and is a graduate of EDS Operations. He holds certifications in EHR, LEAN/Agile, ITIL, and PMP. | Denis is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator who has helped organizations and technology executives develop IT strategies for small to large global enterprises. He firmly believes in a collaborative value-driven approach. Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Denis held several industry positions as CIO, Chief Administrative Office (City Manager), General Manager, and Vice President of Engineering. Denis holds an MBA from Queen’s University and a Diploma in Technology Engineering and Executive Municipal Management. |
![]() Jay Cappis Executive Advisor, Real-Estate Info-Tech Research Group |
Christine Brick Executive Advisor, Financial Services |
Jay brings over 30 years of experience in management and technology across small and medium enterprises to large global enterprises including Exxon and Xerox. His cross-industry experience includes professional services, commercial real estate, oil and gas, digital start-ups, insurance, and aerospace. Jay has led business process improvements and change management and has expertise in software development lifecycle management and DevOps practices. | Christine brings over 20 years in IT transformation across DevOps, infrastructure, operations, supply chain, IT Strategy, modernization, cost optimization, data management, and operational risk. She brings expertise in business transformation, mergers and acquisitions, vendor selection, and contract management. |
Bhatia, AD. “Transforming through disruptions: A conversation with Dan Antonelli. Transformation Insights.” McKinsey & Company. January 31, 2022. Web
Bertoletti, Antonella and Peter Eeles. “Use an IT Maturity Model.” IBM Garage Methodology. Web. accessed May 30, 2022.
Catlin, Tanguy, Jay Scanlan, and Paul Willmott. “Raising your Digital Quotient.” McKinsey Quarterly. June 1, 2015. Article
Custers, Heidi. “Digital Blueprint. Reference Architecture.” Deloitte Digital.Accessed May 15, 2022.
Coundouris, Anthony. “Reviewed: The Top 5 Digital Transformation Frameworks in 2020.” Run-frictionless Blog. Accessed May 15, 2022. Web.
Daub, Matthias and Anna Wiesinger. “Acquiring the Capabilities you need to go digital.” Business Technology Office – McKinsey and Company. March 2015. Web.
De La Boutetiere, Alberto Montagner and Angelika Reich. “Unlocking success in digital transformations.” McKinsey and Company. October 2018. Web.
“Design Thinking Defined.” IDEO.com. November 21, 2022. Web.
Dorner, Karle and David Edelman. “What ‘Digital’ really means.” McKinsey Digital. July 2015. Web
“Everything Changed. Or Did it? Harvey Nash KPMG CIO Survey 2020.” KPMG, 2020
Kane, Gerald C., Doug Palmer, Ahn Nguyen Phillips, David Kiron, Natasha Buckley. “Aligning the organization for its digital future.” Findings from the 2016 Digital Business Global Executive Study and Research Project. MIT Sloan Management Review. July 26, 2016. Web
LaBerge, Laura, et al. “How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point—and transformed business forever.” McKinsey, 5 Oct. 2020. Accessed 14 June 2021
Mindtools Content Team. “Cause and Effect Analysis.” Mindtools.com. November 21, 2022. Web.
“Strategic Foresight.” OECD.org. November 21, 2022, Web
Sall, Sherman, Dan Lichtenfeld. “The Digital ME Method. Turning digital opportunities into customer engagement and business growth.” Sygnific. 2017. Web.
Scoblic, J. Peter. “Learning from the Future. How to make robust strategy in times of deep uncertainty.” Harvard Business Review, August 2020.
Silva, Bernardo and Schoenwaelder, Tom. ‘Why Good Strategies fail. Addressing the three critical strategic tensions.” Deloitte Monitor Group. 2019.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Use this report to understand the current situation in the cybersecurity space and inform your plan for 2022. This report includes sections on protecting against and responding to ransomware, acquiring and retaining talent, securing a remote workforce, securing digital transformation, and adopting zero trust.
The pandemic has introduced a lot of changes to our lives over the past two years, and this is also true for various aspects of how we work. In particular, a large workforce moved online overnight, which shifted the work environment rapidly.
People changed how they communicate, how they access company information, and how they connect to the company network. These changes make cybersecurity a more important focus than ever.
Although changes like the shift to remote work occurred in response to the pandemic, they are largely expected to remain, regardless of the progression of the pandemic itself. This report will look into important security trends and the priorities that stemmed from these trends.
30% more professionals expect transformative permanent change compared to one year ago.
47% of professionals expect a lot of permanent change; this remains the same as last year. (Source: Info-Tech Tech Trends 2022 Survey; N=475)
$4.24 millionAverage cost of a data breach in 2021 |
The cost of a data breach rose by nearly 10% in the past year, the highest rate in over seven years. |
$1.07 millionMore costly when remote work involved in the breach |
The average cost of breaches where remote work is involved is $1.07 million higher than breaches where remote work is not involved. The ubiquitous remote work that we saw in 2021 and continue to see in 2022 can lead to more costly security events. (Source: IBM, 2021) |
Remote work is here to stay, and the cost of a breach is higher when remote work is involved.
The cost comes not only directly from payments but also indirectly from reputational loss. (Source: IBM, 2021)
$1.76 millionSaved when zero trust is deployed facing a breach |
Zero trust controls are realistic and effective controls. Organizations that implement zero trust dramatically reduce the cost of an adverse security event. |
35%More costly if it takes more than 200 days to identify and contain a breach |
With increased BYOD and remote work, detection and response is more challenging than ever before – but it is also highly effective. Organizations that detect and respond to incidents quickly will significantly reduce the impact. (Source: IBM, 2021) |
Breaches are 34% less costly when mature zero trust is implemented.
A fully staffed and well-prepared security team could save the cost through quick responses. (Source: IBM, 2021)
As part of its research process for the 2022 Security Priorities Report, Info-Tech Research Group surveyed security and IT leaders (N=97) to ask their top security priorities as well as their main obstacles to security success in 2022:
Top Priorities
Survey respondents were asked to force-rank their security priorities. Among the priorities chosen most frequently as #1 were talent management, addressing ransomware threats, and securing hybrid/remote work. |
Top Obstacles
Talent management is both the #1 priority and the top obstacle facing security leaders in 2022. Unsurprisingly, the ever-changing environment in a world emerging from a pandemic and budget constraints are also top obstacles. |
This report details what we see the world demanding of security leaders in the coming year.
Setting aside the demands – what are security leaders actually working on?
![]() |
Many organizations are still mastering the foundations of a mature cybersecurity program. This is a good idea! Most breaches are still due to gaps in foundational security, not lack of advanced controls. |
![]() |
One industry plainly stands out from the rest. Government organizations are proportionally much more active in security than other industries, and for good reason: they are common targets. Manufacturing and professional services are proportionally less interested in security. This is concerning, given the recent targeting of supply chain and personal data holders by ransomware gangs. |

Main Influencing Factors |
||
| COVID-19 Pandemic
The pandemic has changed the way we interact with technology. Organizations are universally adapting their business and technology processes to fit the post-pandemic paradigm. |
Rampant Cybercrime Activity
By nearly every conceivable metric, cybercrime is way up in the past two years. Cybercriminals smell blood and pose a more salient threat than before. Higher standards of cybersecurity capability are required to respond to this higher level of threat. |
Remote Work and Workforce Reallocation
Talented IT staff across the globe enabled an extraordinarily fast shift to remote and distance work. We must now reckon with the security and human resourcing implications of this huge shift. |
Cybersecurity talent has been in short supply for years, but this shortage has inflected upward since the pandemic.
The Great Resignation contributed to the existing talent gap. The pandemic has changed how people work as well as how and where they choose work. More and more senior workers are retiring early or opting for remote working opportunities.
The cost to acquire cybersecurity talent is huge, and the challenge doesn’t end there. Retaining top talent can be equally difficult.
2.72 million unfilled cybersecurity openings (Source: (ISC)2, 2021)
| Burnout | 30% |
| Other remote opportunities | 20% |
| Lack of growth opportunities | 20% |
| Poor culture | 20% |
| Acquisition concerns | 10% |
| Staffing obstacles in 2022:
“Attracting and retaining talent is always challenging. We don’t pay as well and my org wants staff in the office at least half of the time. Most young, smart, talented new hires want to work remotely 100 percent of the time.“ “Trying to grow internal resources into security roles.” “Remote work expectations by employees and refusal by business to accommodate.” “Biggest obstacle: payscales that are out of touch with cybersecurity market.” “Request additional staff. Obtaining funding for additional position is most significant obstacle.” (Info-Tech Tech Security Priorities Survey 2022) |
Top obstacles in 2022:
As you can see, respondents to our security priorities survey have strong feelings on the challenges of staffing a cybersecurity team. The growth of remote work means local talent can now be hired by anybody, vastly increasing your competition as an employer. Hiring local will get tougher – but so will hiring abroad. People who don’t want to relocate for a new job now have plenty of alternatives. Without a compelling remote work option, you will find non-local prospects unwilling to move for a new job. Lastly, many organizations are still reeling at the cost of experienced cybersecurity talent. Focused internal training and development will be the answer for many organizations. |
| Provide career development opportunities
Many security professionals are dissatisfied with their unclear career development paths. To improve retention, organizations should provide their staff with opportunities and clear paths for career and skills advancement. |
Be open-minded when hiring
To broaden the candidate pool, organizations should be open-minded when considering who to hire.
|
| Facilitate work-life balance
Many security professionals say they experience burnout. Promoting work-life balance in your organization can help retain critical skills. |
Create inclusive environment
Hire a diverse team and create an inclusive environment where they can thrive. |
Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.
Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.
Initiative Description:
|
Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative. | |||
Primary Business Benefits:
Reduction in costs due to turnover and talent loss |
Other Expected Business Benefits:
|
Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts. | ||
Risks:
|
Related Info-Tech Research: |
|||
Remote work poses unique challenges to cybersecurity teams. The personal home environment may introduce unauthorized people and unknown network vulnerabilities, and the organization loses nearly all power and influence over the daily cyber hygiene of its users.
In addition, the software used for enabling remote work itself can be a target of cybersecurity criminals.
70% of tech workers work from home (Source: Statcan, 2021)
The security perimeter is finally goneThe data is outside the datacenter.
Organizations that did not implement digital transformation changes following COVID-19 experience higher costs following a breach, likely because it is taking nearly two months longer, on average, to detect and contain a breach when more than 50% of staff are working remotely (IBM, 2021). In 2022 the cumulative risk of so many remote connections means we need to rethink how we secure the remote/hybrid workforce. |
Security
|
![]() |
Network
|
| Mature your identity management
Compromised identity is the main vector to breaches in recent years. Stale accounts, contractor accounts, misalignment between HR and IT – the lack of foundational practices leads to headline-making breaches every week.
|
Get a handle on your endpoints
Work-from-home (WFH) often means unknown endpoints on unknown networks full of other unknown devices…and others in the home potentially using the workstation for non-work purposes. Gaining visibility into your endpoints can help to keep detection and resolution times short. |
| Educate users
Educate everyone on security best practices when working remotely:
|
Ease of use
Many workers complain that the corporate technology solution makes it difficult to get their work done. Employees will take productivity over security if we force them to choose, so IT needs to listen to end users’ needs and provide a solution that is nimble and secure. |
Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.
Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.
Initiative Description:
| Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative. | |||
Primary Business Benefits: | Other Expected Business Benefits:
| Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts. | ||
Risks:
| Related Info-Tech Research: | |||
Digital transformation is occurring at an ever-increasing rate these days. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said early in the pandemic, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”
We have heard similar stories from Info-Tech members who deployed rollouts that were scheduled to take months over a weekend instead.
Microsoft’s own shift to rapidly expand its Teams product is a prime example of how quickly the digital landscape has changed. The global adaption to a digital world has largely been a success story, but rapid change comes with risk, and there is a parallel story of rampant cyberattacks like we have never seen before.
There is an adage that “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast” – the implication being that fast is sloppy. In 2022 we’ll see a pattern of organizations working to catch up their cybersecurity with the transformations we all made in 2020.
$1.78 trillion expected in digital transformation investments (Source: World Economic Forum, 2021)
| Digital transformations often rely heavily on third-party cloud service providers, which increases exposure of corporate data.
Further, adoption of new technology creates a new threat surface that must be assessed, mitigations implemented, and visibility established to measure performance. However, digital transformations are often run on slim budgets and without expert guidance. Survey respondents report as much: rushed deployments, increased cloud migration, and shadow IT are the top vulnerabilities reported by security leaders and executives. |
In a 2020 Ponemon survey, 82% of IT security and C-level executives reported experiencing at least one data breach directly resulting from a digital transformation they had undergone. Scope creep is inevitable on any large project like a digital transformation. A small security shortcut early in the project can have dire consequences when it grows to affect personal data and critical systems down the road. |
| Engage the business early and often
Despite the risks, organizations engage in digital transformations because they also have huge business value. Security leaders should not be seeking to slow or stop digital transformations; rather, we should be engaging with the business early to get ahead of risks and enable successful transformation. |
Establish a vendor security program
Data is moving out of datacenters and onto third-party environments. Without security requirements built into agreements, and clear visibility into vendor security capabilities, that data is a major source of risk. A robust vendor security program will create assurance early in the process and help to reinforce the responsibility of securing data with other parts of the organization. |
| Build/revisit your security strategy
The threat surface has changed since before your transformation. This is the right time to revisit or rebuild your security strategy to ensure that your control set is present throughout the new environment – and also a great opportunity to show how your current security investments are helping secure your new digital lines of business! |
Educate your key players
Only 16% of security leaders and executives report alignment between security and business processes during digital transformation. If security is too low a priority, then key players in your transformation efforts are likely unaware of how security risks impact their own success. It will be incumbent upon the CISO to start that conversation. |
Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.
Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.
Initiative Description:
| Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative. | |||
Primary Business Benefits: | Other Expected Business Benefits:
| Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts. | ||
Risks:
| Related Info-Tech Research: | |||
John Kindervag modernized the concept of zero trust back in 2010, and in the intervening years there has been enormous interest in cybersecurity circles, yet in 2022 only 30% of organizations report even beginning to roll out zero trust capabilities (Statista, 2022).
Why such little action on a revolutionary and compelling model?
Zero trust is not a technology; it is a principle. Zero trust adoption takes concerted planning, effort, and expense, for which the business value has been unclear throughout most of the last 10 years. However, several recent developments are changing that:
The time has come for zero trust adoption to begin in earnest.
97% will maintain or increase zero trust budget (Source: Statista, 2022)
A hybrid workforce using traditional VPN creates an environment where we are exposed to all the risks in the wild (unknown devices at any location on any network), but at a stripped-down security level that still provides the trust afforded to on-premises workers using known devices.
What’s more, threats such as ransomware are known to exploit identity and remote access vulnerabilities before moving laterally within a network – vectors that are addressed directly by zero trust identity and networking. Ninety-three percent of surveyed zero trust adopters state that the benefits have matched or exceeded their expectations (iSMG, 2022).
44%Enforce least privilege access to critical resources |
44%Reduce attacker ability to move laterally |
41%Reduce enterprise attack surface |
A major obstacle to zero trust adoption has been the sheer cost, along with the lack of business case for that investment. Two factors are changing that paradigm in 2022:
The May 2021 US White House Executive Order for federal agencies to adopt zero trust architecture finally placed zero trust on the radar of many CEOs and board members, creating the business interest and willingness to consider investing in zero trust.
In addition, the cost of adopting zero trust is quickly being surpassed by the cost of not adopting zero trust, as cyberattacks become rampant and successful zero trust deployments create a case study to support investment.
![]() |
The cost to remediate a ransomware attack more than doubled from 2020 to 2021. Widespread adoption of zero trust capabilities could keep that number from doubling again in 2022. (Source: Sophos, 2021) |
The cost of a data breach is on average $1.76 million less for organizations with mature zero trust deployments.
That is, the cost of a data breach is 35% reduced compared to organizations without zero trust controls. (Source: IBM, 2021)
| Start small
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by deploying zero trust in a wide swath. Rather, start as small as possible to allow for growing pains without creating business friction (or sinking your project altogether). |
Build a sensible roadmap
Zero trust principles can be applied in a myriad of ways, so where should you start? Between identities, devices, networking, and data, decide on a use case to do pilot testing and then refine your approach. |
| Beware too-good-to-be-true products
Zero trust is a powerful buzzword, and vendors know it. Be skeptical and do your due diligence to ensure your new security partners in zero trust are delivering what you need. |
Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.
Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.
Initiative Description:
| Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative. | ||||
Primary Business Benefits: | Other Expected Business Benefits:
| Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts. | |||
Risks:
| Related Info-Tech Research: | ||||
150% increase ransomware attacks in 2020 (Source: ENISA)
| What is the same in 2022
Unbridled ransomware attacks make it seem like attackers must be using complex new techniques, but prevalent ransomware attack vectors are actually well understood. Nearly all modern variants are breaching victim systems in one of three ways:
|
What is new in 2022
The sophistication of victim targetingVictims often find themselves asking, “How did the attackers know to phish the most security-oblivious person in my staff?” Bad actors have refined their social engineering and phishing to exploit high-risk individuals, meaning your chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Ability of malware to evade detectionModern ransomware is getting better at bypassing anti-malware technology, for example, through creative techniques such as those seen in the MedusaLocker variant and in Ghost Control attacks. Effective anti-malware is still a must-have control, but a single layer of defense is no longer enough. Any organization that hopes to avoid paying a ransom must prepare to detect, respond, and recover from an attack. |
| Do you know what it would take to recover from a ransomware incident?
…and does your executive leadership know what it would take to recover? The organizations that are most likely to pay a ransom are unprepared for the reality of recovering their systems. If you have not done a tabletop or live exercise to simulate a true recovery effort, you may be exposed to more risk than you realize. |
Are your defenses sufficiently hardened against ransomware?
Organizations with effective security prevention are often breached by ransomware – but they are prepared to contain, detect, and eradicate the infection. Ask yourself whether you have identified potential points of entry for ransomware. Assume that your security controls will fail. How well are your security controls layered, and how difficult would it be for an attacker to move east/west within your systems? |
| Be prepared for a breach
There is no guarantee that an organization will not fall victim to ransomware, so instead of putting all their effort into prevention, organizations should also put effort into planning to respond to a breach. |
Security awareness training/phishing detection
Phishing continues to be the main point of entry for ransomware. Investing in phishing awareness and detection among your end users may be the most impactful countermeasure you can implement. |
| Zero trust adoption
Always verify at every step of interaction, even when access is requested by internal users. Manage access of sensitive information based on the principle of least privilege access. |
Encrypt and back up your data
Encrypt your data so that even if there is a breach, the attackers don’t have a copy of your data. Also, keep regular backups of data at a separate location so that you still have data to work with after a breach occurs. You never want to pay a ransom. Being prepared to deal with an incident is your best chance to avoid paying! |
Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.
Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.
Initiative Description:
| Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative. | |||
Primary Business Benefits: | Other Expected Business Benefits:
| Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts. | ||
Risks:
| Related Info-Tech Research: | |||
How long has it been since you’ve gone a full workday without having a videoconference with someone?
We have become inherently trustful that the face we see on the screen is real, but the technology required to falsify that video is widely available and runs on commercially available hardware, ushering in a genuinely post-truth online era.
Criminals can use deepfakes to enhance social engineering, to spread misinformation, and to commit fraud and blackmail.
Many financial institutions have recently deployed voiceprint authentication. TD describes its VoicePrint as “voice recognition technology that allows us to use your voiceprint – as unique to you as your fingerprint – to validate your identity” over the phone.
However, hackers have been defeating voice recognition for years already. There is ripe potential for voice fakes to fool both modern voice recognition technology and the accounts payable staff.
“2021 Ransomware Statistics, Data, & Trends.” PurpleSec, 2021. Web.
Bayern, Macy. “Why 60% of IT security pros want to quit their jobs right now.” TechRepublic, 10 Oct. 2018. Web.
Bresnahan, Ethan. “How Digital Transformation Impacts IT And Cyber Risk Programs.” CyberSaint Security, 25 Feb. 2021. Web.
Clancy, Molly. “The True Cost of Ransomware.” Backblaze, 9 Sept. 2021.Web.
“Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021.” IBM, 2021. Web.
Cybersecurity Ventures. “Global Ransomware Damage Costs To Exceed $265 Billion By 2031.” Newswires, 4 June 2021. Web.
“Digital Transformation & Cyber Risk: What You Need to Know to Stay Safe.” Ponemon Institute, June 2020. Web.
“Global Incident Response Threat Report: Manipulating Reality.” VMware, 2021.
Granger, Diana. “Karmen Ransomware Variant Introduced by Russian Hacker.” Recorded Future, 18 April 2017. Web.
“Is adopting a zero trust model a priority for your organization?” Statista, 2022. Web.
“(ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, 2021: A Resilient Cybersecurity Profession Charts the Path Forward.” (ISC)2, 2021. Web.
Kobialka, Dan. “What Are the Top Zero Trust Strategies for 2022?” MSSP Alert, 10 Feb. 2022. Web.
Kost, Edward. “What is Ransomware as a Service (RaaS)? The Dangerous Threat to World Security.” UpGuard, 1 Nov. 2021. Web.
Lella, Ifigeneia, et al., editors. “ENISA Threat Landscape 2021.” ENISA, Oct. 2021. Web.
Mello, John P., Jr. “700K more cybersecurity workers, but still a talent shortage.” TechBeacon, 7 Dec. 2021. Web.
Naraine, Ryan. “Is the ‘Great Resignation’ Impacting Cybersecurity?” SecurityWeek, 11 Jan. 2022. Web.
Oltsik, Jon. “ESG Research Report: The Life and Times of Cybersecurity Professionals 2021 Volume V.” Enterprise Security Group, 28 July 2021. Web.
Osborne, Charlie. “Ransomware as a service: Negotiators are now in high demand.” ZDNet, 8 July 2021. Web.
Osborne, Charlie. “Ransomware in 2022: We’re all screwed.” ZDNet, 22 Dec. 2021. Web.
“Retaining Tech Employees in the Era of The Great Resignation.” TalentLMS, 19 Oct. 2021. Web.
Rubin, Andrew. “Ransomware Is the Greatest Business Threat in 2022.” Nasdaq, 7 Dec. 2021. Web.
Samartsev, Dmitry, and Daniel Dobrygowski. “5 ways Digital Transformation Officers can make cybersecurity a top priority.“ World Economic Forum, 15 Sept. 2021. Web.
Seymour, John, and Azeem Aqil. “Your Voice is My Passport.” Presented at black hat USA 2018.
Solomon, Howard. “Ransomware attacks will be more targeted in 2022: Trend Micro.” IT World Canada, 6 Jan. 2022. Web.
“The State of Ransomware 2021.” Sophos, April 2021. Web.
Tarun, Renee. “How The Great Resignation Could Benefit Cybersecurity.” Forbes Technology Council, Forbes, 21 Dec. 2021. Web.
“TD VoicePrint.” TD Bank, n.d. Web.
“Working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, April 202 to June 2021.” Statistics Canada, 4 Aug. 2021. Web.
“Zero Trust Strategies for 2022.” iSMG, Palo Alto Networks, and Optiv, 28 Jan. 2022. Web.
Engage Tymans Group, expert risk management and consultancy company, to advise you on mitigating, preventing, and monitoring IT and information security risks within your business. We offer our extensive experience as a risk consulting company to provide your business with a custom roadmap and practical solutions to any risk management problems you may encounter.
Embed security thinking through aligning your security strategy to business goals and values
Risk is unavoidable when doing business, but that does not mean you should just accept it and move on. Every company should try to manage and mitigate risk as much as possible, be it risks regarding data security or general corporate security. As such, it would be wise to engage an expert risk management and consultancy company, like Tymans Group. Our risk management consulting firm offers business practical solutions for setting up risk management programs and IT risk monitoring protocols as well as solutions for handling IT incidents. Thanks to our experience as a risk management consulting firm, you enjoy practical and proven solutions based on a people-oriented approach.
If you engage our risk management consultancy company you get access to various guides and documents to help you set up risk management protocols within you company. Additionally, you can book a one-hour online talk with our risk management consulting firm’s CEO Gert Taeymans to discuss any problems you may be facing or request an on-site appointment in which our experts analyze your problems. The talk can discuss any topic, from IT risk control to external audits and even corporate security consultancy. If you have any questions about our risk management and consulting services for your company, we are happy to answer them. Just contact our risk management consulting firm through the online form and we will get in touch with as soon as possible.
Complication
Insights
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Reveal the opportunities to heighten the user experience of your website through a deep understanding of the behaviors, emotions, and needs of your end users in order to design a receptive and valuable website.
Design a satisfying and receptive website by leveraging industry best practices and modern UX trends and ensuring the website is supported with reliable and scalable data and infrastructure.
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.
List the business objectives of your website.
Describe your user personas, use cases, and user workflow.
Identify current UX issues through simulations, website design, and system reviews.
Strong understanding of the business goals of your website.
Knowledge of the behaviors and needs of your website’s users.
Realization of the root causes behind the UX issues of your website.
1.1 Define the business objectives for the website you want to optimize
1.2 Define your end-user personas and map them to use cases
1.3 Build your website user workflow
1.4 Conduct a SWOT analysis of your website to drive out UX issues
1.5 Gauge the UX competencies of your web development team
1.6 Simulate your user workflow to identify the steps driving down UX
1.7 Assess the composition and construction of your website
1.8 Understand the execution of your website with a system architecture
1.9 Pinpoint the technical reason behind your UX issues
1.10 Clarify and prioritize your UX issues
Business objectives
End-user personas and use cases
User workflows
Website SWOT analysis
UX competency assessment
User workflow simulation
Website design assessment
Current state of web system architecture
Gap analysis of web system architecture
Prioritized UX issues
Design wireframes and storyboards to be aligned to high priority use cases.
Design a web system architecture that can sufficiently support the website.
Identify UX metrics to gauge the success of the website.
Establish a website design process flow.
Implementation of key design elements and website functions that users will find stimulating and valuable.
Optimized web system architecture to better support the website.
Website design process aligned to your current context.
Rollout plan for your UX optimization initiatives.
2.1 Define the roles of your UX development team
2.2 Build your wireframes and user storyboards
2.3 Design the target state of your web environment
2.4 List your UX metrics
2.5 Draw your website design process flow
2.6 Define your UX optimization roadmap
2.7 Identify and engage your stakeholders
Roles of UX development team
Wireframes and user storyboards
Target state of web system architecture
List of UX metrics
List of your suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs, and customers
Website design process flow
UX optimization rollout roadmap
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This storyboard reviews the top ten pieces of advice for improving ticket queue management at the service desk.
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 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.

Natalie Sansone, PhD
Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations
Info-Tech Research Group
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.
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.
*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.
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 is a set of processes and tools to direct and monitor tickets or manage ticket flow. It involves the following activities:
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.
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 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).
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.
As queue management maturity increases:
Response time decreases
Resolution time decreases
Backlog decreases
End-user satisfaction increases

*Queues may be defined by skillset, role, ticket category, priority, or a hybrid.
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.
PROCESS INCLUDES: |
DEFINE THE FOLLOWING: |
|
|---|---|---|
TRIAGING INCOMING TICKETS |
|
|
WORKING ON ASSIGNED TICKETS |
|
|
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.
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.
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.
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.
If users are in different time zones, take their current business hours into account when choosing which ticket to work on.
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.
Info-Tech’s blueprint Standardize the Service Desk will help you standardize and document core service desk processes and functions, including:
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.
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.
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?
Everyone who is assigned tickets should understand the ticket handling process and their specific responsibilities when it comes to queue management.
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.
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.
Specific responsibilities may include:
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.
For more guidance on ticket handling and documentation, download Info-Tech’s blueprint: Standardize the Service Desk.
Shift left means enabling fulfilment of repeatable tasks and requests via faster, lower-cost delivery channels, self-help tools, and automation.
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 examples of rules, triggers, and fields you can automate to improve the efficiency of your queue management processes, see the next slide.
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.
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.
Track metrics that give visibility into how quickly tickets are being resolved and how many aging tickets you have. Metrics may include:
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
This project will help you build a strategy to shift service support left to optimize your service desk operations and increase end-user satisfaction.
This project will help you streamline your ticket intake process and identify improvements to your intake channels.
This project will help you determine your optimal service desk structure and staffing levels based on your unique environment, workload, and trends.
“What your Customers Really Want.” Freshdesk, 31 May 2021. Accessed May 2022.
Analysts do not feel empowered to challenge requirements to deliver a better outcome. This alongside underlying data quality issues prevents the creation of accurate and helpful information. Graphic representations do not provide meaningful and actionable insights.
As organizations strive to become more data-driven, good storytelling with data visualization supports growing corporate data literacy and helps analysts in providing insights that improves organization's decision-making and value-driving processes, which ultimately boosts business performance.
Follow a step-by-step guide to address the business bias of tacet experience over data facts and increase audience's understanding and acceptance toward data solutions.
Save the lost hours and remove the challenges of reports and dashboards being disregarded due to ineffective usage.
Gain insights from data-driven recommendations and have decision support to make informed decisions.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Here is our step-by-step process of getting value out of effective storytelling with data visualization:
This storytelling whiteboard canvas is a template that will help you create your visualization story narrative by:
Data visualization refers to graphical representations of data which help an audience understand. Without good storytelling, however, these representations can distract an audience with enormous amounts of data or even lead them to incorrect conclusions.
Good storytelling with data visualization involves identifying the business problem, exploring potential drivers, formulating a hypothesis, and creating meaningful narratives and powerful visuals that resonate with all audiences and ultimately lead to clear actionable insights.
Follow Info-Tech's step-by-step approach to address the business bias of tacit experience over data facts, improve analysts' effectiveness and support better decision making.

Ibrahim Abdel-Kader
Research Analyst,
Data, Analytics, and Enterprise Architecture

Nikitha Patel
Research Specialist,
Data, Analytics, and Enterprise Architecture

Ruyi Sun
Research Specialist,
Data, Analytics, and Enterprise Architecture
This research is designed for
This research will also assist
This research will help you
This research will help them
| Your Challenge | Common Obstacles | Info-Tech's Approach |
As analysts, you may experience some critical challenges when presenting a data story.
|
Some common roadblocks may prevent you from addressing these challenges.
|
|
Info-Tech Insight
As organizations strive to become more data-driven, good storytelling with data visualization supports growing corporate data literacy and helps analysts provide insights that improve organizational decision-making and value-driving processes, which ultimately boosts business performance.
Data storytelling is gaining wide recognition as a tool for supporting businesses in driving data insights and making better strategic decisions.
92% of respondents agreed that data storytelling is an effective way of communicating or delivering data and analytics results.
87% of respondents agreed that if insights were presented in a simpler/clearer manner, their organization's leadership team would make more data-driven decisions.
93% of respondents agreed that decisions made based on successful data storytelling could potentially help increase revenue.
Source: Exasol, 2021
Despite organizations recognizing the value of data storytelling, issues remain which cannot be remedied solely with better technology.
61% Top challenges of conveying important insights through dashboards are lack of context (61%), over-communication (54%), and inability to customize contents for intended audiences (46%).
49% of respondents feel their organizations lack storytelling skills, regardless of whether employees are data literate.
Source: Exasol, 2021
Info-Tech Insight
Storytelling is a key component of data literacy. Although enterprises are increasingly investing in data analytics software, only 21% of employees are confident with their data literacy skills. (Accenture, 2020)
To get a complete view of the field you want to explore, please refer to the following Info-Tech resources:
Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution
Build a Data Architecture Roadmap

Info-Tech Insight
As organizations strive to become more data-driven, good storytelling with data visualization supports growing corporate data literacy and helps analysts provide insights that improve organizational decision-making and value-driving processes, which ultimately boosts business performance.
| Member Benefits | Business Benefits |
|---|---|
|
|
| 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 are used throughout all four options.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This project will help you define a sourcing strategy for your application development team by assessing key factors about your products and your organization, including critical business, technical, and organizational factors. Use this analysis to select the optimal sourcing strategy for each situation.
This workbook is designed to capture the results of the activities in the storyboard. Each worksheet corresponds with an activity from the deck. The workbook is also a living artifact that should be updated periodically as the needs of your team and organization change.

Firms today are under continuous pressure to innovate and deliver new features to market faster while at the same time controlling costs. This has increased the need for higher throughput in their development teams along with a broadening of skills and knowledge. In the face of these challenges, there is a new focus on how firms source their development function. Should they continue to hire internally, offshore, or outsource? How do they decide which strategy is the right fit?
Info-Tech’s research shows that the sourcing strategy considerations have evolved beyond technical skills and costs. Identifying the right strategy has become a function of the characteristics of the organization, its culture, its reliance on the business for knowledge, its strategic value of the application, its vendor management skills, and its ability to internalize external knowledge. By assessing these factors firms can identify the best sourcing mix for their development portfolios.
Dr. Suneel Ghei
Principal Research Director, Application Development
Info-Tech Research Group
Your Challenge
|
Common Obstacles
|
Info-Tech’s Approach
|
Choosing the right sourcing strategy is not just a question of technical skills! Successful sourcing is based on matching your organization’s culture, knowledge, and experiences to the right choice of internal or external partnership.
Business
|
|
![]() |
Three Perspectives + |
Three Steps = |
Your Sourcing Strategy |
| Many firms across all industries are making use of different sourcing strategies to drive innovation and solve business issues. According to a report by ReportLinker the global IT services outsourcing market reached US$413.8 billion in 2021. In a recent study of Canadian software firms, it was found that almost all firms take advantage of outside knowledge in their application development process. In most cases these firms also use outside resources to do development work, and about half the time they use externally built software packages in their products (Ghei, 2020)! Info-Tech InsightIn today’s diverse global markets, firms that wish to stay competitive must have a defined ability to take advantage of external knowledge and to optimize their IT services spend. | Modeling Absorptive Capacity for Open Innovation in the Canadian Software Industry (Source: Ghei, 2020; n=54.) 56% of software development firms are sourcing applications instead of resources. 68% of firms are sourcing external resources to develop software products. 91% of firms are leveraging knowledge from external sources. |

Insourcing allows you to stay close to more strategic applications. But choosing the right model requires a strong look inside your organization and your ability to provide business knowledge support to developers who may have different skills and cultures and are in different geographies.
Outsource Roles
|
Outsource Teams (or Projects)
|
Outsource Products
|
Outsourcing represents one of the most popular ways for organizations to source external knowledge and skills. The choice of model is a function of the organization’s ability to support the external resources and to absorb the knowledge back into the organization.
| Review Your Current Situation
Review the issues and opportunities related to application development and categorize them based on the key factors. |
Assess Build Versus Buy
Before choosing a sourcing model you must assess whether a particular product or function should be bought as a package or developed. |
Choose the Right Sourcing Strategy
Based on the research, use the modeling tool to match the situation to the appropriate sourcing solution. |
Review your current delivery posture for challenges and impediments.
Define a Sourcing Strategy for Your Development Team| Step 1.1 | Step 1.2 | Step 1.3 |
Business Challenges
Technology Challenges
Market Challenges
| ![]() Info-Tech InsightSourcing is a key tool to solve business and technical challenges and enhance market competitiveness when coupled with a robust definition of objectives and a way to measure success. |
Output: List of the key challenges in your software lifecycle. Breakdown of the list into categories to identify opportunities for sourcing
Participants: Product management team, Software development leadership team, Key stakeholders
Document results in the Define a Sourcing Strategy Workbook

Outcomes of this step
Understand in your context the benefits and drawbacks of build versus buy, leveraging Info-Tech’s recommended definitions as a starting point.
Define a Sourcing Strategy for Your Development Team
| Step 1.1 | Step 1.2 | Step 1.3 |
![]() |
Regardless of the industry, a common and challenging dilemma facing technology teams is to determine when they should build software or systems in-house versus when they should rely wholly on an outside vendor for delivering on their technology needs. The answer is not as cut and dried as one would expect. Any build versus buy decision may have an impact on strategic and operational plans. It touches every part of the organization, starting with individual projects and rolling up to the enterprise strategy. |
Do not ignore the impact of a build or buy decision on the various management levels in an IT organization.
| BUILD | BUY | ||
Multi-Source Best of Breed Integrate various technologies that provide subset(s) of the features needed for supporting the business functions. |
Vendor Add-Ons & Integrations Enhance an existing vendor’s offerings by using their system add-ons either as upgrades, new add-ons, or integrations. |
||
Pros
|
Cons
|
Pros
|
Cons
|
Multi-Source Custom Integrate systems built in-house with technologies developed by external organizations. |
Single Source Buy an application/system from one vendor only. |
||
Pros
|
Cons
|
Pros
|
Cons
|
30 minutes
Output: A common understanding of the different approaches to build versus buy applied to your organizational context
Participants: Product management team, Software development leadership team, Key stakeholders
Document results in the Define a Sourcing Strategy Workbook
Outcomes of this step
Choose your desired sourcing strategy based on your current state and needs.
Define a Sourcing Strategy for Your Development Team
| Step 1.1 | Step 1.2 | Step 1.3 |
| Business
Technical
Organizational
|
Product Knowledge
|
![]() |

Built to Outsource Development Teams
|
Results
|
![]() |
Vendor Management
|

Trying to Find the Right Match
|
Info-Tech’s Recommended Approach
|
Environment Complexity
|
![]() |

Seeking to Outsource Innovation
|
Info-Tech’s Recommended Approach
|
Choosing the right model |
![]() |
||||||
| Determinant | Key Questions to Ask | Onshore | Nearshore | Offshore | Outsource Role(s) | Outsource Team | Outsource Product(s) |
| Business Dependence | How much do you rely on business resources during the development cycle? | ||||||
| Absorptive Capacity | How successful has the organization been at bringing outside knowledge back into the firm? | ||||||
| Integration Complexity | How many integrations are required for the product to function – fewer than 5, 5-10, or more than 10? | ||||||
| Product Ownership | Do you have full-time product owners in place for the products? Do product owners have control of their roadmaps? | ||||||
| Organization Culture Fit | What are your organization’s communication and conflict resolution strategies? Is your organization geographically dispersed? | ||||||
| Vendor Mgmt Skills | What is your skill level in vendor management? How long are your longest-standing vendor relationships? | ||||||
60 minutes
Output: A scored matrix of the key drivers of the sourcing strategy
Participants: Development leaders, Product management team, Key stakeholders
Choose one of your products or product families and assess the factors below on a scale of None, Low, Medium, High, and Full.
Document results in the Define a Sourcing Strategy Workbook
By now you understand what goes into an effective sourcing strategy. Before implementing one, there are a few key items you need to consider:
![]() |
Start with a pilot
|
Apfel, Isabella, et al. “IT Project Member Turnover and Outsourcing Relationship Success: An Inverted-U Effect.” Developments, Opportunities and Challenges of Digitization, 2020. Web.
Benamati, John, and Rajkumar, T.M. “The Application Development Outsourcing Decision: An Application of the Technology Acceptance Model.” Journal of Computer Information Systems, vol. 42, no. 4, 2008, pp. 35-43. Web.
Benamati, John, and Rajkumar, T.M. “An Outsourcing Acceptance Model: An Application of TAM to Application Development Outsourcing Decisions.” Information Resources Management Journal, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 80-102, 2008. Web.
Broekhuizen, T. L. J., et al. “Digital Platform Openness: Drivers, Dimensions and Outcomes.” Journal of Business Research, vol. 122, July 2019, pp. 902-914. Web.
Brook, Jacques W., and Albert Plugge. “Strategic Sourcing of R&D: The Determinants of Success.” Business Information Processing, vol. 55, Aug. 2010, pp. 26-42. Web.
Delen, G. P A.J., et al. “Foundations for Measuring IT-Outsourcing Success and Failure.” Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 156, Oct. 2019, pp. 113-125. Web.
Elnakeep, Eman, et al. “Models and Frameworks for IS Outsourcing Structure and Dimensions: A Holistic Study.” Lecture notes in Networks and Systems, 2019. Web.
Ghei, Suneel. Modeling Absorptive Capacity for Open Innovation in the Software Industry. 2020. Faculty of Graduate Studies, Athabasca University, 2020. DBA Dissertation.
“IT Outsourcing Market Research Report by Service Model, Organization Sizes, Deployment, Industry, Region – Global Forecast to 2027 – Cumulative Impact of COVID-19.” ReportLinker, April 2022. Web.
Jeong, Jongkil Jay, et al. “Enhancing the Application and Measurement of Relationship Quality in Future IT Outsourcing Studies.” 26th European Conference on Information Systems: Beyond Digitization – Facets of Socio-Tehcnical Change: Proceedings of ECIS 2018, Portsmouth, UK, June 23-28, 2018. Edited by Peter Bednar, et al., 2018. Web.
Könning, Michael. “Conceptualizing the Effect of Cultural Distance on IT Outsourcing Success.” Proceedings of Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2018, Sydney, Australia, Dec. 3-5, 2018. Edited by Matthew Noble, UTS ePress, 2018. Web.
Lee, Jae-Nam, et al. “Holistic Archetypes of IT Outsourcing Strategy: A Contingency Fit and Configurational Approach.” MIS Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 4, Dec. 2019, pp. 1201-1225. Web.
Loukis, Euripidis, et al. “Determinants of Software-as-a-Service Benefits and Impact on Firm Performance.” Decision Support Systems, vol. 117, Feb. 2019, pp. 38-47. Web.
Martensson, Anders. “Patterns in Application Development Sourcing in the Financial Industry.” Proceedings of the 13th European Conference of Information Systems, 2004. Web.
Martínez-Sánchez, Angel, et al. “The Relationship Between R&D, the Absorptive Capacity of Knowledge, Human Resource Flexibility and Innovation: Mediator Effects on Industrial Firms.” Journal of Business Research, vol. 118, Sept. 2020, pp. 431-440. Web.
Moreno, Valter, et al. “Outsourcing of IT and Absorptive Capacity: A Multiple Case Study in the Brazilian Insurance Sector.” Brazilian Business Review, vol. 17, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2020, pp. 97-113. Web.
Ozturk, Ebru. “The Impact of R&D Sourcing Strategies on Basic and Developmental R&D in Emerging Economies.” European Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 21, no. 7, May 2018, pp. 522-542. Web.
Ribas, Imma, et al. “Multi-Step Process for Selecting Strategic Sourcing Options When Designing Supply Chains.” Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, vol. 14, no. 3, 2021, pp. 477-495. Web.
Striteska, Michaela Kotkova, and Viktor Prokop. “Dynamic Innovation Strategy Model in Practice of Innovation Leaders and Followers in CEE Countries – A Prerequisite for Building Innovative Ecosystems.” Sustainability, vol. 12, no. 9, May 2020. Web.
Thakur-Wernz, Pooja, et al. “Antecedents and Relative Performance of Sourcing Choices for New Product Development Projects.” Technovation, 2020. Web.
To remain competitive, enterprises must deliver products and services like a startup or a digital native enterprise. This requires enterprises to:
Organizations that implement this project will draw benefits in the following aspects:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Collect data and stats that will help build a narrative for digital factory.
Discuss purpose, mission, organizational support, and leadership.
Discuss organizational structure, management, culture, teams, environment, technology, and KPIs.
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.
Understand and gather data and stats for factors impacting digital transformation.
Develop a narrative for the digital factory.
Identification of key pain points and data collected
Narrative to support the digital factory
1.1 Understand the importance and urgency of digital transformation (DX).
1.2 Collect data and stats on the progress of DX initiatives.
1.3 Identify the factors that hamper DX and tie them to data/stats.
1.4 Build the narrative for the digital factory (DF) using the data/stats.
Identification of factors that hamper DX
Data and stats on progress of DX
Narrative for the digital factory
Discuss the factors that impact the success of establishing a digital factory.
A solid understanding and awareness that successful digital factories have clarity of purpose, organizational support, and sound leadership.
2.1 Discuss
2.2 Discuss what organizational support the digital factory will require and align and commit to it.
2.3 Discuss reference models to understand the dynamics and the strategic investment.
2.4 Discuss leadership for the digital age.
DF purpose and mission statements
Alignment and commitment on organizational support
Understanding of competitive dynamics and investment spread
Develop the profile of a digital leader
Understand the fundamentals of the operating model.
Understand the gaps and formulate the strategies.
Design of structure and organization
Design of culture aligned with organizational goals
Management practices aligned with the goals of the digital factory
3.1 Discuss structure and organization and associated organizational pathologies, with focus on hierarchy and silos, size and complexity, and project-centered mindset.
3.2 Discuss the importance of culture and its impact on productivity and what shifts will be required.
3.3 Discuss management for the digital factory, with focus on governance, rewards and compensation, and talent management.
Organizational design in the context of identified pathologies
Cultural design for the DF
Management practices and governance for the digital factory
Roles/responsibilities for governance
Understand the fundamentals of the operating model.
Understand the gaps and formulate the strategies.
Discuss agile teams and the roles for DF
Environment design that supports productivity
Understanding of existing and new platforms
4.1 Discuss teams and various roles for the DF.
4.2 Discuss the impact of the environment on productivity and satisfaction and discuss design factors.
4.3 Discuss technology and tools, focusing on existing and future platforms, platform components, and organization.
4.4 Discuss design of meaningful metrics and KPIs.
Roles for DF teams
Environment design factors
Platforms and technology components
Meaningful metrics and KPIs
You have a mandate to create an accurate and actionable database of the IT assets in your environment, but:
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
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.
Use this template to document your IT asset management strategy and approach.
Use this tool to estimate key data points related to your IT asset estate, as well as your confidence in your estimates.
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.
Align key stakeholders to the potential strategic value of the IT asset management practice.
Ensure the ITAM practice is focused on business-aligned goals.
Define a business-aligned direction and expected outcomes for your ITAM program.
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.
ITAM opportunities and challenges
Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities.
ITAM metrics and KPIs
ITAM maturity
Translate goals into specific and coherent actions to enable your ITAM practice to deliver business value.
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.
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.
Your ITAM approach
ITAM roadmap and communication plan
17 Phase 1: Establish Business-Aligned ITAM Goals and Priorities
59 Phase 2: Support ITAM Goals and Priorities
116 Bibliography
| 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.
|
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.
|
| Your Challenge
You have a mandate to create an accurate and actionable database of the IT assets in your environment, but:
|
Common Obstacles
It is challenging to make needed changes because:
|
Info-Tech’s Approach
|
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
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.)
|
ITAM provides both early and ongoing valueITAM 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:
|
Examples of long-term value from ongoing governance, management, and operational ITAM activities:
|
|
The rulebook is available, but hard to follow
|
ITAM is a mature discipline with well-established standards, certifications, and tools, but we still struggle with it.
|
Adopt, manage, and mature activities to enable business value thorugh actionable, accessible, and accurate ITAM data
|
Enable Business Value |
|
Business-Aligned Spend
|
Facilitate IT Services
|
Context-Aware Risk Management
|
Plan & GovernBusiness Goals, Risks, and Structure
Ongoing Management Commitment
Culture
|
|
Build & ManageTools & Data
Process
People, Policies, and Providers
|
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.
| 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:
|
Each step of this blueprint is designed to help you create your IT asset management strategy:
|
| 1. Establish business-aligned ITAM goals and priorities | 2. Identify your approach to support ITAM priorities and goals | |
| Phase Steps |
|
|
| 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. | |
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.
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.
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
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.
Benefits for IT
|
|
Benefits for the business
|
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 |
|||
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.
|
| 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 |
|
|
|
|
|
Phase 1:Establish business-aligned ITAM goals and priorities |
Phase 11.1 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 22.1 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. |
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.
Set yourself up for success with these three steps:
|
1. Identify participantsReview recommended roles and identify who should participate in the development of your ITAM strategy. |
2. Estimate assets managed todayWork 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 folderCreate a repository to house your notes and any work in progress, including your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template. |
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 |
Output: Estimates of quantity and spend related to IT assets, Confidence/margin of error on estimates
Participants: IT asset manager, ITAM team
| 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.
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,
|
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
|
|
Don’t wait until the end to write down your good ideas.
|
|
“ITAM is a cultural shift more than a technology shift.” (Rory Canavan, SAM Charter)
| Any piece of technology can be considered an asset, but it doesn’t mean you need to track everything. |
|
|
|
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.”
|
||
|
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. |
||
|
IT assets are typically tracked by IT, not by finance or accounting.
|
||
|
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?
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:
|
“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) |
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.
| 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:
|
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:
|
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:
|
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.
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.
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.
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) |
|
|
| What Else? | |
Copy results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
Enter the executivesDeliver on leadership priorities
|
“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)
|
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.
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:
The facilitator or a dedicated note-taker should record key points on a whiteboard or flipchart paper.
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.
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
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.
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
| 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. |
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 |
|
|
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
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. |
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
The priorities of the ITAM practice are to:
|
|
“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)
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.
The highlighted opportunities are your near- and medium-term objectives.
| Optimize Spend | Enhance IT Services | Manage Risk | |
| Priority | Critical | Normal | High |
| ITAM Opportunities |
|
|
|
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 Spend | Enhance IT Services | Manage Risk | |
| Priority | Critical | Normal | High |
| ITAM Opportunities |
|
|
|
| ITAM Tactics to Seize Opportunities |
|
|
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
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.
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
|
Innovator – Optimized Asset Management
|
|
|
Innovator – Optimized Asset Management Business & Technology Partner – Proactive Asset Management Trusted Operator – Controls Assets Firefighter – Reactive Asset Tracking Unreliable - Struggles to Support |
Create two short, compelling statements that encapsulate:
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:
|
“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) |
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.
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
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.
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
Navigate a universe of ITAM metricsWhen you have the data, how will you use it?
|
ITAM Metrics
|
Drill down by:
|
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.
| 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
| 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 |
| Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics with targets aligned to goals.
Targets could include one or more of:
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. |
|
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 11.1 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 22.1 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. |
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.
| 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?
|
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 |
|
|
|
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
“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)
Allow your team to focus on strategic, value-add activities by acquiring services that free them from commodity tasks.
|
Business Enablement
|
Vendor’s Performance Advantage
|
Ask yourself:
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
|
ITAM-adjacent activities and capabilities
|
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 |
|
|
|
Go through the list of activities to potentially or definitely outsource and confirm:
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
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?
|
Example: Centralized
|
| Example: Decentralized
|
| Example: Federation
|
| Example: Shared Services
|
Why centralize?
|
Why decentralize?
|
Requirements for success:
|
Requirements for success:
|
Why centralize?
|
Why decentralize?
|
Requirements for success:
|
Requirements for success:
|
Why centralize?
|
Why decentralize?
|
Requirements for success:
|
Requirements for success:
|
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.
| Centralize | Decentralize | |
| Data collection & analysis |
|
|
| Budget and contract management |
|
|
| Technology management |
|
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
| 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:
|
“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) |
|
|
|
Align authority and accountability.
|
|
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.
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
Configuration Management Database (CMDB)A database of uniquely identified configuration items (CIs). Each CI record may include information on:Service AttributesSupported Service(s)
CI RelationshipsPhysical Connections
|
|
Hardware InformationSerial, Model and Specs
Software InstallationsHypervisor & OS
|
|
Asset Management Database (AMDB)A database of uniquely identified IT assets. Each asset record may include information on:Procurement/PurchasingPurchase Request/Purchase Order
Asset AttributesModel, Title, Product Info, License Key
|
||||
|
||||||||
IT Security SystemsVulnerability Management
|
IT Service Management (ITSM) SystemChange Tickets
|
Financial System/ERPGeneral Ledger
|
||||||
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
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?
|
ITAM
|
Request Management
What can this user request or purchase?
|
|
What IT assets are related to the known issue?
|
What assets are related to the change?
|
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
“Everything is connected. Nothing is also connected.” (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency)
| 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.
|
“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) |
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.
| Existing Tool | Use | Constraints | Owner | Proposed Action? |
| ITAM Module |
|
|
ITAM Team/Service Management |
|
| Active Directory |
|
Major data quality issues | IT Operations |
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
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.
| New Tool | Expected Value | Proposed Next Steps |
| SAM tool |
|
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
| Compare Tool Records
Audit your data by comparing records in the ITAM system to other discovery sources.
|
IT-led Audit
Conduct a hands-on investigation led by ITAM staff and IT technicians.
|
User-led audit
Have users validate the IT assets assigned to them.
|
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
Are you ready when software vendors come knocking?
| “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 InsightAudit 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. |
|
“The reality is, software vendors prey on confusion and complication. Where there’s confusion, there’s opportunity.” (Mike Austin, Founder, MetrixData 360) |
|
|
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
Example Audit Checklist
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
Some examples of what ITAM can bring to the budgeting table:
Being part of the budgeting process positions ITAM for success in other ways:
|
“Knowing what you have [IT assets] is foundational to budgeting, managing, and optimizing IT spend.” (Dave Kish, Info-Tech, Practice Lead, IT Financial Management)
|
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 |
|
|
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
Long-term planning and governance
Operational documentation
|
|
|
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:
| Need to Create | Owner | Stored in | Accessible by | Trigger for review |
| Hardware asset management SOP | ITAM manager | ITAM SharePoint site › Operating procedures folder |
|
|
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
“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)
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
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
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.
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
| 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 |
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.
| Group | ITAM Benefits | Impact | Channel(s) | Timing |
| CFO |
|
|
Face-to-face – based on their availability | Within the next month |
| CIO |
|
|
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
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.
Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template
| 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. |
| 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. |
“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.
You heard the message before, and yet.... and yet it does not sink in.
In july 2019 already, according to retruster:
This is ... this means we, as risk professionals may be delivering our messsage the wrong way. So, I really enjoyed my colleague Nick Felix (who got it from Alison Francis) sending me the URL of this video: Enjoy, but mostly: learn, because we want our children to enjoy the fruits of our work.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Map the organization’s current state for CX2 and set high-level objectives and metrics.
Strengthen the candidate lifecycle by improving upon pain points through design thinking methods and assessing the competitive landscape.
Create action, communications, and training plans to establish the redesigned CX2 with hiring process stakeholders.
Leverage data collection and workshop activities.
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.
Assess the organization’s current state for CX2.
Set baseline metrics for comparison with new initiatives.
Establish goals to strengthen the CX2.
Gained understanding of where the organization is currently.
Established where the organization would like to be and goals to achieve the new state.
1.1 Review process map of current candidate lifecycle.
1.2 Analyze qualitative and quantitative data gathered.
1.3 Set organizational objectives and project goals.
1.4 Set metrics to measure progress on high-level goals.
Process map
CX2 data analyzed
Candidate Experience Project Charter
Apply design thinking methods to identify pain points in your candidate lifecycle.
Assess the competition and analyze results.
Empathize with candidates and their journey.
Segments with pain points have been identified.
Competitor offering and differentiation has been analyzed.
Candidate thoughts and feelings have been synthesized.
2.1 Identify extreme users.
2.2 Conduct an immersive empathy session or go through the process as if you were a target candidate.
2.3 Identify talent competitors.
2.4 Analyze competitive landscape.
2.5 Synthesize research findings and create empathy map.
2.6 Journey map the CX2.
Extreme users identified
Known and unknown talent competitor’s CX2 analyzed
Empathy map created
Journey map created
Create a communications and action plan and set metrics to measure success.
Set expectations with hiring managers and talent acquisition specialists through a service level agreement.
Action plan created.
Metrics set to track progress and assess improvement.
Service level agreement completed and expectations collaboratively set.
3.1 Assess each stage of the lifecycle.
3.2 Set success metrics for priority lifecycle stages.
3.3 Select actions from the Candidate Experience Best Practices Action Guide.
3.4 Brainstorm other potential (organization-specific) solutions.
3.5 Set action timeline and assign accountabilities.
3.6 Customize service level agreement guidelines.
CX2 lifecycle stages prioritized
Metrics to measure progress set
CX2 best practices selected
Candidate Experience Assessment Tool
Candidate Experience Action and Communication Plan
Service level agreement guidelines.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Building and maintaining your Active Directory does not have to be difficult. Standardized organization and monitoring with the proper metrics help you keep your data accurate and up to date.
Build a comprehensive Active Directory workflow library for service desk technicians to follow.
To remain competitive enterprises must renew and refresh their business model strategies and design/develop digital platforms – this requires enterprises to:
Organizations that implement this project will gain benefits in five ways:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand the platform business model and strategies and then set your platform business model goals.
Define design goals for your digital platform. Align your DX strategy with digital platform capabilities and understand key components of the digital platform.
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Understand existing business model, value proposition, and key assets.
Understand platform business model and strategies.
Understanding the current assets helps with knowing what can be leveraged in the new business model/transformation.
Understanding the platform strategies can help the enterprise renew/refresh their business model.
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.
Documentation of current business model along with value proposition and key assets (that provide competitive advantage).
Documentation of the selected platform strategies.
Understand transformation approaches.
Understand various layers of platforms.
Ask fundamental and evolutionary questions about the platform.
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.
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.
Documented decision about DX approach and next steps.
Documented high-level strategic themes for platform business model and associated roadmap.
Understand the design goals for the digital platform.
Understand gaps between the platform’s capabilities and the DX strategy.
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.
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.
Documented design goals for digital platform.
Documented DX themes and platform capabilities.
DX themes and platform capabilities map.
Understanding of key components of a digital platform, including technology and teams.
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.
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.
Filled microservices canvas.
Documented real-time stream processing data pipeline and tool map.
Documented high-level architectural view.
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.
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
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.
The maturity assessment will provide a baseline and identify areas of focus based on level of current and target maturity.
The SOP provides an excellent guide to quickly inform new team members or contractors of your support approach.
The categorization scheme template provides examples of asset-based categories, resolution codes and status.
This template provides a starting point for building your communications on planned improvements.
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.
![]() |
Sandi Conrad
Principal Research Director Info-Tech Research Group |
| 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 |
Make the best use of the team
|
Build cross-training into your culture
|
Don’t discount the benefit of good tools
|
Standard Operating Procedures![]() |
Maturity Assessment![]() |
Categorization scheme![]() |
Improvement Initiative![]() |
| Create a standard operating procedure to ensure the support team has a consistent understanding of how they need to engage with the business. | |||
IT benefits
|
Business benefits
|
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 StudySouthwest CARE Center |
![]() |
INDUSTRY |
Service Desk ProjectAfter 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. ResultsThe 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) |
|
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. |
|
STOP |
|
START |
|
CONTINUE |
|
| 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.
|
![]() |
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:
|
Info-Tech InsightIdentify 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. |
| 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:
|
|
||||||||||||||||
| 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:
|
To prepare for a quick time to value in setting up the new ITSM tool, prioritize in this order:
|
|
Note roles in the Incident Management and Service Desk – Standard Operating Procedure Template |
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.
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.
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.
|
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.
![]() |
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:
Info-Tech InsightConsider 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) |
Transactional surveys are tied to specific interactions and provide a means of communication to help users communicate satisfaction or dissatisfaction with single interactions.
|
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.
|
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:
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 InsightThink 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. | ![]() |
Input: Existing tickets
Output: Categorization scheme
Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Markers, Sample categorization scheme
Participants: CIO, Service desk manager, Technicians
Discuss:
Draft:
Download the Incident Management and Service Desk – Standard Operating Procedure Template
INCIDENTS |
SERVICE REQUESTS |
||
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). | |
SLAs |
Did incidents get resolved according to prioritization rules? REPONSE & RESOLUTION | Did service requests get completed on time? SCHEDULING & FULFILMENT | |
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)

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.
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:
Download the Incident Management and Service Desk – Standard Operating Procedure Template
| 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.
|
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. |
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:
Download the Incident Runbook Prioritization Tool
|
![]() |
Depending on the size of the team, escalations may be mostly to internal technical colleagues or could be primarily to vendors.
![]() |
||||
| 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.
|
|
|
Validate user is happy with the experience |
Improving communications is the most effective way to improve customer service
|
Keep messaging simple
|
PROACTIVE, PLANNED CHANGES |
From: Service Desk
Messaging provided by engineer or director, sent to all employees; proactive planning with business unit leaders. |
|
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. |
|
UPDATES TO SERVICES, SELF-SERVE |
From: Director
Send announcements no more than monthly about new services and processes. |
|
REGULAR STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATIONS |
From: Director
Monthly reporting to business and IT stakeholders on strategic and project goals, manage escalations. |
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:
Download the communications templates
Create reports that are useful and actionableReporting serves two purposes:
To determine what reports are needed, ask yourself:
|
Determine which metrics will be most useful to suit your strategic and operational goals
|
|||||||||
Be agile in your approach to serviceIt’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.
|
Staff the service desk to meet demand
|
Create and manage a knowledge baseWith 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.
Info-Tech InsightAppeal 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
|
Customer service isn’t just about friendlinessYour 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:
|
Deliver a customer service training program to your IT department
|
Improve your ticket analysisOnce 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:
|
Analyze your service desk ticket dataProperly analyzing ticket data is challenging for the following reasons:
|
Start doing problem managementProactively focusing on root cause analysis will reduce the most disruptive incidents to the organization.
|
Problem managementProblem 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.
|
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.

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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
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.
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Use Info-Tech’s methodology to establish an effective service management program with proper oversight.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand the importance of customer service training, then deliver Info-Tech's training program to your IT team.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand the concepts of ESM, determine the scope of the ESM program, and get buy-in.
Determine the current state for ESM and identify the gaps.
Create customer journey maps, identify an ESM pilot, and finalize the action plan for the pilot.
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.
Understand what ESM is and how it can improve customer service.
Determine the scope of your ESM initiative and identify who the stakeholders are for this program.
Understanding of ESM concepts.
Understanding of the scope and stakeholders for your ESM initiative.
Plan for getting buy-in for the ESM program.
1.1 Understand the concepts and benefits of ESM.
1.2 Determine the scope of your ESM program.
1.3 Identify your stakeholders.
1.4 Develop an executive buy-in presentation.
1.5 Develop a general communications presentation.
Executive buy-in presentation
General communications presentation
Assess your current state with respect to culture, governance, skills, and tools.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses from the ESM assessment scores.
Understanding of your organization’s current enablers and constraints for ESM.
Determination and analysis of data needed to identify strengths or weaknesses in culture, governance, skills, and tools.
2.1 Understand your organization’s mission and vision.
2.2 Assess your organization’s culture, governance, skills, and tools.
2.3 Identify the gaps and determine the necessary foundational action items.
ESM assessment score
Foundational action items
Define and choose the top services at the organization.
Create customer journey maps for the chosen services.
List of prioritized services.
Customer journey maps for the prioritized services.
3.1 Make a list of your services.
3.2 Prioritize your services.
3.3 Build customer journey maps.
List of services
Customer journey maps
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Decide which functional areas in the organization will benefit the most from using social data, and create use cases accordingly.
Identify and evaluate key social analytics metrics and understand the importance of combining multiple metrics to get the most out of the analytics program.
Leverage a cross-departmental Social Media Steering Committee and evaluate SMMPs and other social analytics tools.
Identify specific uses of internal social analytics: crowd-sourcing ideation, harvesting employee feedback, and rewarding internal brand advocates.
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This storyboard includes three phases and nine activities that will help you define your purpose, align your people, and build your practice.
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.
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.
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.
This spreadsheet provides an analytical and transparent method to prioritize initiatives based on weighted criteria relevant to your business.
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.
Define your innovation ambitions.
Gain a better understanding of why you are innovating and what your organization will gain from an innovation program.
1.1 Understand your innovation mandate.
1.2 Define your innovation ambitions.
1.3 Determine value proposition & metrics.
Complete the "Our purpose" section of the Innovation Program Template
Complete "Vision and guiding principles" section
Complete "Scope and value proposition" section
Success metrics
Build a culture, operating model, and team that support innovation.
Develop a plan to address culture gaps and identify and implement your operating model.
2.1 Foster a culture of innovation.
2.2 Define your operating model.
Complete "Building an innovative culture" section
Complete "Operating model" section
Create the capability to facilitate innovation.
Create a resourcing plan and prioritization templates to make your innovation program successful.
3.1 Build core innovation capabilities.
3.2 Develop prioritization criteria.
Team structure and resourcing requirements
Prioritization spreadsheet template
Finalize your program and complete the final deliverable.
Walk away with a complete plan for your innovation program.
4.1 Define your methodology to pilot projects.
4.2 Conduct a program retrospective.
Complete "Operating model" section in the template
Notable wins and goals
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 Osborne Rodriguez
Research Director, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group
As a leader in your organization, you need to:
In the past, you might have experienced one or more of the following:
This blueprint will help you:
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.
|
75% |
Three-quarters of companies say innovation is a top-three priority. |
|---|---|
|
30% |
But only 30% of executives say their organizations are doing it well. |
Based on a survey of 270 business leaders.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018
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

1 Source: Boston Consulting Group, 2021
2 Source: Boston Consulting Group, 2019
3 Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018
Innovators are defined as companies that were listed on Fast Company World's 50 Most Innovative Companies for 2+ years.
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.
INDUSTRY: Healthcare
SOURCE: Interview
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.
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.
|
1. Define Your Purpose |
2. Align Your People |
3. Build Your Practice |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Phase Steps |
|
|
|
|
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 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.
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).
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.
Facilitate an ideation session with your staff to identify areas for innovation.
Initiative Prioritization Workbook
Evaluate ideas to identify those which are most likely to provide value.
Communicate how you plan to innovate with a report summarizing the outputs from this research.
US businesses spend over half a trillion dollars on innovation annually. What are they getting for it?
(1) based on BCG's 50 Most Innovative Companies 2022
30% | The most innovative companies outperform the market by 30%. |
“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.”
| Phase 0 | Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges. |
Call #2: Understand your mandate. Call #3: Innovation vision, guiding principles, value proposition, and scope. |
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.
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 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
|
Purpose |
People |
Practice |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase involves the following participants:
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
President and Chief Innovation Officer ArcBest
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.
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?
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.
Some innovations are incremental, while some are radically transformative. Decide what kind of innovation you want to cultivate before developing your strategy.
Evaluate your goals with respect to innovation: focus, strategy, and potential to transform.
Focus: Where will you innovate?
Strategy: To what extent will you guide innovation efforts?
Potential: How radical will your innovations be?
Download the Innovation Program Template.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
A strong vision statement:
Examples:
"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
Strong guiding principles:
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.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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
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.
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.
| 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% |
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
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Create a culture that fosters innovative behaviors and puts processes in place to support them.
Purpose | People | Practice |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase involves the following participants:
Info-Tech's Fix Your IT Culture can help you promote innovative behaviors
Refer to Improve IT Team Effectiveness to address team challenges
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:
INDUSTRY: Commercial Real Estate and Retail
SOURCE: Interview
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.
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.
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.
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:
Use Info-Tech's Security Risk Management research to better understand risk tolerance
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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. |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
|
|
Adapted from Niklaus Gerber via Medium, 2022
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.
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.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
Visionaries who inspire, support, and facilitate innovation across the business. Their responsibilities are to drive the culture of innovation.
Key skills and knowledge:
Sample titles:
Translate ideas into tangible business initiatives, including assisting with business cases and developing performance metrics.
Key skills and knowledge:
Sample titles:
Provide expertise in product design, delivery and management, and responsible for supporting and executing on pilot projects.
Key skills and knowledge:
Sample titles:
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.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Master Organizational Change Management Practices
Purpose | People | Practice |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
This phase involves the following participants:
INDUSTRY: Government
SOURCE: Interview
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.
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.

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.
Design Thinking
A structured approach that encourages participants to think creatively about the needs of the end user.
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.
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.
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 are objective and easily comparable between initiatives, providing a transparent and data-driven process for evaluation and prioritization.
Examples:
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:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Initiative Prioritization Template
"Learning is as powerful as the outcome." – Brett Trelfa, CIO, Arkansas Blue Cross
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.
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.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
Ensure that the retrospective is based on facts and objective data, rather than personal opinions or biases.
Ensure that the retrospective is a positive and constructive experience, with a focus on finding solutions rather than dwelling on problems.
The retrospective should result in a clear action plan with specific steps to improve future initiatives.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization
Prototype With an Innovation Design Sprint
Fund Innovation With a Minimum Viable Business Case
You have now completed your innovation strategy, covering the following topics:
If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through an Info-Tech workshop or Guided Implementation.
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
Accelerate Digital Transformation With a Digital Factory
Sustain and Grow the Maturity of Innovation in Your Enterprise
Define Your Digital Business Strategy
Kim Osborne Rodriguez
Research Director, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group
Kim is a professional engineer and Registered Communications Distribution Designer with over a decade of experience in management and engineering consulting spanning healthcare, higher education, and commercial sectors. She has worked on some of the largest hospital construction projects in Canada, from early visioning and IT strategy through to design, specifications, and construction administration. She brings a practical and evidence-based approach, with a track record of supporting successful projects.
Kim holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechatronics Engineering from University of Waterloo.
Joanne Lee
Principal Research Director, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group
Joanne is an executive with over 25 years of experience in digital technology and management consulting across both public and private entities from solution delivery to organizational redesign across Canada and globally.
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.
Joanne holds a Master's in Business and Health Policy from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science (Nursing) from the University of British Columbia.
Jack Hakimian
Senior Vice President
Info-Tech Research Group
Jack has more than 25 years of technology and management consulting experience. He has served multi-billion-dollar organizations in multiple industries including Financial Services and Telecommunications. Jack also served a number of large public sector institutions.
He is a frequent speaker and panelist at technology and innovation conferences and events and holds a Master's degree in Computer Engineering as well as an MBA from the ESCP-EAP European School of Management.
Michael Tweedie
Practice Lead, CIO Strategy
Info-Tech Research Group
Mike Tweedie brings over 25 years as a technology executive. He's led several large transformation projects across core infrastructure, application, and IT services as the head of Technology at ADP Canada. He was also the Head of Engineering and Service Offerings for a large French IT services firm, focused on cloud adoption and complex ERP deployment and management.
Mike holds a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from Ryerson University.
Mike Schembri
Senior Executive Advisor
Info-Tech Research Group
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
Senior Director, Member Services
Info-Tech Research Group
With over 35 years of IT experience, including senior-level VP Technology and CTO leadership positions, John has a breadth of knowledge in technology innovation, business alignment, IT operations, and business transformation. John's experience extends from start-ups to corporate enterprise and spans higher education, financial services, digital marketing, and arts/entertainment.
Joe Riley
Senior Workshop Director
Info-Tech Research Group
Joe ensures our members get the most value out of their Info-Tech memberships by scoping client needs, current state and desired business outcomes, and then drawing upon his extensive experience, certifications, and degrees (MBA, MS Ops/Org Mgt, BS Eng/Sci, ITIL, PMP, Security+, etc.) to facilitate our client's achievement of desired and aspirational business outcomes. A true advocate of ITSM, Joe approaches technology and technology practices as a tool and enabler of people, core business, and competitive advantage activities.
Denis Goulet
Senior Workshop Director
Info-Tech Research Group
Denis is a transformational leader and experienced strategist who has worked with 100+ organizations to develop their digital, technology, and governance strategies.
He has held positions as CIO, Chief Administrative Office (City Manager), General Manager, Vice President of Engineering, and Management Consultant, specializing in enterprise and technology strategy.
Cole Cioran
Managing Partner
Info-Tech Research Group
I knew I wanted to build great applications that would delight their users. I did that over and over. Along the way I also discovered that it takes great teams to deliver great applications. Technology only solves problems when people, processes, and organizations change as well. This helped me go from writing software to advising some of the largest organizations in the world on how to how to build a digital delivery umbrella of Product, Agile, and DevOps and create exceptional products and services powered by technology.
Carlene McCubbin
Research Lead, CIO Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
During her tenure at Info-Tech, Carlene has led the development of Info-Tech's Organization and Leadership practice and worked with multiple clients to leverage the methodologies by creating custom programs to fit each organization's needs.
Before joining Info-Tech, Carlene received her Master of Communications Management from McGill University, where she studied development of internal and external communications, government relations, and change management.
Isabelle Hertanto
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group
Isabelle Hertanto has over 15 years of experience delivering specialized IT services to the security and intelligence community. As a former federal officer for Public Safety Canada, Isabelle trained and led teams on data exploitation and digital surveillance operations in support of Canadian national security investigations. Since transitioning into the private sector, Isabelle has held senior management and consulting roles across a variety of industry sectors, including retail, construction, energy, healthcare, and the broader Canadian public sector.
Hans Eckman
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group
Hans Eckman is a business transformation leader helping organizations connect business strategy and innovation to operational excellence. He supports Info-Tech members in SDLC optimization, Agile and DevOps implementation, CoE/CoP creation, innovation program development, application delivery, and leadership development. Hans is based out of Atlanta, Georgia.
Valence Howden
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group
With 30 years of IT experience in the public and private sector, Valence has developed experience in many Information Management and Technology domains, with a particular focus in the areas of Service Management, Enterprise and IT Governance, Development and Execution of Strategy, Risk Management, Metrics Design and Process Design, and Implementation and Improvement. Prior to joining Info-Tech, he served in technical and client-facing roles at Bell Canada and CGI Group Inc., as well as managing the design, integration, and implementation of services and processes in the Ontario Public Sector.
Clayton Gillett
Managing Partner
Info-Tech Research Group
Clayton Gillett is a Managing Partner for Info-Tech, providing technology management advisory services to healthcare clients. Clayton joined Info-Tech with more than 28 years of experience in health care information technology. He has held senior IT leadership roles at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound and OCHIN, as well as advisory or consulting roles at ECG Management Consultants and Gartner.
Donna Bales
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group
Donna Bales is a Principal Research Director in the CIO Practice at Info-Tech Research Group specializing in research and advisory services in IT risk, governance, and compliance. She brings over 25 years of experience in strategic consulting and product development and has a history of success in leading complex, multi-stakeholder industry initiatives.
Igor Ikonnikov
Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group
Igor Ikonnikov is a Research and Advisory Director in the Data and Analytics practice. Igor has extensive experience in strategy formation and execution in the information management domain, including master data management, data governance, knowledge management, enterprise content management, big data, and analytics.
Igor has an MBA from the Ted Rogers School of Management (Toronto, Canada) with a specialization in Management of Technology and Innovation.
Michael Newcity
Chief Innovation Officer
ArcBest
Kevin Yoder
Vice President, Innovation
ArcBest
Gary Boyd
Vice President, Information Systems & Digital Transformation
Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Brett Trelfa
Chief Information Officer
Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Kristen Wilson-Jones
Chief Technology & Product Officer
Medcurio
Note: additional contributors did not wish to be identified
Altringer, Beth. "A New Model for Innovation in Big Companies" Harvard Business Review. 19 Nov. 2013. Accessed 30 Jan. 2023. https://hbr.org/2013/11/a-new-model-for-innovation-in-big-companies
Arpajian, Scott. "Five Reasons Why Innovation Fails" Forbes Magazine. 4 June 2019. Accessed 31 Jan. 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/06/04/five-reasons-why-innovation-fails/?sh=234e618914c6
Baldwin, John & Gellatly, Guy. "Innovation Capabilities: The Knowledge Capital Behind the Survival and Growth of Firms" Statistics Canada. Sept. 2006. Accessed 30 Jan. 2023. https://www.bdc.ca/fr/documents/other/innovation_capabilities_en.pdf
Bar Am, Jordan et al. "Innovation in a Crisis: Why it is More Critical Than Ever" McKinsey & Company, 17 June 2020. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023. <https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/innovation-in-a-crisis-why-it-is-more-critical-than-ever >
Boston Consulting Group, "Most Innovative Companies 2021" BCG, April 2021. Accessed 30 Jan. 2023. https://web-assets.bcg.com/d5/ef/ea7099b64b89860fd1aa3ec4ff34/bcg-most-innovative-companies-2021-apr-2021-r.pdf
Boston Consulting Group, "Most Innovative Companies 2022" BGC, 15 Sept. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023. https://www.bcg.com/en-ca/publications/2022/innovation-in-climate-and-sustainability-will-lead-to-green-growth
Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Review Press, 2016.
Gerber, Niklaus. "What is innovation? A beginner's guide into different models, terminologies and methodologies" Medium. 20 Sept 2022. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://world.hey.com/niklaus/what-is-innovation-a-beginner-s-guide-into-different-models-terminologies-and-methodologies-dd4a3147
Google X, Homepage. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023. https://x.company/
Harnoss, Johann D. & Baeza, Ramón. "Overcoming the Four Big Barriers to Innovation Success" Boston Consulting Group, 24 Sept. 2019. Accessed 30 Jan 2023. https://www.bcg.com/en-ca/publications/2019/overcoming-four-big-barriers-to-innovation-success
Jaruzelski, Barry et al. "Global Innovation 1000 Study" Pricewaterhouse Cooper, 30 Oct. 2018. Accessed 13 Jan. 2023. <https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/gx/en/insights/innovation1000.html>
Kharpal, Arjun. "Huawei posts first-ever yearly revenue decline as U.S. sanctions continue to bite, but profit surges" CNBC. 28 March 2022. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/28/huawei-annual-results-2021-revenue-declines-but-profit-surges.html
Kirsner, Scott. "The Biggest Obstacles to Innovation in Large Companies" Harvard Business Review, 30 July 2018. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023. <https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-biggest-obstacles-to-innovation-in-large-companies>
Macrotrends. "Apple Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/revenue
Macrotrends. "Microsoft Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/revenue
Macrotrends. "Amazon Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/revenue
Macrotrends. "Alphabet Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/revenue
Macrotrends. "Tesla Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/revenue
Macrotrends. "Moderna Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MRNA/moderna/revenue
Macrotrends. "Sony Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SONY/sony/revenue
Macrotrends. "IBM Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/revenue
Macrotrends. "Meta Platforms Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platforms/revenue
Macrotrends. "NIKE Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NKE/nike/revenue
Macrotrends. "Walmart Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/revenue
Macrotrends. "Dell Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DELL/dell/revenue
Macrotrends. "NVIDIA Revenue 2010-2022" Macrotrends. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NVDA/nvidia/revenue
Sloan, Paul. "How to Develop a Vision for Innovation" Innovation Management, 10 Aug. 2009. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://innovationmanagement.se/2009/08/10/how-to-develop-a-vision-for-innovation/
Statista. "Samsung Electronics' global revenue from 2005 to 2021" Statista. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/236607/global-revenue-of-samsung-electronics-since-2005/
Tichy, Noel & Ram Charan. "Speed, Simplicity, Self-Confidence: An Interview with Jack Welch" Harvard Business Review, 2 March 2020. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://hbr.org/1989/09/speed-simplicity-self-confidence-an-interview-with-jack-welch
Weick, Karl and Kathleen Sutcliffe. Managing the Unexpected: Sustained Performance in a Complex World, Third Edition. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
Xuan Tian, Tracy Yue Wang, Tolerance for Failure and Corporate Innovation, The Review of Financial Studies, Volume 27, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 211–255, Accessed https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhr130
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Even where there is limited control, you can define an incident response plan to streamline notification, assessment, and implementation of workarounds.
At a minimum, IT’s responsibility is to identify and communicate risk to senior leadership. That starts with a vendor review to identify SLA and overall resilience gaps.
The examples illustrate different approaches to incident response depending on the criticality of the service and options available.
Summarize cloud services risk, mitigation options, and incident response for senior leadership.
If you think cloud means you don’t need a response plan, then get your resume ready.
|
Most organizations are now recognizing that they can’t ignore the risk of a cloud outage or data loss, and the challenge is “what can I do about it?” since there is limited control. If you still think “it’s in the cloud, so I don’t need to worry about it,” then get your resume ready. When O365 goes down, your executives are calling IT, not Microsoft, for an answer of what’s being done and what can they do in the meantime to get the business up and running again. The key is to recognize what you can control and what actions you can take to evaluate and mitigate risk. At a minimum, you can ensure senior leadership is aware of the risk and define a plan for how you will respond to an incident, even if that is limited to monitoring and communicating status. Often you can do more, including defining IT workarounds, backing up your SaaS data for additional protection, and using business process workarounds to bridge the gap, as illustrated in the case studies in this blueprint. Frank Trovato Info-Tech Research Group |
As more applications are migrated to cloud-based services, disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plans (BCP) must include an understanding of cloud risks and actions to mitigate those risks. This includes evaluating vendor and service reliability and resilience, security measures, data protection capabilities, and technology and business workarounds if there is a cloud outage or incident.
Use the risk assessments and cloud service incident response plans developed through this blueprint to supplement your DRP and BCP as well as further inform your crisis management plans (e.g. account for cloud risks in your crisis communication planning).
Overall Business Continuity Plan |
||
|---|---|---|
IT Disaster Recovery Plan A plan to restore IT application and infrastructure services following a disruption. Info-Tech’s Disaster Recovery Planning blueprint provides a methodology for creating the IT DRP. Leverage this blueprint to validate and provide inputs for your IT DRP. |
BCP for Each Business Unit A set of plans to resume business processes for each business unit. Info-Tech’s Develop a Business Continuity Plan blueprint provides a methodology for creating business unit BCPs as part of an overall BCP for the organization. |
Crisis Management Plan A plan to manage a wide range of crises, from health and safety incidents to business disruptions to reputational damage. Info-Tech’s Implement Crisis Management Best Practices blueprint provides a framework for planning a response to any crisis, from health and safety incidents to reputational damage. |
Your Challenge |
Common Obstacles |
Info-Tech’s Approach |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Info-Tech Insight
Asking vendors about their DRP, BCP, and overall resilience has become commonplace. Expect your vendors to provide answers so you can assess risk. Furthermore, your vendor may have additional offerings to increase resilience or recommendations for third parties who can further assist your goals of improving cloud service resilience.
Provide leadership with a summary of cloud risk, downtime workarounds implemented, and additional data protection.

Cloud Services Incident Risk and Mitigation Review Tool Use this tool to gather vendor input, evaluate vendor SLAs and overall resilience, and track your own risk mitigation efforts.
|
SaaS Incident Response Workflows Use the examples in this document as a model to develop your own incident response workflows for cloud outages or data loss.
|
Identify options to mitigate risk
Create an incident response plan
Assess risk
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
|---|---|---|
Assess your cloud risk | Identify options to mitigate risk | Create an incident response plan |
A few cloud outage examples:
Cloud availability
High-level challenges and resilience options:
Plan for resilience
High-level challenges and resilience options:
Note: The rest of this blueprint is focused primarily on SaaS resilience due to the challenges listed here. For other cloud services, leverage traditional DR strategies and vendor management to mitigate risk (as summarized on the previous slides).
The activities on the next two slides will evaluate risk through two approaches:
Activity 1: Estimate potential impact of downtime and data loss to quantify the risk and determine which cloud services are most critical and need to be prioritized. This is done through a business impact analysis that assesses:
|
Activity 2: Review the vendor to identify risks and gaps. Specifically, evaluate the following:
|
1-3 hours

| Materials |
|---|
|
| Participants |
|
1-3 hours
Use the Cloud Services Incident Risk and Mitigation Review Tool as follows:

| Materials |
|---|
|
| Participants |
|
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
|---|---|---|
Assess your cloud risk | Identify options to mitigate risk | Create an incident response plan |
Some SaaS solutions have plenty of resilience options; others not so much
Risk
|
Options to mitigate risk (not an exhaustive list):
|
Risk
| Options to mitigate risk (not an exhaustive list):
|
Example baseline standard for cloud risk mitigation
Embed risk mitigation standards into existing IT operations
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
|---|---|---|
Assess your cloud risk | Identify options to mitigate risk | Create an incident response plan |
1-3 hours
|
Example SaaS Incident Response Workflow Excerpt ![]() |
Materials |
|
||
| Participants | ||
|
If either critical SaaS dependency fails, the following plan is executed:
Criticality justified a failover option
The Annual Day of Giving generates over 50% of fundraising for the year. It’s critically dependent on two SaaS solutions that host the donation page and payment processing.
To mitigate the risk, the organization implemented the ability to failover to an alternate “environment” – much like a traditional DR solution – supported by workarounds to manage data collection.
Daily exports from a SaaS-hosted donations site reduce potential data loss:
Protecting your data gives you options
For critical data, do you want to rely solely on the vendor’s default backup strategy?
If your SaaS vendor is hit by ransomware or if their backup frequency doesn’t meet your needs, having your own data backup gives you options.
It can also support business process workarounds that need to access that data while waiting for SaaS recovery.
To enable a more accurate payroll workaround, the following is done:
BCP can bridge the gap
When leadership looks to IT to mitigate cloud risk, include BCP in the discussion.
Payroll is a good example where the best recovery option might be a business continuity workaround.
IT often still has a role in business continuity workarounds, as in this case study: specifically, providing a solution to modify and convert the payroll data to an ACH file.
1-3 hours
|
Example tabletop planning results excerpt with gaps identified
|
Materials |
|
||
| Participants | ||
|
1-3 hours
|
Cloud Services Resilience Summary – Table of Contents ![]() |
Materials |
|
||
| Participants | ||
|
Get an objective assessment of your DRP program and recommendations for improvement.
Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan
Close the gap between your DR capabilities and service continuity requirements.
Develop a Business Continuity Plan
Streamline the traditional approach to make BCP development manageable and repeatable.
Implement Crisis Management Best Practices
Don’t be another example of what not to do. Implement an effective crisis response plan to minimize the impact on business continuity, reputation, and profitability.
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:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
Research Director
Infrastructure & Operations Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

John Donovan
Principal Research Director
Infrastructure & Operations Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
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:
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:
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.
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.
"Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now."
Source: Alan Lakein, Libquotes
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.
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.
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:
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.
Time seepage
Technical debt
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.
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.

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
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

Initiatives collectively support the business goals and corporate initiatives, and improve the delivery of IT services.
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.
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.
(Source: BMC)
| Business metric | Source(s) | Primary infrastructure drivers | Secondary infrastructure drivers |
|---|---|---|---|
Sales revenue |
Online store |
Website/Server (for digital businesses) |
|
# of new customers |
Call center |
Physical plant cabling in the call center |
|
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.
Mission and Vision Statement
Goal Alignment (Slide 28)
Construct your vision and mission aligned to the business.

Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap tool
Build initiatives and prioritize them. Build the roadmap.

Infrastructure Domain Study
What is stealing your time from getting projects done?

Initiative Templates Process Maps & Strategy
Build templates for initiates, build process map, and develop strategies.


“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.”
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 |
|
|
|
|
| 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 #4: Conduct a spend analysis and a time resource study. |
Call #6: Develop a risk framework and address technical debt. |
Call #10: Identify your audience and communicate. |
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.
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. |
1.1 Infrastructure strategy. 1.2 Business goal alignment |
2.1 Define the future state. 2.2 Analyze your constraints |
3.1 Align the roadmap 3.2 Build the roadmap. |
4.2 Identify the audience 4.2 Improve the process |
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
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:
This phase involves the following participants:
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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step

Use the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template to document the results from the following activities:
A mission statement
"A mission statement focuses on the purpose of the brand; the vision statement looks to the fulfillment of that purpose."
A vision statement
"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
A strong mission statement has the following characteristics:
A strong vision statement has the following characteristics:
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.

Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).
Step 1:
Step 2:
Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).
This step involves reviewing individual mission statements, combining them, and building one collective mission statement for the team.
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.
Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Step 5:
Step 6:
Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Source: Hyper Island
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Strong IT mission statements have the following characteristics:
Sample IT Mission Statements:
Strong IT vision statements have the following characteristics:
Sample IT vision statements:
Quoted From ITtoolkit, 2020
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. |
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
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.
| 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. |
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. |
Source: Hyper Island
Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Quoted From: Office of Information Technology, 2014; Future of CIO, 2013
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.
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?
Input information into the IT Strategy Presentation 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
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:
This step involves the following participants:
"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
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.
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:
External customer examples:
Discussion:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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
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.

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.
When business, IT, and infrastructure goals are aligned, the business story writes itself as you follow the path of cascading goals upward.
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.
Discussion:
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
Output
Materials
Participants
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
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
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.

(Info-Tech, Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy 2022)
Wherever possible use the language of your customers to avoid confusion, but at least ensure that everyone in infrastructure is using a common language.
Discussion:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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 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:
This phase involves the following participants:
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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
"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
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.
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.
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.
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
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 |
Objective: Help teams define their future infrastructure state (assuming zero constraints or limitations).
Discussion:
Download the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Steps:
Discussion:
| Infrastructure Future State Vision | ||
|---|---|---|
| Item | Focus Area | Future Vision |
| 1 | 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
Output
Materials
Participants
Discussion:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
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:

Download the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template slides 21, 22, 23 for sample output.
Beware airline magazine syndrome! |
Symptoms |
Pathology |
|---|---|---|
|
Outbreaks tend to occur in close proximity to
|
Effective treatment options
While no permanent cure exists, regular treatment makes this chronic syndrome manageable.
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!

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.
.
Discussion:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
2.2.1 Historical spend analysis
2.2.2 Conduct a time study
2.2.3 Identify roadblocks
This step requires the following inputs:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
"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 | |
![]() |
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 |
Challenges in IT spend visibility |
|
![]() |
Visibility of all spend data for on-prem, SaaS and cloud environments |
The challenges that keep IT leaders up at night |
|
![]() |
Lack of visibility in resource usage and cost |

Download the Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Analysis Tool
( additional Deep Dive available if required)
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
Download the Infrastructure Roadmap Financial Analysis Tool
( additional Deep Dive available if required)
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 |
||
Verifiable data sources are always preferred but large groups can hold each other's inherent biases in check to get a reasonable estimate.
Discussion
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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.

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.
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:
Organic approach
Practitioners aggregate initiatives into logical groups and seek to align them to one or more business goals.
Roadblocks:
A successful roadmap respects both approaches.

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.
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.
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
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
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
Output
Materials
Participants
Review performance from last fiscal year
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 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:
This phase involves the following participants:
3.1.1 Develop a risk framework
3.1.2 Evaluate technical debt
This step requires the following inputs:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
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
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.
Discussion:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
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
Output
Materials
Participants
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
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
Output
Materials
Participants
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
Output
Materials
Participants



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:
This step involves the following participants:
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:
"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.
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."

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.
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.

Every piece of information that is not directly relevant to the interests of the audience is a distraction from the value proposition.
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
Output
Materials
Participants

Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap Tool, Tab 8, "Roadmap"
Visuals aren't always as clear as we assume them to be.

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?

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
Output
Materials
Participants
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
Output
Materials
Participants
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:
In short, shadow IT can provide fully vetted infrastructure initiatives that with a little effort can be turned into easy wins on the roadmap.
Shadow IT can include business-ready initiatives, needing only minor tweaking to align with infrastructure's best practices.
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
Output
Materials
Participants
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.
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
Output
Materials
Participants
Add your ideas to the visualization.

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 |
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 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:
This phase involves the following participants:
Identify the audience
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:
This step involves the following participants:
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.

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.
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.
Discussion:
How many people appear in both lists? What are the implications of that?
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
| 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:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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.


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:
Input
Output
Materials
Participants
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:
This step involves the following participants:
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.
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.
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
Output
Materials
Participants
| Freq. | Method | Measures | Success criteria | Areas for improvement | Expected change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evaluate intakes | Biannually | PMO Intake & Service Requests | Projects or Initiatives | % of departments engaged | Actively reach out to underrepresented depts. | +10% engagement |
| Assess roadblocks | Quarterly | IT All-Staff Meeting | Roadblocks | % of identified that have been resolved | Define expected outcomes of removing roadblock | Measurable improvements |
| Time study | Quarterly | IT All-Staff Meeting | Time | Confidence value of data | Real data sources (time sheets, tools, etc.) | 85% of sources defensible |
| Legacy asset assessment | Annually | Domain effort | Asset Inventory | Completeness of Inventory |
|
|
| Understand business goals | Annually | Roadmap Meeting | Goal list | Goal specificity | Survey or interview leadership directly | 66% directly attributable participation |
| New technology assessment | Monthly/Annually | Team/Roadmap Meeting | Technologies Reviewed | IT staff participation/# SWOTs | Increase participation from junior members | 50% presentations from junior members |
Initiative review | Quarterly | IT All-Staff Meeting |
|
|
|
|
Initiative creation | Annually | Roadmap Meeting | Initiatives | # of initiatives proposed | Business uptake | +25% sponsorship in 6 months (biz) |
Update and publish | Annually | PDF report | Roadmap Final Report | Leadership engagement | Improve audience reach | +15% of LoB managers have read the report |
Baseline metrics will improve through:
| 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 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.
| 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% |
Review performance from last fiscal year
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
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.
Knowledge gained
Processes optimized
Deliverables completed
If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
"10 Essential KPIs for the IT Strategic Planning Process." Apptio Inc, Dec. 2021. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Amos, Justin. "8 areas your 2022 IT Infrastructure roadmap should cover." Soma, 24 Jan 2022 Accessed Nov. 2022
Ahmed, Anam. "Importance of Mission Vision in Organizational Strategy." Chron, 14 March 2019. Accessed 10 May 2021. ."
Barker, Joel A. "Joel A Barker Quote about Vision." Joel A Barker.com. Accessed 10 Nov 2022
Bhagwat, Swapnil ."Top IT Infrastructure Management Strategies For 2023 , Atlas Systems, 23 Oct 2022. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Blank, Steve. "You're Better Off Being A Fast Follower Than An Originator." Business Insider. 5 Oct. 2010. Web.
Bridges, Jennifer . "IT Risk Management Strategies and Best Practices." Project Manager, 6 Dec 2019. Accessed Nov. 2022.
"Building a Technology Roadmap That Stabilizes and Transforms." Collegis Education. Accessed Dec 2022.
Collins, Gavin. "WHY AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE ROAD MAP?." Fifth Step, Date unknown. Accessed Nov. 2022.
"Define the Business Context Needed to Complete Strategic IT Initiatives: 2018 Blueprint - ResearchAndMarkets.com." Business Wire, 1 Feb. 2018. Accessed 9 June 2021.
De Vos, Colton. “Well-Developed IT Strategic Plan Example." Resolute Tech Solutions, 6 Jan 2020. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Gray, Dave. "Post-Up." Gamestorming, 15 Oct. 2010. Accessed 10 Nov 2022
Helm, Clay. "Majority of Surveyed Companies are Not Prepared for IT Needs of the Future." IBM Study, 4 Jan 2021. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Hertvik, Joe. "8 Components of A Great IT Strategy, BMC Blogs, 29 May. 2020. Accessed Nov. 2022.
ISACA, "Effective governance at your Fingertips". COBIT Framework, Accessed Dec 2022
"IT Guiding Principles." Office of Information Technology, NC State University, 2014-2020. Accessed 9 Nov 2022.
""IT Infrastructure That Makes Employees Happier." Network Doctor, 2021. Accessed Dec 2022
"IT Road mapping Helps Dura Remain at the Forefront of Auto Manufacturing." Performance Improvement Partners, ND. Accessed Dec 2022.
ITtoolkit.com. "The IT Vision: A Strategic Path to Lasting IT Business Alignment." ITtoolkit Magazine, 2020. Accessed 9 June 2021.
Kark, Khalid. "Survey: CIOs Are CEOs' Top Strategic Partner." CIO Journal, The Wall Street Journal, 22 May 2020. Accessed 11 May 2021.
Kimberling, Eric. "What is "Future State" and Why is it Important?" Third Stage Consulting, 11 June 2021. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Kishore. "The True Cost of Keeping the Lights On." Optanix, 1 Feb. 2017. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Lakein, Alan. Libquotes.
Mindsight. "THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO CREATING A TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP" Mind sight, 12 Dec 2021. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Milani, F. (2019). Future State Analysis. In: Digital Business Analysis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05719-0_13
Newberry, Dennis. "Meeting the Challenges of Optimizing IT Cost and Capacity Management." BMC, 2021, Accessed 12 Nov 2022.
Peek, Sean. "What Is a Vision Statement?" Business News Daily, 7 May 2020. Accessed 10 Nov 2022.
Ramos, Diana. "Infrastructure Management 101: A Beginner's Guide to IT Infrastructure Management." Smartsheet.com. 30 Nov 2021. Accessed 09 Dec 2022.
Ramsey, Dave. "Dave Rant: How to Finally Take Control of Your Money." Ramseysolutions. 26 Aug 2021. Accessed 10 Nov 2022.
Richards-Gustafson, Flora. "5 Core Operational Strategies." Chron, 8 Mar 2019. Accessed 9 June 2021.
Richardson, Nigel. "What are the differences between current and future state maps?." Nexus, 18 Oct 2022. Accessed Nov. 2022.
Roush, Joe. "IT Infrastructure Planning: How To Get Started." BMC. 05 January, 2018. Accessed 24 Jan 2023.
Shields, Corey. "A Complete Guide to IT Infrastructure Management." Ntiva, 15 Sept. 2020. Accessed 28 Nov. 2022.
Snow, Shane. "Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success." Harper Business, 2014.
Strohlein, Marc. "The CIO's Guide to Aligning IT Strategy with the Business." IDC, 2019. Accessed Nov 2022.
Sull, Sull, and Yoder. "No One Knows Your Strategy — Not Even Your Top Leaders." MIT Sloan. 12 Feb 2018. Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
"Team Purpose & Culture." Hyper Island. Accessed 10 Nov. 2022
"Tech Spend Pulse, 2022." Flexera, Jan 2022, Accessed 15 Nov 2022
"Tech Spend Pulse." Flexera, Dec. 2022. Accessed Nov. 2022.
"The Definitive Guide to Developing an IT Strategy and Roadmap" CIO Pages.com , 5 Aug 13 2022. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.
Wei, Jessica. "Don't Tell Me Where Your Priorities Are – James W. Frick." Due.com, 21 Mar 2022. Accessed 23 Nov 2022.
Zhu, Pearl. "How to Set Guiding Principles for an IT Organization." Future of CIO, 1 July 2013. Accessed 9 June 2021.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Conduct a market overview, structure the project, and gather requirements.
Analyze and shortlist vendors in the space and select a WEM solution.
Plan the implementation and evaluate project metrics.
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Discuss the general project overview for the WEM selection.
Launch of your WEM selection project.
Development of your organization’s WEM requirements.
1.1 Facilitation of activities from the Launch the WEM Project and Collect Requirements phase, including project scoping and resource planning.
1.2 Conduct overview of the WEM market landscape, trends, and vendors.
1.3 Conduct process mapping for selected marketing processes.
1.4 Interview business stakeholders.
1.5 Prioritize WEM functional requirements.
WEM Procurement Project Charter
WEM Use-Case Fit Assessment
Plan the procurement and the implementation of the WEM solution.
Selection of a WEM solution.
A plan for implementing the selected WEM solution.
2.1 Complete marketing process mapping with business stakeholders.
2.2 Interview IT staff and project team, identify technical requirements for the WEM suite, and document high-level solution requirements.
2.3 Perform a use-case scenario assessment, review use-case scenario results, identify use-case alignment, and review the WEM Vendor Landscape vendor profiles and performance.
2.4 Create a custom vendor shortlist and investigate additional vendors for exploration in the marketplace.
2.5 Meet with project manager to discuss results and action items.
Vendor Shortlist
WEM RFP
Vendor Evaluations
Selection of a WEM Solution
WEM projected work break-down
Implementation plan
Framework for WEM deployment and CRM/Marketing Management Suite Integration
The far-reaching impact of generative AI across various sectors presents fresh prospects for organizations to capitalize on and novel challenges to address as they chart their path for the future. AI is more than just a fancy auto-complete. At this point it may look like that, but do not underestimate the evolutive power.
In this year's Tech Trends report, we explore three key developments to capitalize on these opportunities and three strategies to minimize potential risks.
As AI transforms industries and business processes, IT and business leaders must adopt a deliberate and strategic approach across six key domains to ensure their success.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand the need for a DPO and what qualities to look for in a strong candidate.
Understand your data retention requirements under the GDPR. Develop the necessary documentation.
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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Build and manage the stakeholder team, and then document the business use case.
Redline the proposed SaaS contract.
Create a thorough negotiation plan.
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Assemble documentation.
Understand current position before going forward.
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.
Business Use Case.
Define the business use case and build a stakeholder team.
Create a business use case to document functional and non-functional requirements.
Build an internal cross-functional stakeholder team to negotiate the contract.
2.1 Establish a negotiation team and define roles.
2.2 Write a communication plan.
2.3 Complete a business use case.
RASCI Matrix
Communications Plan
SaaS TCO Calculator
Business Use Case
Examine terms and conditions and prioritize for negotiation.
Discover cost savings.
Improve agreement terms.
Prioritize terms for negotiation.
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.
SaaS Terms and Conditions Evaluation Tool
SaaS Contract Negotiation Terms Prioritization Checklist
Create a negotiation strategy.
Controlled communication established.
Negotiation tactics chosen.
Negotiation timeline plotted.
4.1 Review vendor and application specific negotiation tactics.
4.2 Build negotiation strategy.
Contract Negotiation Tactics Playbook
Controlled Vendor Communications Letter
Key Vendor Fiscal Year End Calendar
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This blueprint will help you build a business case for selecting the right CRM platform, defining key requirements, and conducting a thorough analysis and scan of the ever-evolving CRM market space.
Having a sound business case is essential for succeeding with a CRM. This template will allow you to document key drivers and impact, in line with the CRM Platform Selection Guide blueprint.
Create your own request for proposal (RFP) for your customer relationship management (CRM) solution procurement process by customizing the RFP template created by Info-Tech.
The CRM market has many strong contenders and differentiation may be difficult. Instead of relying solely on reputation, organizations can use this RFP tool to record and objectively compare vendors according to their specific requirements.
Use this template to support your business's evaluation of vendors and their solutions. Provide vendors with scenarios that prompt them to display not only their solution's capabilities, but also how the tool will support your organization's particular needs.
Use this tool to help build a CRM strategy for the organization based on the specific use case that matches your organizational needs.
Modern CRM platforms are the workhorses that provide functional capabilities and data curation for customer experience management. The market for CRM platforms has seen an explosion of growth over the last five years, as organizations look to mature their ability to deliver strong capabilities across marketing, sales, and customer service.
IT needs to be a trusted partner in CRM selection and implementation, but the business also needs to own the requirements and be involved from the get-go.
CRM selection must be a multistep process that involves defining target capabilities for marketing, sales, and customer service, prioritizing requirements across functional categories, determining the architecture model for the CRM environment, and developing a comprehensive RFP that can be scored in a weighted fashion.
To succeed with CRM implementation, create a detailed roadmap that outlines milestones for configuration, security, points of implementation, data migration, training, and ongoing application maintenance.
|
Ben Dickie
Research Lead, Customer Experience Strategy Info-Tech Research Group |
| Your Challenge
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suites are an indispensable part of a holistic strategy for managing end-to-end customer interactions. Selecting the right platform that aligns with your requirements is a significant undertaking. After defining an approach to CRM, selection and implementation of the right CRM suite is a critical step in delivering concrete business value for marketing, sales, and customer service. |
Common Obstacles
Despite the importance of CRM selection and implementation, many organizations struggle to define an approach to picking the right vendor and rolling out the solution in an effective and cost-efficient manner. The CRM market is rapidly evolving and changing, making it tricky to stay on top of the space. IT often finds itself in the unenviable position of taking the fall for CRM platforms that don’t deliver on the promise of the CRM strategy. |
Info-Tech’s Approach
CRM platform selection must be driven by your overall customer experience management strategy: link your CRM selection to your organization’s CXM framework. Determine if you need a CRM platform that skews toward marketing, sales, or customer service; leverage use cases to help guide selection. Ensure strong points of integration between CRM and other software such as MMS. A CRM should not live in isolation; it must provide a 360-degree view. |
IT must work in lockstep with its counterparts in marketing, sales, and customer service to define a unified vision for the CRM platform.
| 1. Understand CRM Features | 2. Build the Business Case & Elicit CRM Requirements | 3. Discover the CRM Market Space & Prepare for Implementation | |
| Phase Steps |
|
|
|
| Phase Outcomes |
|
|
|
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
The CRM purchase process should be broken into segments:
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?
Phase 1 |
Phase 2 |
Phase 3 |
| Call #1: Understand what a CRM platform is and the “art of the possible” for sales, marketing, and customer service. | Call #2: Build the business case to select a CRM.
Call #3: Define your key CRM requirements. Call #4: Build procurement items such as an RFP. |
Call #5: Evaluate the CRM solution landscape and shortlist viable options.
Call #6: Review implementation considerations. |
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 |
|||
| Our Definition: A customer relationship management (CRM) platform (or suite) is a core enterprise application that provides a broad feature set for supporting customer interaction processes, typically across marketing, sales and customer service. These suites supplant more basic applications for customer interaction management (such as the contact management module of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform or office productivity suite). A customer relationship management suite provides many key capabilities, including but not limited to:
A CRM suite provides a host of native capabilities, but many organizations elect to tightly integrate their CRM solution with other parts of their customer experience ecosystem to provide a 360-degree view of their customers. | ![]() Info-Tech InsightCRM feature sets are rapidly evolving. Focus on the social component of sales, marketing, and service management features, as well as collaboration, to get the best fit for your requirements. Moreover, consider investing in best-of-breed social media management platforms (SMMPs) and internal collaboration tools to ensure sufficient functionality. |
Build a cohesive CRM selection approach that aligns business goals with CRM capabilities.Info-Tech InsightCustomers expect to interact with organizations through the channels of their choice. Now more than ever, you must enable your organization to provide tailored customer experiences. | Customer expectations are on the rise: meet them!A CRM platform is a crucial system for enabling good customer experiences.CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS EVOLVING
(Source: Forbes, 2019) |
| Identifying organizational objectives of high priority will assist in breaking down business needs and CRM objectives. This exercise will better align the CRM systems with the overall corporate strategy and achieve buy-in from key stakeholders. |
A strong CRM platform supports a range of organizational objectives for customer engagement.
|
The metrics of a smooth CRM selection and implementation process include:
|
A successful CRM deployment drives revenue…
|
A successful CRM deployment decreases cost…
|
Customer Experience Management (CXM) Portfolio |
Customer relationship management platforms are increasingly expansive in functional scope and foundational to an organization’s customer engagement strategy. Indeed, CRMs form the centerpiece for a comprehensive CXM system, alongside tools such as customer intelligence platforms and adjacent point solutions for sales, marketing, and customer service.
Review Info-Tech’s CXM blueprint below to build a complete, end-to-end customer interaction solution portfolio that encompasses CRM alongside other critical components. The CXM blueprint also allows you to develop strategic requirements for CRM based on customer personas and external market analysis. Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management
|
|
Eighty percent of organizations are more satisfied after changing their software vendor. |
|
|
Over half of organizations are 60%+ more satisfied after changing their vendor. (Source: Info-Tech Research Group, "Switching Software Vendors Overwhelmingly Drives Increased Satisfaction", 2020.) |
IT is critical to the success of your CRM selection and rolloutToday’s shared digital landscape of the CIO and CMO | Info-Tech InsightTechnology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences: IT must stand shoulder to shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for customer relationship management. |
| CIO
IT Operations Service Delivery and Management IT Support IT Systems and Application IT Strategy and Governance Cybersecurity |
Collaboration and Partnership
Digital Strategy = Transformation Customer Experience Insight (Market Facing) Marketing Integration + Operating Model Customer | Audience | Industry | Digital Marketing Assets |
CMO
PEO Media Brand Management Campaign Management Marketing Tech Marketing Ops Privacy, Trust, and Regulatory Requirements |
(Source: ZDNet, 2020)
1/3Statistical analysis of CRM projects indicates failures vary from 18% to 69%. Taking an average of those analyst reports, about one-third of CRM projects are considered a failure. (Source: CIO Magazine, 2017) |
92%92% of organizations report that CRM use is important for accomplishing revenue objectives. (Source: Hall, 2020) |
40%In 2019, 40% of executives name customer experience the top priority for their digital transformation. (Source: CRM Magazine, 2019) |
Case StudyAlign strategy and technology to meet consumer demand. |
|
INDUSTRY
|
SOURCE
|
| Challenge
Beginning as a mail-out service, Netflix offered subscribers a catalog of videos to select from and have mailed to them directly. Customers no longer had to go to a retail store to rent a video. However, the lack of immediacy of direct mail as the distribution channel resulted in slow adoption. Blockbuster was the industry leader in video retail but was lagging in its response to industry, consumer, and technology trends around customer experience. |
Solution
In response to the increasing presence of tech-savvy consumers on the internet, Netflix invested in developing its online platform as its primary distribution channel. The benefit of doing so was two-fold: passive brand advertising (by being present on the internet) and meeting customer demands for immediacy and convenience. Netflix also recognized the rising demand for personalized service and created an unprecedented, tailored customer experience. |
Results
Netflix’s disruptive innovation is built on the foundation of great customer experience management. Netflix is now a $28-billion company, which is tenfold what Blockbuster was worth. Netflix used disruptive technologies to innovatively build a customer experience that put it ahead of the long-time video rental industry leader, Blockbuster. |
| Phase 1
1.1 Define CRM platforms 1.2 Classify table stakes & differentiating capabilities 1.3 Explore CRM trends |
Phase 2
2.1 Build the business case 2.2 Streamline requirements elicitation for CRM 2.3 Construct the RFP |
Phase 3
3.1 Discover key players in the CRM landscape 3.2 Engage the shortlist & select finalist 3.3 Prepare for implementation |
| Lead Management | Pipeline Management | Contact Management | Campaign Management | Customer Service Management |
|
|
|
|
|
Identify differentiating CRM featuresWhile not always “must-have” functionality, these features may be the final dealbreaker when deciding between two CRM vendors.
|
|
| 50% of organizations believe the quality of their CRM data is “very poor” or “neutral.”
Without addressing data governance issues, CRMs will only be as good as your data. Source: (Validity 2020) |
27% of organizations report that bad data costs them 10% or more in lost revenue annually. |
| 42% rate the trust that users have in their data as “high” or “very high.” | |
| 54% believe that sales forecasts are accurate or very accurate. | |
| 69% attribute poor CRM governance to missing or incomplete data, followed by duplicate data, incorrect data, and expired data. Other data issues include siloed data or disparate systems. | |
| 73% believe that they do not have a 360-degree view of their customers. |
| Holistically examine the potential of any CRM solution through three main lenses: |
SalesIdentify sales opportunities through recording customers’ interactions, generating leads, nurturing contacts, and forecasting revenues. |
MarketingAnalyze customer interactions to identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities, drive customer loyalty, and use customer data for targeted campaigns. |
Customer ServiceImprove and optimize customer engagement and retention, leveraging customer data to provide round-the-clock omnichannel experiences. |
|
TRACK PROSPECT INTERACTIONS |
Want to engage with a prospect but don’t know what to lead with? CRM solutions can track and analyze many of the interactions a prospect has with your organization, including with fellow staff, their clickthrough rate on marketing material, and what services they are downloading on your website. This information can then auto-generate tasks to begin lead generation. |
COORDINATE LEAD SCORING |
Information captured from a prospect is generated into contact cards; missing data (such as name and company) can be auto-captured by the CRM via crawling sites such as LinkedIn. The CRM then centralizes and scores (according to inputted business rules) a lead’s potential, ensuring sales teams coordinate and keep a track of the lead’s journey without wrongful interference. | |
AI-DRIVEN REVENUE FORECASTING |
Generate accurate forecasting reports using AI-driven “virtual assistants” within the CRM platform. These assistants are personal data scientists, quickly noting discrepancies, opportunities, and what-if scenarios – tasks that might take weeks to do manually. This pulled data is then auto-forecasted, with the ability to flexibly adjust to real-time data. |
|
DRIVE LOYALTY |
Data captured and analyzed in the CRM from customer interactions builds profiles and a deeper understanding of customers’ interests. With this data, marketing teams can deliver personalized promotions and customer service to enhance loyalty – from sending a discount on a product the customer was browsing on the website, to providing notifications about delivery statuses. |
AUTOMATE WORKFLOWS |
Building customer profiles, learning spending habits, and charting a customer’s journey for upselling or cross-selling can be automated through workflows, saving hours of manual work. These workflows can immediately respond to customer enquiries or deliver offers to the customer’s preferred channel based on their prior usage. | |
TARGETED CAMPAIGNING |
Information attained through a CRM platform directly informs any marketing strategy: identifying customer segments, spending habits, building a better product based on customer feedback, and identifying high-spending customers. With any new product or offering, it is straightforward for marketing teams to understand where to target their next campaign for highest impact. |
|
OMNICHANNEL SUPPORT |
Rapidly changing demographics and modes of communications require an evolution toward omnichannel engagement. Many customers now expect to communicate with contact centers not just by voice, but via social media. Agents need customer information synced across each channel they use, meeting the customer’s needs where they are. |
INTELLIGENT SELF-SERVICE PORTALS |
Customers want their issues resolved as quickly as possible. Machine-learning self-service options deliver personalized customer experiences, which also reduce both agent call volume and support costs for the organization. | |
LEVERAGING ANALYTICS |
The future of customer service is tied up with analytics. This not only entails AI-driven capabilities that fetch the agent relevant information, skills-based routing, and using biometric data (e.g. speech) for security. It also feeds operations leaders’ need for easy access to real insights about how their customers and agents are doing. |
Best-of-Breed Point Solutions |
Full CRM Suite |
||
|
Benefits
|
Benefits
|
|
|
Challenges
|
Challenges
|
|
Even if a suite is missing a potential module, the proliferation of app extensions, integrations, and services could provide a solution. Salesforce’s AppExchange, for instance, offers a plethora of options to extend its CRM solution – from telephony integration, to gamification.
| Phase 1 1.1 Define CRM platforms 1.2 Classify table stakes & differentiating capabilities 1.3 Explore CRM trends | Phase 2 2.1 Build the business case 2.2 Streamline requirements elicitation for CRM 2.3 Construct the RFP | Phase 3 3.1 Discover key players in the CRM landscape 3.2 Engage the shortlist & select finalist 3.3 Prepare for implementation |
Full-Time Resourcing: At least one of these five team members must be allocated to the selection initiative as a full-time resource.
IT Leader |
Technical Lead |
Business Analyst/
|
Business Lead |
Process Expert(s) |
| This team member is an IT director or CIO who will provide sponsorship and oversight from the IT perspective. | This team member will focus on application security, integration, and enterprise architecture. | This team member elicits business needs and translates them into technology requirements. | This team member will provide sponsorship from the business needs perspective. Typically, a CMO or SVP of sales. | These team members are the sales, marketing, and service process owners who will help steer the CRM requirements and direction. |
It is critical for the selection team to determine who has decision rights. Organizational culture will play the largest role in dictating which team member holds the final say for selection decisions. For more information on stakeholder management and involvement, see this guide.
|
Alignment
Alignment to strategic goals is always important, but that is especially true with CRM because customer relationship management platforms are at the intersection of your organization and your customers. What are the strategic marketing, sales and customer service goals that you want to realize (in whole or in part) by improving your CRM ecosystem? Impact to your businessIdentify areas where your customers may be impacted by poor experiences due to inadequate or aging technology. What’s the impact on customer retention? On revenue? Impact to your organizationDefine how internal stakeholders within the organization are impacted by a sub-optimal CRM experience – what are their frustrations and pain points? How do issues with your current CRM environment prevent teams in sales, marketing, or service from doing their jobs? Impact to your departmentDescribe the challenges within IT of using disparate systems, workarounds, poor data and reporting, lack of automation, etc., and the effect these challenges have on IT’s goals. |
| Corporate Strategy | Unified Strategy | CRM Strategy |
|
||
Your corporate strategy:
|
|
Your CRM strategy:
|
Input: Corporate strategy, Target key performance indicators, End-user satisfaction results (if applicable)
Output: Prioritized list of goals with milestones that can be met with a new or improved CRM solution
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, CRM Business Case Template
Participants: CIO, Application managers, CMO/SVP sales, Marketing, sales or service SMEs
Download the CRM Business Case Template and record the outputs of this exercise in the strategic business goals, business drivers, and technical drivers slides.
1. |
Lack of a flexible, configurable customer data model that supports complex relationships between accounts and contacts. |
2. |
Lack of a flexible, configurable customer data model that supports complex relationships between accounts and contacts. |
3. |
Lack of meaningful reports and useable dashboards, or difficulty in surfacing them. |
4. |
Poor change enablement resulting in business interruptions. |
5. |
Inability to effectively automate routine sales, marketing, or service tasks at scale via a workflow tool. |
6. |
Lack of proper service management features, such as service knowledge management. |
7. |
Inability to ingest customer data at scale (for example, no ability to automatically log e-mails or calls). |
8. |
Major technical deficiencies and outages – the incumbent CRM platform goes down, causing business disruption. |
9. |
The platform itself doesn’t exist in the current state – everything is done in Microsoft Excel! |
|
|
||||||||
Switching vendors won’t improve poor internal processes. To be fully successful and meet the goals of the business case, new software implementations must be accompanied by process review and improvement.
1-2 hours
Input: Goals lists, Target key performance indicators, End-user satisfaction results (if applicable)
Output: Prioritized list of challenges preventing or hindering customer experiences
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, CRM Business Case Template
Participants: CIO, Application managers, CMO/SVP sales, Marketing, sales, or service SMEs
Download the CRM Business Case Template and document the outputs of this exercise in the current-state section of your business case.
CRM solutions include application costs and costs to design processes, install, and configure. These start-up costs can be a significant factor in whether the initial purchase is feasible.
Download the blueprint Improve Your Statements of Work to Hold Your Vendors Accountable to define requirements for installation and configuration. |
Bring in the right resources to guarantee success. Work with the PMO or project manager to get help with creating the SOW.
60% of IT projects are NOT finished “mostly or always” on time (Wellingtone, 2018). 55% of IT personnel feel that the business objectives of their software projects are clear to them (Geneca, 2017). |
The business case should account for the timing of both expenditures and benefits. It is naïve to expect straight-line benefit realization or a big-bang cash outflow related to the solution implementation. Proper recognition and articulation of ramp-up time will make your business case more convincing.
Make sure your timelines are realistic for benefits realization, as these will be your project milestones and your metrics for success.
Example:| Q1-Q2 | Q3-Q6 | Q6 Onwards |
Benefits at 25%At the early stages of an implementation, users are still learning the new system and go-live issues are being addressed. Most of the projected process improvements are likely to be low, zero, or even negative. |
Benefits at 75%Gradually, as processes become more familiar, an organization can expect to move closer to realizing the forecasted benefits or at least be in a position to recognize a positive trend toward their realization. |
Benefits at 100%In an ideal world, all projected benefits are realized at 100% or higher. This can be considered the stage where processes have been mastered, the system is operating smoothly, and change has been broadly adopted. In reality, benefits are often overestimated. |
Costs at 50%As with benefits, some costs may not kick in until later in the process or when the application is fully operational. In the early phases of implementation, factor in the cost of overlapping technology where you’ll need to run redundant systems and transition any data. |
Costs at 100%Costs are realized quicker than benefits as implementation activities are actioned, licensing and maintenance costs are introduced, and resourcing is deployed to support vendor activities internally. Costs that were not live in the early stages are an operational reality at this stage. |
Costs at 100%+Costs can be expected to remain relatively static past a certain point, if estimates accurately represented all costs. In many instances, costs can exceed original estimates in the business case, where costs were either underestimated, understated, or missed. |
Input: Quotes with payment schedule, Budget
Output: Estimated payment schedule and cost breakdown
Materials: Spreadsheet or whiteboard, CRM Business Case Template
Participants: CIO, Application managers, CMO/SVP sales, Marketing, sales, or service SMEs
Download the CRM Business Case Template and document the outputs of this exercise in the current-state section of your business case.
| Risk Criteria | Relevant Questions |
| Timeline Uncertainty |
|
| Success of Similar Projects |
|
| Certainty of Forecasts |
|
| Chance of Cost Overruns |
|
| Resource Availability |
|
| Change During Delivery |
|
1-2 hours
Input: List of goals and challenges, Target key performance indicators
Output: Prioritized list of challenges preventing or hindering improvements for the IT teams
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, CRM Business Case Template
Participants: CIO, Application managers, CMO/SVP sales, Marketing, sales, or service SMEs
Download the CRM Business Case Template and document the outputs of this exercise in the risk and dependency section of your business case. If the risk assessment needs to be more complex, complete the Risk Indicator Analysis in Info-Tech’s Business Case Workbook.
Add to your business case by identifying which top-level use cases will meet your goals.Examples of target use cases for a CRM project include:
Info-Tech InsightLead with the most important benefit and consider the timeline. Can you reach that goal and report success to your stakeholders within the first year? As you look toward that one-year goal, you can consider secondary benefits, some of which may be opportunities to bring early value in the solution. | Benefits of a successful deployment of use cases will include:
Typically, we see business benefits in this order of importance. Lead with the outcome that is most important to your stakeholders.
|
| Best of breed vs. “good enough” is an important discussion and will feed your success.
Costs can be high when customizing an ill-fitting module or creating workarounds to solve business problems, including loss of functionality, productivity, and credibility.
|
Pros and Cons
|
1-2 hours
Input: List of goals and challenges
Output: Use cases to be used for determining requirements
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, CRM Business Case Template
Participants: CIO, Application managers, CMO/SVP sales, Marketing, sales, or service SMEs
Download the CRM Business Case Template and document the outputs from this exercise in the current-state section of your business case.
Sales
|
Marketing
|
Customer Service
|
Use your understanding of the CRM use case to accelerate the vendor shortlisting process. Since the CRM use case has a direct impact on the prioritization of a platform’s features and capabilities, you can rapidly eliminate vendors from contention or designate superfluous modules as out-of-scope.
Input: Understanding of business objectives for CRM project, Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool
Output: Use-case suitability
Materials: Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool
Participants: Core project team, Project managers
Download the CRM Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool
Once you’ve identified the top-level use cases a CRM must support, elicit, and prioritize granular platform requirements.Understanding business needs through requirements gathering is the key to defining everything about what is being purchased, yet it is an area where people often make critical mistakes. | Info-Tech InsightTo avoid creating makeshift solutions, an organization needs to gather requirements with the desired future state in mind. |
Risks of poorly scoped requirements
|
Best practices
|
| Prioritization is the process of ranking each requirement based on its importance to project success. Hold a meeting for the domain SMEs, implementation SMEs, project managers, and project sponsors to prioritize the requirements list. At the conclusion of the meeting, each requirement should be assigned a priority level. The implementation SMEs will use these priority levels to ensure efforts are targeted toward the proper requirements and to plan features available on each release. Use the MoSCoW Model of Prioritization to effectively order requirements. |
|
The MoSCoW Model of Prioritization
Requirements must be implemented for the solution to be considered successful. Requirements that are high priority should be included in the solution if possible. Requirements are desirable but not necessary and could be included if resources are available. Requirements won’t be in the next release, but will be considered for the future releases. |
Criteria |
Description |
| Regulatory & Legal Compliance | These requirements will be considered mandatory. |
| Policy Compliance | Unless an internal policy can be altered or an exception can be made, these requirements will be considered mandatory. |
| Business Value Significance | Give a higher priority to high-value requirements. |
| Business Risk | Any requirement with the potential to jeopardize the entire project should be given a high priority and implemented early. |
| Likelihood of Success | Especially in “proof of concept” projects, it is recommended that requirements have good odds. |
| Implementation Complexity | Give a higher priority to low implementation difficulty requirements. |
| Alignment With Strategy | Give a higher priority to requirements that enable the corporate strategy. |
| Urgency | Prioritize requirements based on time sensitivity. |
| Dependencies | A requirement on its own may be low priority, but if it supports a high-priority requirement, then its priority must match it. |
1-2 hours
Input: List of goals and challenges
Output: Use cases to be used for determining requirements
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Vendor Evaluation Workbook
Participants: CIO, Application managers, CMO/SVP sales, Marketing, sales, or service SMEs
Our Improve Requirements Gathering blueprint provides a deep dive into the process of eliciting, analyzing, and validating requirements if you need to go deeper into effective techniques.
| Account Management | Flexible account database that stores customer information, account history, and billing information. Additional functionality includes: contact deduplication, advanced field management, document linking, and embedded maps. |
| Interaction Logging and Order History | Ability to view all interactions that have occurred between sales teams and the customer, including purchase order history. |
| Basic Pipeline Management | View of all opportunities organized by their current stage in the sales process. |
| Basic Case Management | The ability to create and manage cases (for customer service or order fulfilment) and associate them with designated accounts or contacts. |
| Basic Campaign Management | Basic multi-channel campaign management (i.e. ability to execute outbound email campaigns). Budget tracking and campaign dashboards. |
| Reports and Analytics | In-depth reports on CRM data with dashboards and analytics for a variety of audiences. |
| Mobile Support | Mobile access across multiple devices (tablets, smartphones and/or wearables) with access to CRM data and dashboards. |
| Customer Information Management | Customizable records with detailed demographic information and the ability to created nested accounts (accounts with associated sub-accounts or contact records). |
| Advanced Case Management | Ability to track detailed interactions with members or constituents through a case view. |
| Employee Collaboration | Capabilities for employee-to-employee collaboration, team selling, and activity streams. |
| Customer Collaboration | Capabilities for outbound customer collaboration (i.e. the ability to create customer portals). |
| Lead Generation | Capabilities for generating qualified leads from multiple channels. |
| Lead Nurturing/Lead Scoring | The ability to evaluate lead warmth using multiple customer-defined criteria. |
| Pipeline and Deal Management | Managing deals through cases, providing quotes, and tracking client deliverables. |
| Marketing Campaign Management | Managing outbound marketing campaigns via multiple channels (email, phone, social, mobile). |
| Customer Intelligence | Tools for in-depth customer insight generation and segmentation, predictive analytics, and contextual analytics. |
| Multi-Channel Support | Capabilities for supporting customer interactions across multiple channels (email, phone, social, mobile, IoT, etc.). |
| Customer Service Workflow Management | Capabilities for customer service resolution, including ticketing and service management. |
| Knowledge Management | Tools for capturing and sharing CRM-related knowledge, especially for customer service. |
| Customer Journey Mapping | Visual workflow builder with automated trigger points and business rules engine. |
| Document Management | The ability to curate assets and attachments and add them to account or contact records. |
| Configure, Price, Quote | The ability to create sales quotes/proposals from predefined price lists and rules. |
Need additional guidance on running an effective RFP process? Our Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes with a Robust RFP Process has everything you need to ace the creation, administration and assessment of RFPs! |
Download the CRM Request for Proposal Template Download the CRM Suite Evaluation and RFP Scoring Tool |
Public Sector
|
Education
|
Financial Services
|
Vertical-specific solutions require less legwork to do upfront but could cost you more in the long run. Interoperability and vendor viability must be carefully examined. Smaller players targeting niche industries often have limited integration ecosystems and less funding to keep pace with feature innovation.
Stretching the CRM beyond its core capabilities is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Educate stakeholders about the limits of CRM technology.
Common pitfalls for CRM selection
Keeping stakeholders engaged and in line
|
|
| Phase 1 1.1 Define CRM platforms 1.2 Classify table stakes & differentiating capabilities 1.3 Explore CRM trends | Phase 2 2.1 Build the business case 2.2 Streamline requirements elicitation for CRM 2.3 Construct the RFP | Phase 3 3.1 Discover key players in the CRM landscape 3.2 Engage the shortlist & select finalist 3.3 Prepare for implementation |
Consolidating the Vendor Shortlist Up-Front Reduces Downstream EffortPut the “short” back in shortlist!
|
|
Next steps will include:
|
|
The proceeding slides provide a top-level overview of the popular players you will encounter in the CRM shortlisting process.
SoftwareReviews |
||
|
|
The Data Quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions.
Vendors are ranked by their Composite Score, based on individual feature evaluations, user satisfaction rankings, vendor capability comparisons, and likeliness to recommend the platform. |
|
|
The Emotional Footprint is a powerful indicator of overall user sentiment toward the relationship with the vendor, capturing data across five dimensions.
Vendors are ranked by their Customer Experience (CX) Score, which combines the overall Emotional Footprint rating with a measure of the value delivered by the solution. |
SoftwareReviews | ||
|
| CLICK HERE to ACCESSComprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisionsWe collect and analyze the most detailed reviews on enterprise software from real users to give you an unprecedented view into the product and vendor before you buy. |
|
| |
Technology coverage is a priority for Info-Tech, and SoftwareReviews provides the most comprehensive unbiased data on today’s technology. Combined with the insights of our expert analysts, our members receive unparalleled support in their buying journey.
Est. 1999 | CA, USA | NYSE: CRM |
SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
“Salesforce is the pre-eminent vendor in the CRM marketplace and is a force to be reckoned with in terms of the breadth and depth of its capabilities. The company was an early disruptor in the category, placing a strong emphasis from the get-go on a SaaS delivery model and strong end-user experience. This allowed them to rapidly gain market share at the expense of more complacent enterprise application vendors. A series of savvy acquisitions over the years has allowed Salesforce to augment their core Sales and Service Clouds with a wide variety of other solutions, from e-commerce to marketing automation to CPQ. Salesforce is a great fit for any organization looking to partner with a market leader with excellent functional breadth, strong interoperability, and a compelling technology and partner ecosystem. All of this comes at a price, however – Salesforce prices at a premium, and our members routinely opine that Salesforce’s commercial teams are overly aggressive – sometimes pushing solutions without a clear link to underpinning business requirements.” Ben Dickie
|
![]()
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| ||||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a strong and compelling player in the CRM arena. While Microsoft is no stranger to the CRM space, their offerings here have seen steady and marked improvement over the last five years. Good functional breadth paired with a modern user interface and best-in-class Microsoft stack compatibility ensures that we consistently see them on our members’ shortlists, particularly when our members are looking to roll out CRM capabilities alongside other components of the Dynamics ecosystem (such as Finance, Operations, and HR). Today, Microsoft segments the offering into discrete modules for sales, service, marketing, commerce, and CDP. While Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a strong option, it’s occasionally mired by concerns that the pace of innovation and investment lags Salesforce (its nearest competitor). Additionally, the marketing module of the product is softer than some of its competitors, and Microsoft themselves points organizations with complex marketing requirements to a strategic partnership that they have with Adobe.” Ben Dickie
|
![]()
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| ||||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“Oracle is long-term juggernaut of the enterprise applications space. Their CRM portfolio is diverse – rather than a single stack, there are multiple Oracle solutions (many made by acquisition) that support CRM capabilities – everything from Siebel to JD Edwards to NetSuite to Oracle CX applications. The latter constitute Oracle’s most modern stab at CRM and are where the bulk of feature innovation and product development is occurring within their portfolio. While historically seen as lagging behind other competitors like Salesforce and Microsoft, Oracle has made excellent strides in improving their user experience (via their Redwoods design paradigm) and building new functional capabilities within their CRM products. Indeed, SoftwareReviews shows Oracle performing well in our most recent peer-driven reports. Nonetheless, we most commonly see Oracle as a pricier ecosystem play that’s often subordinate to a heavy Oracle footprint for ERP. Many of our members also express displeasure with Oracle as a vendor and highlight their heavy-handed “threat of audit” approach. ” Ben Dickie
Oracle CX Sales - Pricing Opaque: “Request a Demo” |
![]()
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| ||||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“SAP is another mainstay of the enterprise applications market. While they have a sound breadth of capabilities in the CRM and customer experience space, SAP consistently underperforms in many of our relevant peer-driven SoftwareReviews reports for CRM and adjacent areas. CRM seems decidedly a secondary focus for SAP, behind their more compelling play in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) space. Indeed, most instances where we see SAP in our clients’ shortlists, it’s as an ecosystem play within a broader SAP strategy. If you’re blue on the ERP side, looking to SAP’s capabilities on the CRM front makes logical sense and can help contain costs. If you’re approaching a CRM selection from a greenfield lens and with no legacy vendor baggage for SAP elsewhere, experience suggests you’ll be better served by a vendor that places a higher degree of primacy on the CRM aspect of their portfolio.” Ben Dickie
SAP CRM - Pricing Opaque: “Request a Demo” |
![]()
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| ||||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“A relatively new offering, Pipedrive has seen explosive growth over the last five years. They’re a vendor that has gone from near-obscurity to popping up frequently on our members’ shortlists. Pipedrive’s secret sauce has been a relentless focus on high-velocity sales enablement. Their focus on pipeline management, lead assessment and routing, and a good single pane of glass for sales reps has driven significant traction for the vendor when sales enablement is the driving rationale behind rolling out a new CRM platform. Bang for your buck is also strong with Pipedrive, with the vendor having a value-driven licensing and implementation model. Pipedrive is not without some shortcomings. It’s laser-focus on sales enablement is at the expense of deep capabilities for marketing and service management, and its profile lends itself better to SMBs and lower midmarket than it does large organizations looking for enterprise-grade CRM.” Ben Dickie
|
![]()
|
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| |||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“SugarCRM offers reliable baseline capabilities at a lower price point than other large CRM vendors. While SugarCRM does not offer all the bells and whistles that an Enterprise Salesforce plan might, SugarCRM is known for providing excellent vendor support. If your organization is only after standard features, SugarCRM will be a good vendor to shortlist. However, ensure you have the time and labor power to effectively implement and train on SugarCRM’s solutions. SugarCRM does not score highly for user-friendly experiences, with complaints centering on outdated and unintuitive interfaces. Setting up customized modules takes time to navigate, and SugarCRM does not provide a wide range of native integrations with other applications. To effectively determine whether SugarCRM does offer a feasible solution, it is recommended that organizations know exactly what kinds of integrations and modules they need.” Thomas Randall
|
![]()
|
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| |||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“ HubSpot is best suited for small to mid-sized organizations that need a range of CRM tools to enable growth across sales, marketing campaigns, and customer service. Indeed, HubSpot offers a content management solution that offers a central storage location for all customer and marketing data. Moreover, HubSpot offers plenty of freemium tools for users to familiarize themselves with the software before buying. However, though HubSpot is geared toward growing businesses, smaller organizations may not see high ROI until they begin to scale. The “Starter” and “Professional” plans’ pricing is often cited by small organizations as a barrier to commitment, and the freemium tools are not a sustainable solution. If organizations can take advantage of discount behaviors from HubSpot (e.g. a startup discount), HubSpot will be a viable long-term solution. ” Thomas Randall
|
![]()
|
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| |||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“Zoho has a long list of software solutions for businesses to run end to end. As one of Zoho’s earliest software releases, though, ZohoCRM remains a flagship product. ZohoCRM’s pricing is incredibly competitive for mid/large enterprises, offering high business value for its robust feature sets. For those organizations that already utilize Zoho solutions (such as its productivity suite), ZohoCRM will be a natural extension. However, small/mid-sized businesses may wonder how much ROI they can get from ZohoCRM, when much of the functionality expected from a CRM (such as workflow automation) cannot be found until one jumps to the “Enterprise” plan. Given the “Enterprise” plan’s pricing is on par with other CRM vendors, there may not be much in a smaller organization’s eyes that truly distinguishes ZohoCRM unless they are already invested Zoho users.” Thomas Randall
|
![]()
|
| SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM RankingsStrengths:
Areas to Improve:
| |||||||||||
![]() |
| ||||||||||||
![]() | ![]() | ||||||||||||
|
“Zendesk’s initial growth was grounded in word-of-mouth advertising, owing to the popularity of its help desk solution’s design and functionality. Zendesk Sell has followed suit, receiving strong feedback for the breadth and quality of its features. Organizations that have already reaped the benefits of Zendesk’s customer service suite will find Zendesk Sell a straightforward fit for their sales teams. However, it is important to note that Zendesk Sell is predominantly focused on sales. Other key components of a CRM, such as marketing, are less fleshed out. Organizations should ensure they verify what requirements they have for a CRM before choosing Zendesk Sell – if sales process requirements (such as forecasting, call analytics, and so on) are but one part of what the organization needs, Zendesk Sell may not offer the highest ROI for the pricing offered.” Thomas Randall
|
Fact-based reviews of business software from IT professionals. |
Top-tier data quality backed by a rigorous quality assurance process. |
CLICK HERE to ACCESS
Comprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisionsWe collect and analyze the most detailed reviews on enterprise software from real users to give you an unprecedented view into the product and vendor before you buy. |
Product and category reports with state-of-the-art data visualization. |
User-experience insight that reveals the intangibles of working with a vendor. |
Technology coverage is a priority for Info-Tech, and SoftwareReviews provides the most comprehensive unbiased data on today’s technology. Combined with the insights of our expert analysts, our members receive unparalleled support in their buying journey.
| Make sure the solution will work for your business
Give each vendor 90 to 120 minutes to give a rapid-fire presentation. We suggest the following structure:
|
How to challenge the vendors in the investigative interview
|
Rapid-fire vendor investigative interview
Invite vendors to come onsite (or join you via video conference) to demonstrate the product and to answer questions. Use a highly targeted demo script to help identify how a vendor’s solution will fit your organization’s particular business capability needs.
|
| To kick-start scripting your demo scenarios, leverage our CRM Demo Script Template. | ||
A vendor scoring model provides a clear anchor point for your evaluation of CRM vendors based on a variety of inputsA vendor scoring model is a systematic method for effectively assessing competing vendors. A weighted-average scoring model is an approach that strikes a strong balance between rigor and evaluation speed. | Info-Tech InsightEven the best scoring model will still involve some “art” rather than science – scoring categories such as vendor viability always entails a degree of subjective interpretation. |
How do I build a scoring model?
|
What are some of the best practices?
|
Define key CRM selection criteria for your organization – this should be informed by the following goals, use cases, and requirements covered in the blueprint.
Criteria | Description |
| Functional Capabilities | How well does the vendor align with the top-priority functional requirements identified in your accelerated needs assessment? What is the vendor’s functional breadth and depth? |
| Affordability | How affordable is this vendor? Consider a three-to-five-year total cost of ownership (TCO) that encompasses not just licensing costs, but also implementation, integration, training, and ongoing support costs. |
| Architectural Fit | How well does this vendor align with our direction from an enterprise architecture perspective? How interoperable is the solution with existing applications in our technology stack? Does the solution meet our deployment model preferences? |
| Extensibility | How easy is it to augment the base solution with native or third-party add-ons as our business needs may evolve? |
| Scalability | How easy is it to expand the solution to support increased user, data, and/or customer volumes? Are there any capacity constraints of the solution? |
| Vendor Viability | How viable is this vendor? Are they an established player with a proven track record, or a new and untested entrant to the market? What is the financial health of the vendor? How committed are they to the particular solution category? |
| Vendor Vision | Does the vendor have a cogent and realistic product roadmap? Are they making sensible investments that align with your organization’s internal direction? |
| Emotional Footprint | How well does the vendor’s organizational culture and team dynamics align to yours? |
| Third-Party Assessments and/or References | How well-received is the vendor by unbiased, third-party sources like SoftwareReviews? For larger projects, how well does the vendor perform in reference checks (and how closely do those references mirror your own situation)? |
After reviewing all vendor responses to your RFP, conducting vendor demos, and running a pilot project (if applicable), the time has arrived to select your finalist.
All core selection team members should hold a session to score each shortlisted vendor against the criteria enumerated on the previous slide – based on an in-depth review of proposals, the demo sessions, and any pilots or technical assessments.
The vendor that scores the highest in aggregate is your finalist.
Congratulations – you are now ready to proceed to final negotiation and inking a contract. This blueprint provides a detailed approach on the mechanics of a major vendor negotiation.
|
Establish and execute an end-to-end, agile framework to succeed with the implementation of a major enterprise application. |
The most common project resourcing structures for enterprise projects are:
When contemplating a resourcing structure, consider:
|
Consider the following:Internal vs. External Roles and ResponsibilitiesClearly delineate between internal and external team responsibilities and accountabilities, and communicate this to your technology partner up front. Internal vs. External AccountabilitiesAccountability is different than responsibility. Your vendor or SI partner may be responsible for completing certain tasks, but be careful not to outsource accountability for the implementation – ultimately, the internal team will be accountable. Partner Implementation MethodologiesOften vendors and/or SIs will have their own preferred implementation methodology. Consider the use of your partner's implementation methodology; however, you know what will work for your organization. |
1 – 2 hours
Input: Skills assessment, Stakeholder analysis, Vendor partner selection
Output: Team composition
Materials: Sticky notes, Whiteboard, Markers
Participants: Project team
Use Info-Tech’s Governance and Management of Enterprise Software Implementation to establish your team composition. Within that blueprint:
![]() | Follow our iterative methodology with a task list focused on the business must-have functionality to achieve rapid execution and to allow staff to return to their daily work sooner. |
CommunicationTeams must have some type of communication strategy. This can be broken into:
|
ProximityDistributed teams create complexity as communication can break down. This can be mitigated by:
|
TrustMembers should trust other members are contributing to the project and completing their required tasks on time. Trust can be developed and maintained by:
|
|
|
Data interchange between the CRM solution and other data sources is necessary |
Formulate a comprehensive map of the systems, hardware, and software with which the CRM solution must be able to integrate. Customer data needs to constantly be synchronized: without this, you lose out on one of the primary benefits of CRM. These connections must be bidirectional for maximum value (i.e. marketing data to the CRM, customer data to MMS). |
| Specialized projects that include an intricate prospect or customer list and complex rules may need to be built by IT | The more custom fields you have in your CRM suite and point solutions, the more schema mapping you will have to do. Include this information in the RFP to receive guidance from vendors on the ease with which integration can be achieved. |
Pay attention to legacy apps and databases |
If you have legacy CRM, POS, or customer contact software, more custom code will be required. Many vendors claim that custom integration can be performed for most systems, but custom comes at a cost. Don’t just ask if they can integrate; ask how long it will take and for references from organizations which have been successful in this. |
| When assessing the current application portfolio that supports CRM, the tendency will be to focus on the applications under the CRM umbrella, relating mostly to marketing, sales, and customer service. Be sure to include systems that act as inputs to, or benefit due to outputs from, the CRM or similar applications. |
CRM data flow
Be sure to include enterprise applications that are not included in the CRM application portfolio. Popular systems to consider for POIs include billing, directory services, content management, and collaboration tools. |
|
|
|
|
|
If you have a complex POI environment, appoint data stewards for each major domain and procure a deduplication tool. As the complexity of CRM system-to-system integrations increases, so will the chance that data quality errors will crop up – for example, bidirectional POI with other sources of customer information dramatically increase the chances of conflicting/duplicate data.
Identify and eliminate dead weight |
Poor data can originate in the firm’s CRM system. Custom queries, stored procedures, or profiling tools can be used to assess the key problem areas.
Loose rules in the CRM system may lead to records of no significant value in the database. Those rules need to be fixed, but if changes are made before the data is fixed, users could encounter database or application errors, which will reduce user confidence in the system.
|
Create and enforce standards and policies |
Now that the data has been cleaned, it’s important to protect the system from relapsing.
Work with business users to find out what types of data require validation and which fields should have changes audited. Whenever possible, implement drop-down lists to standardize values and make programming changes to ensure that truncation ceases.
|
Data quality concerns proliferate with the customization level of your platform. The more extensive the custom integration points and module/database extensions that you have made, the more you will need to have a plan in place for managing data quality from a reactive and proactive standpoint.
|
The overall objective for interdepartmental CRM kick-off meetings is to confirm that all parties agree on certain key points and understand platform rationale and functionality.
The kick-off process will significantly improve internal communications by inviting all affected internal IT groups, including business units, to work together to address significant issues before the application process is formally activated. Department groups or designated trainers should take the lead and implement a process for:
|
Five Secrets of UAT Success |
|
1 |
Create the plan | With the information collected from requirements gathering, create the plan. Make sure this information is added to the main project plan documentation. |
2 |
Set the agenda | The time allotted will vary depending on the functionality being tested. Ensure that the test schedule allows for the resolution of issues and discussion. | ||
3 |
Determine who will participate | Work with the relevant stakeholders to identify the people who can best contribute to system testing. Look for experienced power users who have been involved in earlier decision making about the system. | ||
4 |
Highlight acceptance criteria | Together with the UAT group, pinpoint the criteria to determine system acceptability. Refer back to requirements specified in use cases in the initial requirements-gathering stages of the project. | ||
5 |
Collect end user feedback | Weaknesses in resolution workflow design, technical architecture, and existing customer service processes can be highlighted and improved on with ongoing surveys and targeted interviews. |
| CRM Selection and Implementation Metrics | ||||
| Description | Formula | Current or Estimated | Target | Post-Deployment |
| End-User Satisfaction | # of Satisfied Users # of End Users |
70% | 90% | 85% |
| Percentage Over/Under Estimated Budget | Amount Spent - 100% Budget |
5% | 0% | 2% |
| Percentage Over/Under Estimated Timeline | Project Length - 100% Estimated Timeline |
10% | -5% | -10% |
| CRM Strategy Metrics | ||||
| Description | Formula | Current or Estimated | Target | Post-Deployment |
| Number of Leads Generated (per month) | # of Leads Generated | 150 | 200 | 250 |
| Average Time to Resolution (in minutes) | Time Spent on Resolution # of Resolutions |
30 minutes | 10 minutes | 15 minutes |
| Cost per Interaction by Campaign | Total Campaign Spending # of Customer Interactions |
$17.00 | $12.00 | $12.00 |
CRM technology is critical to facilitate an organization’s relationships with customers, service users, employees, and suppliers. Having a structured approach to building a business case, defining key requirements, and engaging with the right shortlist of vendors to pick the best finalist is crucial.
This selection guide allows organizations to execute a structured methodology for picking a CRM that aligns with their needs. This includes:
Build a business caseAn effective business case isn’t a single-purpose document for obtaining funding. It can also be used to drive your approach to product selection, requirements gathering, and ultimately evaluating stakeholder and user satisfaction. Use your business case to define use cases and milestones as well as success. |
Balance process with technologyA new solution with old processes will result in incremental increased value. Evaluate existing processes and identify opportunities to improve and remove workarounds. Then define requirements. You may find that the tools you have would be adequate with an upgrade and tool optimization. If not, this exercise will prepare you to select the right solution for your current and future needs. |
Lead with the most important benefit and consider the timeline. Most stakeholders will lose interest if they don’t realize benefits within the fist year. Can you reach your goal and report success within that timeline?
Identify secondary, incremental customer engagement improvements that can be made as you work toward the overall goal to be achieved at the one-year milestone.
|
Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management
|
|
Improve Requirements Gathering
|
|
Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes with a Robust RFP Process
|
“Doomed From the Start? Why a Majority of Business and IT Teams Anticipate Their Software Development Projects Will Fail.” Geneca, 25 Jan. 2017. Web.
Hall, Kerrie. “The State of CRM Data Management 2020.” Validity. 27 April 2020. Web.
Hinchcliffe, Dion. “The Evolving Role of the CIO and CMO in Customer Experience.” ZDNet, 22 Jan. 2020. Web.
Klie, L. “CRM Still Faces Challenges, Most Speakers Agree: CRM Systems Have Been Around for Decades, but Interoperability and Data Siloes Still Have to Be Overcome.” CRM Magazine, vol. 23, no. 5, 2019, pp. 13-14.
Markman, Jon. "Netflix Knows What You Want... Before You Do." Forbes. 9 Jun. 2017. Web.
Morgan, Blake. “50 Stats That Prove The Value Of Customer Experience.” Forbes, 24 Sept. 2019. Web.
Taber, David. “What to Do When Your CRM Project Fails.” CIO Magazine, 18 Sept. 2017. Web.
“The State of Project Management Annual Survey 2018.” Wellingtone, 2018. Web.
“The History of Microsoft Dynamics.” Eswelt. 2021. Accessed 8 June 2022.
“Unlock the Mysteries of Your Customer Relationships.” Harvard Business Review. 1 July 2014. Accessed 30 Mar. 2016.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Understand what a Lean management system is, review Lean philosophies, and examine simple Lean tools and activities.
Understand the implications of the scope of your Lean management program.
Examine the sections and content to include in your huddle board design.
Determine the actions required by leaders and the operating rhythm.
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.
Understand Lean management.
Gain a common understanding of Lean management, the Lean management thought model, Lean philosophies, huddles, visual management, team growth, and voice of customer.
1.1 Define Lean management in your organization.
1.2 Create training materials.
Lean management definition
Customized training materials
Understand Lean management.
Determine the scope of your program.
Understand metrics and performance review.
Understand problem identification and continuous improvement.
Understand Kanban.
Understand Leader Standard Work.
Define the scope of the Lean management program.
2.1 Develop example operational metrics
2.2 Simulate problem section.
2.3 Simulate Kanban.
2.4 Build scoping tool.
Understand how to use operational metrics
Understand problem identification
Understand Kanban/daily tasks section
Defined scope for your program
Design the sections and content for your huddle board.
Initial huddle board design.
3.1 Design and build each section in your huddle board.
3.2 Simulate coaching conversations.
Initial huddle board design
Understanding of how to conduct a huddle
Design your Leader Standard Work activities.
Develop a schedule for executing Leader Standard Work.
Standard activities identified and documented.
Sample schedule developed.
4.1 Identify standard activities for leaders.
4.2 Develop a schedule for executing Leader Standard Work.
Leader Standard Work activities documented
Initial schedule for Leader Standard Work activities
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Leverage the top metrics for every CIO to help focus your attention and provide insight into actionable steps.
Be the strategic CIO who monitors the right metrics relevant to their priorities – regardless of industry or organization. When CIOs provide a laundry list of metrics they are consistently measuring and monitoring, it demonstrates a few things.
First, they are probably measuring more metrics than they truly care about or could action. These “standardized” metrics become something measured out of expectation, not intention; therefore, they lose their meaning and value to you as a CIO. Stop spending time on these metrics you will be unable or unwilling to address.
Secondly, it indicates a lack of trust in the IT leadership team, who can and should be monitoring these commonplace operational measures. An empowered IT leader will understand the responsibility they have to inform the CIO should a metric be derailing from the desired outcome.
|
Brittany Lutes
Senior Research Analyst Organizational Transformation Practice Info-Tech Research Group |
| Your Challenge
CIOs need to measure a set of specific metrics that:
|
Common Obstacles
CIOs often cannot define these metrics because:
|
Info-Tech’s Approach
For every CIO, there are six areas that should be a focus, no matter your organization or industry. These six priorities will inform the metrics worth measuring:
|
The top metrics for a CIO to measure and monitor have very little to do with IT and everything to do with ensuring the success of the business.
CIOs are not using metrics as a personal tool to advance the organization:
|
“CIOs are businesspeople first and technology people second.” (Myles Suer, Source: CIO, 2019.) |
These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many CIOs:
|
CIO priorities are business priorities
46% of CIOs are transforming operations, focused on customer experiences and employee productivity. (Source: Foundry, 2022.) Finances (41.3%) and customers (28.1%) remain the top two focuses for CIOs when measuring IT effectiveness. All other focuses combine for the remaining 30.6%. (Source: Journal of Informational Technology Management, 2018.) |
| Organizational goals inform CIO metrics
|
The Info-Tech difference:
|
| MANAGING TO A BUDGET
Reducing operational costs and increasing strategic IT spend. |
|
DELIVERING ON BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
Aligning IT initiatives to the vision of the organization. |
| CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Directly and indirectly impacting customer experience. |
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Creating an IT workforce of engaged and purpose-driven people. |
|
| RISK MANAGEMENT
Actively knowing and mitigating threats to the organization. |
BUSINESS LEADERSHIP RELATONS
Establishing a network of influential business leaders. |
|
Using priority-based metrics allows you to make incremental improvements that can be measured and reported on, which makes program maturation a natural process. |

* Arrow indicates month-over-month trend
|
"The way to make a metric successful is by understanding why you are measuring it." (Jeff Neyland CIO) |
|
As a CIO, avoid spending time on operational metrics such as:
|
While operational metrics are important to your organization, IT leaders should be empowered and responsible for their management.
The impact of IT risks to your organization cannot be ignored any further
|
Risk management metric:Number of critical IT threats that were detected and prevented before impact to the organization. |
Other risk-related metrics:
|
49%Investing in RiskHeads of IT “cited increasing cybersecurity protections as the top business initiative driving IT investments this year” (Source: Foundry, 2022.) |
Deliver on initiatives that bring value to your organization and stop benchmarking
|
Business Objective Alignment Metric:Percentage of IT metrics have a direct line of impact to the business goals |
Other business alignment metrics:
|
50%CIOs drive the businessThe percentage of CEOs that recognize the CIO as the main driver of the business strategy in the next 2-3 years. (Source: Deloitte, 2020.) |
Directly or indirectly, IT influences how satisfied the customer is with their product or service
|
Customer satisfaction metric:What is the positive impact ($ or %) of IT initiatives on customer satisfaction? |
Be the one to suggest new IT initiatives that will impact the customer experience – stop waiting for other business leaders to make the recommendation.
Other customer satisfaction metrics:
|
41%Direct CX interactionIn 2022, 41% of IT heads were directly interacting with the end customer. (Source: Foundry, 2022.) |
This is about more than just an annual engagement survey
|
Employee engagement metric:Number of employees who feel empowered to complete purposeful activities related to their job each day |
Other employee engagement metrics:
|
26%Act on engagementOnly 26% of leaders actually think about and act on engagement every single day. (Source: SHRM, 2022.) |
Leverage your relationships with other C-suite executives to demonstrate IT’s value
|
Business leadership relationship metric:Ability to influence business decisions with trusted partners. |
Other business relations metrics:
|
60%Enterprise-wide collaboration“By 2023, 60% of CIOs will be primarily measured for their ability to co-create new business models and outcomes through extensive enterprise and ecosystem-wide collaboration.” (Source: IDC, 2021.) |
Every CIO needs to be able to spend within budget while increasing their strategic impact
|
Budget management metric:Proportion of IT budget that is strategic versus operational. |
CIOs need to see their IT function as its own business – budget and spend like a CEO.
Other budget management metrics:
Action steps to take:
| 90%Direct CX interactionNinety percent of CIOs expect their budget to increase or remain the same in their next fiscal year. (Source: Foundry, 2022.) |
|
Jeff Neyland
Chief Information Officer – University of Texas at Arlington |
|
Brett Trelfa
SVP and CIO – Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield |
|
Lynn Fyhrlund
Chief Information Officer – Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services |
| Vicki Van Alphen | Executive Counselor | Ibrahim Abdel-Kader | Research Analyst |
| Mary Van Leer | Executive Counselor | Graham Price | Executive Counselor |
| Jack Hakimian | Vice President Research | Valence Howden | Principal Research Director |
| Mike Tweedie | CIO Practice Lead | Tony Denford | Organization Transformation Practice Lead |
|
IT Metrics Library
|
|
Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter
|
|
CIO Priorities 2022
|
“Developing and Sustaining Employee Engagement.” SHRM, 2022.
Dopson, Elise. “KPIs Vs. Metrics: What’s the Difference & How Do You Measure Both?” Databox, 23 Jun. 2021.
Shirer, Michael, and Sarah Murray. “IDC Unveils Worldwide CIO Agenda 2022 Predictions.” IDC, 27 Oct. 2021.
Suer, Myles. “The Most Important Metrics to Drive IT as a Business.” CIO, 19 Mar. 2019.
“The new CIO: Business Savvy.” Deloitte Insights. Deloitte, 2020.
“2022 State of the CIO: Rebalancing Act: CIO’s Operational Pandemic-Era Innovation.” Foundry, 2022.
“Why Employee Engagement Matters for Leadership at all Levels.” Walden University, 20 Dec. 2019.
Zhang, Xihui, et al. “How to Measure IT Effectiveness: The CIO’s Perspective.” Journal of Informational Technology Management, 29(4). 2018.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Learn about machine biases, how and where they arise in AI systems, and how they relate to human cognitive and societal biases.
Learn about data biases and how to mitigate them.
Learn about model biases and how to mitigate them.
Learn about approaches for proactive and effective bias prevention and mitigation.
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.
Understand your organization’s maturity with respect to data and analytics in order to maximize workshop value.
Workshop content aligned to your organization’s level of maturity and business objectives.
1.1 Execute Data Culture Diagnostic.
1.2 Review current analytics strategy.
1.3 Review organization's business and IT strategy.
1.4 Review other supporting documentation.
1.5 Confirm participant list for workshop.
Data Culture Diagnostic report.
Develop a good understanding of machine biases and how they emerge from human cognitive and societal biases. Learn about the machine learning process and how it relates to machine bias.
Select an ML/AI project and complete a bias risk assessment.
A solid understanding of algorithmic biases and the need to mitigate them.
Increased insight into how new technologies such as ML and AI impact organizational risk.
Customized bias risk assessment template.
Completed bias risk assessment for selected project.
2.1 Review primer on AI and machine learning (ML).
2.2 Review primer on human and machine biases.
2.3 Understand business context and objective for AI in your organization.
2.4 Discuss selected AI/ML/data science project or use case.
2.5 Review and modify bias risk assessment.
2.6 Complete bias risk assessment for selected project.
Bias risk assessment template customized for your organization.
Completed bias risk assessment for selected project.
Learn about data biases: what they are and where they originate.
Learn how to address or mitigate data biases.
Identify data biases in selected project.
A solid understanding of data biases and how to mitigate them.
Customized Datasheets for Data Sets Template.
Completed datasheet for data sets for selected project.
3.1 Review machine learning process.
3.2 Review examples of data biases and why and how they happen.
3.3 Identify possible data biases in selected project.
3.4 Discuss “Datasheets for Datasets” framework.
3.5 Modify Datasheets for Data Sets Template for your organization.
3.6 Complete datasheet for data sets for selected project.
Datasheets for Data Sets Template customized for your organization.
Completed datasheet for data sets for selected project.
Learn about model biases: what they are and where they originate.
Learn how to address or mitigate model biases.
Identify model biases in selected project.
A solid understanding of model biases and how to mitigate them.
Customized Model Cards for Model Reporting Template.
Completed model card for selected project.
4.1 Review machine learning process.
4.2 Review examples of model biases and why and how they happen.
4.3 Identify potential model biases in selected project.
4.4 Discuss Model Cards For Model Reporting framework.
4.5 Modify Model Cards for Model Reporting Template for your organization.
4.6 Complete model card for selected project.
Model Cards for Model Reporting Template customized for your organization.
Completed model card for selected project.
Review mitigation approach and best practices to control machine bias.
Create mitigation plan to address machine biases in selected project. Align with enterprise risk management (ERM).
A solid understanding of the cultural dimension of algorithmic bias prevention and mitigation and best practices.
Drafted plan to mitigate machine biases in selected project.
5.1 Review and discuss lessons learned.
5.2 Create mitigation plan to address machine biases in selected project.
5.3 Review mitigation approach and best practices to control machine bias.
5.4 Identify gaps and discuss remediation.
Summary of challenges and recommendations to systematically identify and mitigate machine biases.
Plan to mitigate machine biases in selected project.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Improve employee engagement and ultimately the organization’s bottom line.
Have a productive engagement feedback discussion with teams.
Facilitate effective team engagement action planning.
Solicit employee pain points that could potentially hinder their engagement.
Develop a stronger relationship with employees to drive engagement.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Begin your proactive SAP licensing journey by understanding which information to gather and assessing the current state and gaps.
Review current licensing models and determine which licensing models will most appropriately fit your environment.
Review SAP’s contract types and assess which best fit the organization’s licensing needs.
Conduct negotiations, purchase licensing, and finalize a licensing management strategy.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Grasp the key pain points of software licensing and the effects it has on an M&A. Review the benefits of early IT involvement and identify IT’s capabilities.
Understand the various steps and process when conducting due diligence. Request information and assess risks, make assumptions, and budget costs.
Take a deeper dive into the application portfolios and vendor contracts of both organizations. Review integration strategies and design the end-state of the resultant organization.
Review initiatives being undertaken to ensure successful integration execution. Discuss long-term goals and how to communicate with vendors to avoid licensing audits.
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.
Identify the goals and objectives the business has for the M&A.
Understand cultural and organizational structure challenges and red flags.
Identify SAM/licensing challenges and red flags.
Conduct maturity assessment.
Clarify stakeholder responsibilities.
Build and structure the M&A team.
The capabilities required to successfully examine software assets and licensing during the M&A transaction.
M&A business goals and objectives identified.
IT M&A team selected.
Severity of SAM challenges and red flags examined.
1.1 Document pain points from previous experience.
1.2 Identify IT opportunities during M&A.
M&A Software Asset Maturity Assessment
Take a structured due diligence approach that properly evaluates the current state of the organization.
Review M&A license inventory and use top five vendors as example sets.
Identify data capture and reporting methods/tools.
Scheduling challenges.
Scope level of effort and priority list.
Common M&A pressures (internal/external).
A clear understanding of the steps that are involved in the due diligence process.
Recognition of the various areas from which information will need to be collected.
Licensing pitfalls and compliance risks to be examined.
Knowledge of terms and conditions that will limit ability in pre-integration planning.
2.1 Identify IT capabilities for an M&A.
2.2 Create your due diligence team and assign accountability.
2.3 Use Info-Tech’s IT Due Diligence Report Template to track key elements.
2.4 Document assumptions to back up cost estimates and risk.
M&A Software Asset RACI Template
IT Due Diligence Report
Review and map legal operating entity structure for the resultant organization.
Examine impact on licensing scenarios for top five vendors.
Identify alternative paths and solutions.
Complete license impact for top five vendors.
Brainstorm action plan to mitigate negative impacts.
Discuss and explore the scalable process for second level agreements.
Identification of the ideal post-M&A application portfolio and licensing structures.
Recognition of the key considerations when determining the appropriate combination of IT integration strategies.
Design of vendor contracts for the resultant enterprise.
Recognition of how to create an IT integration budget.
3.1 Work with the senior management team to review how the new organization will operate.
3.2 Document the strategic goals and objectives of IT’s integration program.
3.3 Interview business leaders to understand how they envision their business units.
3.4 Perform internal SAM audit.
3.5 Create a library of all IT processes in the target organization as well as your own.
3.6 Examine staff using two dimensions: competency and capacity.
3.7 Design the end-state.
3.8 Communicate your detailed pre-integration roadmap with senior leadership and obtain sign-off.
IT Integration Roadmap Tool
Effective License Position
Finalize path forward for top five vendors based on M&A license impact.
Disclose findings and financial impact estimate to management.
Determine methods for second level agreements to be managed.
Provide listing of specific recommendations for top five list.
Initiatives generated and executed upon to achieve the technology end-state of each IT domain.
Vendor audits avoided.
Contracts amended and vendors spoken to.
Communication with management on achievable synergies and quick wins.
4.1 Identify initiatives necessary to realize the application end-state.
4.2 Identify initiatives necessary to realize the end-state of IT processes.
4.3 Identify initiatives necessary to realize the end-state of IT staffing.
4.4 Prioritize initiatives based on ease of implementation and overall business impact.
4.5 Manage vendor relations.
IT Integration Roadmap Tool
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
The challenge
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Our concise executive brief shows you why you should develop a sound business continuity practice in your company. We'll show you our methodology and the ways we can help you in completing this.
Choose a medium-sized department and build a team. Identify that department's processes, dependencies, and alternatives.
Define an objective impact scoring scale for your company. Have the business estimate the impact of downtime and set your recovery targets.
The need for clarity is critical. In times when you need the plans, people will be under much higher stress. Build the workflow for the steps necessary to rebuild. Identify gaps and brainstorm on how to close them. Prioritize solutions that mitigate the remaining risks.
Present the results of the pilot and propose the next steps. Assign BCM teams or people within each department. Update and maintain the overall BCMS documentation.
These can help with the creation of your BCP.
IT communications are often considered ineffective. This is demonstrated by:
Communications is a responsibility of all members of IT. This is demonstrated through:
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
This capstone blueprint highlights the components, best practices, and importance of good communication for all IT employees.
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.
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.
Brittany Lutes
Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group
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.
| Your Challenge | Common Obstacles | Info-Tech’s Approach |
IT communications are often considered ineffective. This is demonstrated by:
|
Frequently, these barriers have prevented IT communications from being effective:
|
Communications is a responsibility of all members of IT. This is demonstrated through:
|
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.
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:
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
The Info-Tech difference:
Communicating Up to Board or Executives
Communicating Across the Organization
Communicating Within IT
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. |
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.
IT needs to communicate well because:
“Poor communication results in employee misunderstanding and errors that cost approximately $37 billion.”
– Intranet Connections, 2019
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.
Methods to determine effectiveness:
“‘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
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
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?
FRAMEWORK
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
Stakeholder Buy-In
Awareness on Technology Trends
Risks
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?
FRAMEWORK
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
Executive Buy-In
Digital Transformation
Relationship Building
| 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
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?
FRAMEWORK
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
Stakeholder Buy-In
Role Clarity
Demonstrate Growth
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?
FRAMEWORK
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
Reduce Fears
Maintain Trust
Eliminate Negative Reactions
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
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?
FRAMEWORK
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
Resource Allocation
Meet Responsibly
Encourage Engagement
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?
FRAMEWORK
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
Role Clarity
Prevent Rumors
Organizational Insight
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:
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
| 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
| 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 |
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
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
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
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 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 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 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 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
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.
Plus an additional two contributors who wish to remain anonymous.
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:
“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.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Read our executive brief to understand why you should tailor project management practices to the type of projects you do and your company and review our methodology. We show you how we can support you.
Assess your current capabilities to set the right level of governance.
Increase small project's throughput.
The standard process contains fully featured initiation and planning.
Develop roll-out and training plans, implement your new process and track metrics.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Evaluate the readiness of the pilot functional group and Agile development processes to adopt scaled Agile practices.
Alleviate scaling issues and risks and introduce new opportunities to enhance business value delivery with Agile practices.
Roll out scaling Agile initiatives in a gradual, iterative approach and define the right metrics to demonstrate success.
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.
Identify the business objectives and functional group drivers for adopting Agile practices to gauge the fit of scaling Agile.
Select the pilot project to demonstrate the value of scaling Agile.
Review and evaluate your current Agile development process and functional group structure.
Understanding of the notable business and functional group gaps that can derail the scaling of Agile.
Selection of a pilot program that will be used to gather metrics to continuously improve implementation and obtain buy-in for wider rollout.
Realization of the root causes behind functional group and process issues in the current Agile implementation.
1.1 Assess your pilot functional group
Fit assessment of functional group to pilot Agile scaling
Selection of pilot program
List of critical success factors
Think of solutions to address the root causes of current communication and process issues that can derail scaling initiatives.
Brainstorm opportunities to enhance the delivery of business value to customers.
Generate a target state for your scaled Agile implementation.
Defined Agile capabilities and services of your functional group.
Optimized functional group team structure, development process, and program framework to support scaled Agile in your context.
Identification and accommodation of the risks associated with implementing and executing Agile capabilities.
2.1 Define Agile capabilities at scale
2.2 Build your scaled Agile target state
Solutions to scaling issues and opportunities to deliver more business value
Agile capability map
Functional group team structure, Agile development process and program framework optimized to support scaled Agile
Risk assessment of scaling Agile initiatives
List metrics to gauge the success of your scaling Agile implementation.
Define the initiatives to scale Agile in your organization and to prepare for a wider rollout.
Strategic selection of the right metrics to demonstrate the value of scaling Agile initiatives.
Scaling Agile implementation roadmap based on current resource capacities, task complexities, and business priorities.
3.1 Create your implementation plan
List of metrics to gauge scaling Agile success
Scaling Agile implementation roadmap