Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

Drive IT project throughput by throttling resource capacity.

Analyst Perspective

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzŭ

"Organizations typically come to project portfolio management (PPM) with at least one of two misconceptions: (1) that PPM is synonymous with project management and (2) that a collection of PPM processes constitutes a PPM strategy.

Both foundations are faulty: project management and PPM are separate disciplines with distinct goals and processes, and a set of processes do not comprise a strategy – they should flow from a strategy, not precede one. When built upon these foundations, the benefits of PPM go unrealized, as the means (i.e. project and portfolio processes) commonly eclipse the ends of a PPM strategy – e.g. a portfolio better aligned with business goals, improved project throughput, increased stakeholder satisfaction, and so on.

Start with the end in mind: articulate a PPM strategy that is truly project portfolio in nature, i.e. focused on the whole portfolio and not just the individual parts. Then, let your PPM strategy guide your process goals and help to drive successful outcomes, project after project." (Barry Cousins, Senior Director of Research, PMO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group)

Our understanding of the problem

This Research Is Designed For:

• CIOs who want to maximize IT’s fulfillment of both business strategic goals and operational needs.
• CIOs who want to better manage the business and project sponsors’ expectations and satisfaction.
• CIOs, PMO directors, and portfolio managers who want a strategy to set the best projects for the highest chance of success.

This Research Will Help You:

• Get C-level buy-in on a strategy for managing the project portfolio and clarify their expectations on how it should be managed.
• Draft strategy-aligned, high-level project portfolio management process description.
• Put together a strategic plan for improving PPM processes to reclaim wasted project capacity and increase business satisfaction of IT.

This Research Will Also Assist:

• Steering committee and C-suite management who want to maximize IT’s value to business.
• Project sponsors who seek clarity and fairness on pushing their projects through a myriad of priorities and objectives.
• CIOs, PMO directors, and portfolio managers who want to enable data-driven decisions from the portfolio owners.

This Research Will Help Them:

• Optimize IT’s added value to the business through project delivery.
• Provide clarity on how IT’s project portfolio should be managed and the expectations for its management.
• Improve project portfolio visibility by making trustworthy project portfolio data available, with which to steer the portfolio.

Executive Summary

Situation

• As CIO, there are too many projects and not enough resource capacity to deliver projects on time, on budget, and in scope with high quality.
• Prioritizing projects against one another is difficult in the face of conflicting priorities and agenda; therefore, projects with dubious value/benefits consume resource capacity.

Complication

• Not all IT projects carry a direct value to business; IT is accountable for keeping the lights on and it consumes a significant amount of resources.
• Business and project sponsors approve projects without considering the scarcity of resource capacity and are frustrated when the projects fail to deliver or linger in the backlog.

Resolution

• Create a coherent strategy to maximize the total value that projects deliver as a whole portfolio, rather than a collection of individual projects.
• Ensure that the steering committee or senior executive layer buys into the strategy by helping them understand why the said strategy is necessary, and more importantly, why the strategy is valuable to them.
• Translate the strategic expectations to specific, tangible goals, which are realized through a suite of project portfolio management processes tailored to your organization and its culture.
• Putting into place people, processes, and tools that are sustainable and manageable, plus a communication strategy to maintain the stakeholder buy-in.

Info-Tech Insight

1. Time is money; therefore, the portfolio manager is an accountant of time. It is the portfolio manager’s responsibility to provide the project portfolio owners with reliable data and close the loop on portfolio decisions.
2. Business satisfaction is driven by delivering projects that align to and maximize business value. Use Info-Tech’s method for developing a PPM strategy and synchronize its definition of “best projects” with yours.

Projects that deliver on strategic goals of the business is the #1 driver of business satisfaction for IT

Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Survey (N=21,367) has identified a direct correlation between IT project success and overall business satisfaction with IT.

Reported Importance: Initially, when CIOs were asked to rank the importance of IT services, respondents ranked “projects” low on the list – 10 out of a possible 12.

Actual Importance: Despite this low “reported importance,” of those organizations that were “satisfied” to “fully satisfied” with IT, the service that had the strongest correlation to high business satisfaction was “projects,” i.e. IT’s ability to help plan, support, and execute projects and initiatives that help the business achieve its strategic goals.

On average, executives perceive IT as being poorly aligned with business strategy

Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Survey data highlights the importance of IT projects in supporting the business achieve its strategic goals. However, Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124) data indicates that CEOs perceive IT to be poorly aligned to business’ strategic goals:

• 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 of their IT departments.
(Source: Info-Tech CIO/CEO Alignment Diagnostics, * N=32,536)

Efforts to deliver on projects are largely hampered by causes of project failure outside a project manager’s control

The most recent data from the Project Management Institute (PMI) shows that more projects are meeting their original goals and business intent and less projects are being deemed failures. However, at the same time, more projects are experiencing scope creep. Scope creeps result in schedule and cost overrun, which result in dissatisfied project sponsors, stakeholders, and project workers.

Meanwhile, the primary causes of project failures remain largely unchanged. Interestingly, most of these primary causes can be traced to sources outside of a project manager’s control, either entirely or in part. As a result, project management tactics and processes are limited in adequately addressing them.

Project portfolio management (PPM) can improve business alignment of projects and reduce chance of project failure

PPM is about “doing the right things.”

Interrelated organizational processes by which an organization evaluates, selects, prioritizes, and allocates its limited internal resources to best accomplish organizational strategies consistent with its vision, mission, and values. (PMI, Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed.)

Selecting and prioritizing projects with the strongest alignment to business strategy goals and ensuring that resources are properly allocated to deliver them, enable IT to:

1. Improve business satisfaction and their perception of IT’s alignment with the business.
2. Better engage the business and the project customers.
3. Minimize the risk of project failure due to changing organizational/ project vision, goals, and objectives.

"In today’s competitive business environment, a portfolio management process improves the linkage between corporate strategy and the selection of the ‘right’ projects for investment. It also provides focus, helping to ensure the most efficient and effective use of available resources." (Lou Pack, PMP, Senior VP, ICF International (PMI, 2015))

PPM is a common area of shortcomings for IT, with much room for improvement

Info-Tech’s IT Management & Governance Survey (N=879) shows that PPM tends to be regarded as neither an effective nor an important process amongst IT organizations.

55% ... of IT organizations believe that their PPM processes are neither effective nor important.

21% ... of IT organizations reported having no one responsible or accountable for PPM.

62% ... of projects in organizations effective in PPM met/exceeded the expected ROI (PMI, 2015).

In addition to PPM’s benefits, improving PPM processes presents an opportunity for getting ahead of the curve in the industry.

Info-Tech’s methodology for developing a PPM strategy delivers extraordinary value, fast

Our methodology is designed to tackle your hardest challenge first to deliver the highest-value part of the deliverable. For developing a PPM strategy, the biggest challenge is to get the buy-in of the executive layer.

"Without senior management participation, PPM doesn’t work, and the organization is likely to end up with, or return to, a squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease mindset for all those involved." (Mark Price Perry, Business Driven Project Portfolio Management)

In the first step of the blueprint, you will be guided through the following steps:

1. Choose the right PPM strategy: driven by the executives, supported by management.
2. Objectively assess your current project portfolio with minimal effort to build a case for the PPM strategy.
3. Engage the executive layer to get the critical prerequisite of a PPM strategy: their buy-in.

A PPM strategic plan is the end deliverable of this blueprint. In the first step, download the pre-filled template with content that represents the most common case. Then, throughout the blueprint, customize with your data.

Use this blueprint to develop, or refine, a PPM strategy that works for your organization

Get buy-in for PPM strategy from decision makers.

Buy-in from the owners of project portfolio (Steering Committee, C-suite management, etc.) is a critical prerequisite for any PPM strategy. This blueprint will give you the tools and templates to help you make your case and win the buy-in of portfolio owners.

Connect strategic expectations to PPM process goals.

This blueprint offers a methodology to translate the broad aim of PPM to practical, tactical goals of the five core PPM processes, as well as how to measure the results. Our methodology is supported with industry-leading frameworks, best practices, and our insider research.

Develop your PPM processes.

This blueprint takes you through a series of steps to translate the process goals into a high-level process description, as well as a business case and a roadmap for implementing the new PPM processes.

Refine your PPM processes.

Our methodology is also equally as applicable for making your existing PPM processes better, and help you draft a roadmap for improvement with well-defined goals, roles, and responsibilities.

Info-Tech’s PPM model consists of five core processes

There are five core processes in Info-Tech’s thought model for PPM.

These processes create an infrastructure around projects, which aims to enable:

1. Initiation of the “best” projects with the right resources and project information.
2. Timely and trustworthy reporting to facilitate the flow of information for better decision making.
3. Proper closure of projects, releasing resources, and managing benefits realization.

PPM has many moving pieces. To ensure that all of these processes work in harmony, you need a PPM strategy.

De-couple project management from PPM to break down complexity and create flexibility

Tailor project management (PM) processes to fit your projects.

Info-Tech’s PPM thought model enables you to manage your project portfolio independent of your PM methodology or capability. Projects interact with PPM via:

• A project charter that authorizes the use of resources and defines project benefits.
• Status reports that feed up-to-date, trustworthy data to your project portfolio.
• Acceptance of deliverables that enable proper project closure and benefits reporting.

Info-Tech’s PPM strategy is applicable whether you use Agile, waterfall, or anything in between for PM.

Learn about project management approach for small projects in Info-Tech’s Tailor PM Processes to Fit Your Projects blueprint.

Info-Tech’s approach to PPM is informed by industry best practices and rooted in practical insider research

Info-Tech uses PMI and ISACA frameworks for areas of this research.

PMI’s Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed. is the leading industry framework, proving project portfolio management best practices and process guidelines.	COBIT 5 is the leading framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT.

In addition to industry-leading frameworks, our best-practice approach is enhanced by the insights and guidance from our analysts, industry experts, and our clients.

33,000+ Our peer network of over 33,000 happy clients proves the effectiveness of our research.

1000+ Our team conducts 1,000+ hours of primary and secondary research to ensure that our approach is enhanced by best practices.

Re-position IT as the “facilitator of business projects” for PPM success

CASE STUDY

Industry: Construction
Source: Info-Tech Client

Chaos in the project portfolio

At first, there were no less than 14 teams of developers, each with their own methodologies and processes. Changes to projects were not managed. Only 35% of the projects were completed on time.

Business drives, IT facilitates

Anyone had the right to ask for something; however, converting ideas to a formal project demand required senior leadership within a business division getting on board with the idea.

The CIO and senior leadership decided that projects, previously assigned to IT, were to be owned and driven by the business, as the projects are undertaken to serve its needs and rarely IT’s own. The rest of the organization understood that the business, not IT, was accountable for prioritizing project work: IT was re-positioned as a facilitator of business projects. While it was a long process, the result speaks for itself: 75% of projects were now being completed on time.

Balancing the target mix of the project portfolio

What about maintaining and feeding the IT infrastructure? The CIO reserved 40% of IT project capacity for “keeping the lights on,” and 20% for reactive, unplanned activities, with an aim to lower this percentage. With the rest of the time, IT facilitated business projects

Three key drivers of project priority

1. Does the project meet the overall company goals and objectives?
   “If they don't, we must ask why we are bothering with it.”
2. Does the project address a regulatory or compliance need?
   “Half of our business is heavily regulated. We must focus on it.”
3. Are there significant savings to be had?
   “Not soft; hard savings. Can we demonstrate that, after implementing this, can we see good hard results? And, can we measure it?”

"Projects are dumped on IT, and the business abdicates responsibility. Flip that over, and say ‘that's your project’ and ‘how can we help you?’"

Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this research

Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.

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.

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Develop a PPM strategy – project overview

	1. Get executive buy-in for your PPM strategy	2. Align PPM processes to your strategic goals	3. Complete your PPM strategic plan
Best-Practice Toolkit	1.1 Choose the right PPM strategy for your organization 1.2 Translate PPM strategy expectations to specific process goals	2.1 Develop and refine project intake, prioritization, and resource management processes 2.2 Develop and refine portfolio reporting, project closure, and benefits realization processes	3.1 Select a right-sized PPM solution for supporting your new processes 3.2 Finalize customizing your PPM Strategic Plan Template
Guided Implementations	Scoping call: discuss current state of PPM and review strategy options. How to wireframe realistic process goals, rooted in your PPM strategic expectations, that will be sustained by the organization.	Examine your current-state PPM process and create a high-level description of the target-state process for each of the five PPM processes (1-2 calls per each process).	Assess your PPM tool requirements to help support your processes. Determine the costs and potential benefits of your PPM practice.
Onsite Workshop	Module 1: Set strategic expectations and realistic goals for the PPM strategy	Module 2: Develop and refine strategy-aligned PPM processes	Module 3: Compose your PPM strategic plan
	Phase 1 Outcome: Analysis of the current state of PPM Strategy-aligned goals and metrics for PPM processes	Phase 2 Outcome: PPM capability levels High-level descriptions of near- and long-term target state	Phase 3 Outcome: PPM tool recommendations Cost-benefit analysis Customized PPM strategic plan

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

PHASE 1

Get Executive Buy-In for Your PPM Strategy

Phase 1 outline

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: Get executive buy-in for your PPM strategy

Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks

Prepare to get to value early with step 1.1 of this blueprint

The first step of this blueprint will help you define your PPM strategy and get executive buy-in for it using section one of Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Where traditional models of consulting can take considerable amounts of time before delivering value to clients, Info-Tech’s methodology for developing a PPM strategy gets you to value fast.

In the first step of this blueprint, you will define your PPM strategy and prepare an executive presentation to get buy-in for the strategy. The presentation can be prepared in just a few hours.

• The activities in step 1.1 of this blueprint will help you customize the slides in section 1 of Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.
• Section one of the Template will then serve as your presentation document.

Once you have received buy-in for your PPM strategy, the remainder of this blueprint will help you customize section 2 of the Template.

• Section 2 of the Template will communicate:
  • Your processes and process goals.
  • Your near-term and long-term action items for implementing the strategy.
  • Your PPM tool requirements.
  • The costs and benefits of your PPM strategy.

Download Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Step 1.1: Choose the right PPM strategy for your organization

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Perform a leadership mandate survey.
• Choose your PPM strategy.
• Calculate your resource capacity for projects.
• Determine overall organizational demand for projects.
• Prepare an executive presentation of the PPM strategy.

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• PMO Director/Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• IT Managers

Outcomes of this step

• A PPM strategy
• A resource supply/project demand analysis
• An executive brief presentation
• Executive buy-in for the PPM strategy

“Too many projects, not enough resources” is the reality of most IT environments

In today’s organizations, the desires of business units for new products and enhancements, and the appetites of senior leadership to approve more and more projects for those products and services, far outstrips IT’s ability to realistically deliver on everything.

The vast majority of IT departments lack the resourcing to meet project demand – especially given the fact that day-to-day operational demands frequently trump project work.

As a result, project throughput suffers – and with it, IT's reputation within the organization.

In these environments, a PPM strategy is required.

A PPM strategy should enable executive decision makers to make sense of the excess of demand and give IT the ability to prioritize those projects that are of the most strategic value to the business.

With the right PPM strategy, IT can improve project outcomes across its portfolio and drive business value – all while improving the workloads of IT project staff.

Info-Tech has two PPM strategy options that you can start to deploy today

This step will help you choose the most suitable option, depending on your project pain points and current level of executive engagement in actively steering the portfolio.

Each of these strategy options is driven by a set of specific strategic expectations to help communicate your PPM goals. See the following slides for an articulation of each strategy option.

A top-down, executive driven strategy is the optimal route, putting leadership in a position to best conduct the portfolio

Option A: Top-Down, Executive Driven Strategy

Strategic Expectations:

• Project Throughput: Maximize throughput of the best projects.
• Portfolio Visibility: Ensure visibility of current and pending projects.
• Portfolio Responsiveness: Make the portfolio responsive to executive steering when new projects and changing priorities need rapid action.
• Resource Utilization: Minimize resource waste and optimize the alignment of skills to assignments.
• Benefits Realization: Clarify accountability for post-project benefits attainment for each project, and facilitate the process of tracking/reporting those benefits.

Info-Tech Insight

Serve the executive with insight before you impede the projects with governance. This strategy option is where Info-Tech sees the most PPM success. A strategy focused at improving decision making at the executive layer will both improve project outcomes and help alleviate project workloads.

A bottom-up strategy can help project managers and teams succeed where insight into the big picture is lacking

Option B: Bottom-Up, Project Manager Driven Strategy

Strategic Expectations:

• Project Management Governance: All projects consuming IT resources will be continually validated in terms of best-practice process compliance.
• Project Risk Management: Identify risks and related mitigation approaches for all high-risk areas.
• Stakeholder Management: Ensure that project stakeholders are identified and involved.
• Project Manager Resourcing: Provide project managers as needed.
• Project-Level Visibility: Provide access to the details of project management processes (planning and progress) as needed.

Info-Tech Insight

Right-size governance to maximize success. Project management and governance success don’t necessarily equal project success. Project management processes should be a means to an end (i.e. successful project outcomes), and not an end in themselves. Ensure the ends justify the means.

Most recurring project challenges require a top-down portfolio management approach

While project management is a key ingredient to project success, tying to solve endemic project problems with project management alone won’t improve results over the long term.

Why Top-Down is a better starting point than Bottom-Up.

The most common IT project problems – schedule and budget overruns, scope creep, and poor quality – can ultimately, in the vast majority of cases, be traced back to bad decisions made at the portfolio level:

• The wrong projects get greenlighted.
• Shifting leadership priorities and operational demands make project plans and estimated delivery dates obsolete from the start.
• Too many projects get approved when there are not enough resources to effectively work on them all.

No amount of project management rigor can help alleviate these common root causes of project failure.

With a top-down PPM strategy, however, you can make sure that leadership is informed and engaged in making the right project decisions and that project managers and teams are situated for success.

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." (Peter Drucker (quoted in Lessing))

Info-Tech Insight

Get Strategic About Project Success.

The difference between project management and project portfolio management comes down to doing things right vs. doing the right things. Both are important, no doubt; but doing the wrong things well doesn’t provide much value to the business in the long run.

Get insight into the big picture with a top-down strategy before imposing more administrative overhead on project managers and leads.

Perform a leadership mandate assessment to gauge executive needs and expectations

INPUT: Leadership expectations for portfolio and project management.

OUTPUT: Leadership mandate bar chart

Materials: Tab 6 of Info-Tech’s PPM High-Level Supply-Demand Calculator

Participants: Portfolio manager (or equivalent), PPM strategy sponsor(s), CIO and other members of senior management

Before choosing your strategy option, survey the organization’s leadership to assess what they’re expecting from the PPM strategy.

Use the “Leadership Mandate Survey” (located on tab 6 of Info-Tech’s PPM High-Level Supply-Demand Calculator) to assess the degree to which your leadership expects the PPM strategy to provide outcomes across the following capabilities: portfolio reporting, project governance, and project management.

• Deploy the 12-question survey via individual one-on-one meetings or group working sessions with your boss (the PPM strategy sponsor) as well as with the CIO and other senior managers from within IT and the business.
  • If you cannot connect with the executive layer for this survey, do your best to estimate their responses to complete the survey.
• The survey should help distinguish if executives are looking for portfolio management or project management. It should be one input that informs your choice of strategy option A or B.
  • If leadership is looking primarily for project management, you should proceed to Info-Tech’s Tailor Project Management Processes that Fit Your Projects blueprint.

Refer to the next slide for assistance analyzing the outputs in tab 6 and using them to inform your choice of strategy.

How to make use of the results of the leadership survey

Customize Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template. Insert screenshots of the survey and the bar graph from tab 6 of the PPM High-Level Supply-Demand Calculator onto slides 7 and 8, “PPM Strategy Leadership Mandate,” of the PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Proceed with the right PPM strategy for your organization

Based upon the results of the “Leadership Mandate Survey,” and your assessment of each strategy option as described in the previous slides, choose the strategy option that is right for your IT department/PMO at this time.

"Without a strategic methodology, project portfolio planning is frustrating and has little chance of achieving exceptional business success." (G Wahl (quoted in Merkhofer))

Option A:

Those proceeding with Option A should continue with remainder of this blueprint. Update your strategy statement on slide 3 of your PPM Strategic Plan Template to reflect your choice

Option B:

Those proceeding with Option B should exit this blueprint and refer to Info-Tech’s Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects blueprint to help define a project management standard operating procedure.

Customize Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template. If you’re proceeding with Option A, update slide 4, “Project Portfolio Management Strategy,” of your PPM Strategic Plan Template to reflect your choice of PPM strategy. If you’re proceeding with Option B, you may want to include your strategy statement in your Project Management SOP Template.

The success of your top-down strategy will hinge on the quality of your capacity awareness and resource utilization

A PPM strategy should facilitate alignment between project demand with resource supply. Use Info-Tech’s PPM High-Level Supply/Demand Calculator as a step towards this alignment.

Info-Tech’s research shows that the ability to provide a centralized view of IT’s capacity for projects is one of the top PPM capabilities that contributes to overall project success.

Accurate and reliable forecasts into IT’s capacity, coupled with an engaged executive layer making project approval and prioritization decisions based upon that capacity data, is the hallmark of an effective top-down PPM strategy.

• Use Info-Tech’s PPM High-Level Supply/Demand Calculator to help improve visibility (and with it, organizational understanding) into project demand and IT resource supply.
• The Calculator will help you determine IT’s actual capacity for projects and analyze organizational demand by taking an inventory of active and backlog projects.

Download Info-Tech’s PPM High-Level Supply/Demand Calculator.

Info-Tech Insight

Where does the time go? The portfolio manager (or equivalent) should function as the accounting department for time, showing what’s available in IT’s human resources budget for projects and providing ongoing visibility into how that budget of time is being spent.

Establish the total resource capacity of your portfolio

INPUT: Staff resource types, Average work week, Estimated allocations

OUTPUT: Breakdown of annual portfolio HR spend, Capacity pie chart

Materials: PPM High-Level Supply/Demand Calculator, tab 3

Participants: Portfolio manager (or equivalent), Resource and/or project managers

Use tab 3 of the calculator to determine your actual HR portfolio budget for projects, relative to the organization’s non-project demands.

• Tab 3 analyzes your resource supply asks you to consider how your staff spend their time weekly across four categories: out of office time, administrative time (e.g. meetings, training, checking email), keep-the-lights-on time (i.e. support and maintenance), and project time.
• The screenshot below walks you through columns B to E of tab 3, which help calculate your potential capacity. This activity will continue on the next slide, where we will determine your realized capacity for project work from this potential capacity.

Determine the project/non-project ratio for each role

The previous slide walked you through columns B to E of tab 3. This slide walks you through columns F to J, which ask you to consider how your potential capacity is spent.

Review your annual portfolio capacity for projects

The previous slides walked you through the inputs for tab “3. Project Capacity.” This slide walks you through the outputs of the tab.

Based upon the inputs from columns B to J, the rest of tab 3 analyzes how IT available time is spent across the time categories, highlighting how much of IT’s capacity is actually available for projects after admin work, support and maintenance work, and absences have been taken into account.

Customize Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template. Update slide 10, “Current Project Capacity,” of your PPM Strategic Plan Template to include the outputs from tab 3 of the Calculator.

Create an inventory of active and backlog projects to help gauge overall project demand

INPUT: Number of active and backlog projects across different sizes

OUTPUT: Total project demand in estimated hours of work effort

Materials: PPM High-Level Supply/Demand Calculator, tab 4

Participants: Portfolio manager (or equivalent), Project managers

Where tab 3 of the Calculator gave you visibility into your overall resource supply for projects, tab 4 will help you establish insight into the demand side.

• Before starting on tab 4, be sure to enter the required project size data on the set-up tab.
• Using a list of current active projects, categorize the items on the list by size: small, medium, large, and extra large. Enter the number of projects in each category of project in column C of tab 4.
• Using a list of on-hold projects, or projects that have been approved but not started, categorize the list by size and enter the number of projects in each category in column D.
• In column E, estimate the number of new requests and projects across each size that you anticipate being added to the portfolio/backlog in the next 12 months. Use historical data from the past 12 to 24 months to inform your estimates.
• In column F, estimate the number of projects that you anticipate being completed in each size category in the next 12 months. Take the current state of active projects into account as you make your estimates, as well as throughput data from the previous 12 to 24 months.

Make supply and demand part of the conversation as you get buy-in for your top-down strategy

Tab 5 of the Calculator is an output tab, visualizing the alignment (or lack thereof) of project demand and resource supply.

Once tabs 3 and 4 are complete, use tab 5 to analyze the supply/demand data to help build your case for a top-down PPM strategy and get buy-in for it.

Customize Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template. Update slides 11 and 12, “Current Project Demand,” of your PPM Strategic Plan Template to include the outputs from tabs 4 and 5 of the Calculator.

Recommended: Complete Info-Tech’s PPM Current State Scorecard to measure your resource utilization

This step is highly recommended but not required. Call 1-888-670-8889 to inquire about or request the PPM Diagnostics.

Info-Tech’s PPM Current State Scorecard diagnostic provides a comprehensive view of your portfolio management strengths and weaknesses, including project portfolio management, project management, customer management, and resource utilization.

Customize Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template. Update slides 14 and 15, “Current State Resource Utilization” of your PPM Strategic Plan Template to include the resource utilization outputs from your PPM Current State Scorecard.

Finalize section one of the PPM Strategic Plan Template and prepare to communicate your strategy

INPUT: The previous activities from this step

OUTPUT: An presentation communication your PPM strategy

Materials: PPM Strategic Plan Template, section 1

Participants: Portfolio manager (or equivalent)

By now, you should be ready to complete section one of the PPM Strategic Plan Template.

The purpose of this section of the Template is to capture the outputs of this step and use them to communicate the value of a top-down PPM strategy and to get buy-in for this strategy from senior management before you move forward to develop your PPM processes in the subsequent phases of this blueprint.

• Within section one, update any of the text that is (in grey) to reflect the specifics of your organization – i.e. the name of your organization and department – and the specific outcomes of step 1.2 activities. In addition, replace the placeholders for a company logo with the logo of your company.
• Replace the tool screenshots with the outputs from your version of the PPM High-Level Supply/Demand Calculator.
• Proofread all of the text to ensure the content accurately reflects your outcomes. Edit the content as needed to more accurately reflect your outcomes.
• Determine the audience for the presentation of your PPM strategy and make a logistical arrangement. Include PPM strategy sponsors, senior management from within IT and the business, and other important stakeholders.

Get executive buy-in for your top-down PPM strategy

Executive layer buy-in is a critical prerequisite for the success of a top-down PPM strategy. Ensure your executives are on board before preceding.

You’re now ready to communicate your PPM strategy to your leadership team and other stakeholders.

It is essential that you get preliminary buy-in for this strategy from the executive layer before you move forward to develop your PPM processes in the subsequent phases of this blueprint. Lack of executive engagement is one of the top barriers to PPM strategy success.

• If you have gone through the preceding activities in this step, section one of your PPM Strategic Plan Template should now be ready to present.
• As explained in 1.1.4, you should present this section to an audience of PPM strategy sponsors, C-suite executives, and other members of the senior management team.
• Allow at least 60 minutes for the presentation – around 20 minutes to deliver the slide presentation and 40 minutes for discussion.
• If you get sufficient buy-in by the end of the presentation, proceed to the next step of this blueprint. If buy-in is lacking, now might not be the right time for a top-down PPM strategy. Think about adopting a bottom-up approach until leadership is more engaged in the portfolio.

"Gaining executive sponsorship early is key…It is important for the executives in your organization to understand that the PPM initiatives and the PMO organization are there to support (but never hinder) executive decision making." (KeyedIn Projects)

Info-Tech Best Practice

Engage(d) sponsorship. According to Prosci, the top factor in contributing to the success of a change initiative is active and visible executive sponsorship. Use this meeting to communicate to your sponsor(s) the importance of their involvement in championing the PPM strategy.

A PPM strategic plan elevates PMO’s status to a business strategic partner

CASE STUDY

Industry: Public Administration
Source: IAG / Info-Tech Interview

Challenge

The PMO operated in a way that is, in their self-assessment, reactive; project requests and capacity were not effectively managed. Perhaps due to this, the leadership team was not always visible, or regularly available, to PM leaders. This, in turn, complicated efforts to effectively manage their projects.

Solution

Establishing a simple prioritization methodology enabled the senior leadership to engage and effectively steer the project portfolio by strategic importance. The criteria and tool also gave the business units a clear understanding to promote the strategic value of each of their project requests.

Results

PM leaders now have the support and confidence of the senior leadership team to both proactively manage and deliver on strategic projects. This new prioritization model brought the PM Leader and senior leadership team in direct access with each other.

"By implementing this new project intake and prioritization framework, we drastically improved our ability to predict, meet, and manage project requests and unit workload. We adopted a client-focused and client-centric approach that enabled all project participants to see their role and value in successful project delivery. We created methodologies that were easy to follow from the client participation perspective, but also as PM leaders, provided us with the metrics, planning, and proactive tools to meet and anticipate client project demand. The response from our clients was extremely positive, encouraging, and appreciative."

Step 1.2: Translate PPM strategic expectations to process goals

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine process goals based upon your PPM strategy.
• Set metrics and preliminary targets for your PPM processes.

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• Steering Committee
• Business Unit Leaders
• PMO Director/Portfolio Manager

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder-prioritized PPM process goals
• Metrics and targets for high-priority process goals

Use the PPM strategy to set the direction for PPM processes that make up the infrastructure around projects

PPM strategy enables you to answer any and all of these questions in a way that is consistent, cohesive, and aligned with one another.

Set process goals to address PPM strategic expectations and steer the PPM strategic plan

INPUT: PPM strategy & expectations, Organizational strategy and culture

OUTPUT: Prioritized list of strategy-aligned PPM process goals

Materials: PPM Strategy-Process Translation Matrix

Participants: CIO, Steering Committee, Business Unit Leaders, PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

This activity is designed for key departmental stakeholders to articulate how PPM processes should be developed or refined to meet the PPM strategic expectations.

Participation of the key departmental stakeholders in this exercise is critical, e.g. CIO, Steering Committee, business unit leaders.

Download Info-Tech’s PPM Strategy-Process Goals Translation Matrix Template.

Use Info-Tech’s Translation Matrix to systematically articulate strategy-aligned PPM process goals

Formula: To answer “[question]” in a way that we can [strategic expectation], it will be important to [process goal].

Example 1:
To answer the question “who can request a project, and how?” in a way that we can maximize the throughput of the best projects, it will be important to standardize the project request process.

Example 2:
To answer the question “how will they decide what to fund?” in a way that we can maximize the throughput of the best projects, it will be important to reach a consensus on project prioritization criteria.

Example 3:
To answer the question “how will we track the projected benefits?” in a way that we can maximize the throughput of the best projects, it will be important to double-check the validity of benefits before projects are approved.

Set metrics and preliminary targets for your high-priority PPM process goals

1.2.2 – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Prioritized list of strategy-aligned PPM process goals, Organizational strategy and culture

OUTPUT: Metrics and targets for high-priority PPM process goals

Materials: PPM Strategy-Process Translation Matrix

Participants: CIO, Steering Committee, Business Unit Leaders, PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

Your highest-priority process goals and their corresponding strategy expectations are displayed in tab 3 of the PPM Strategy-Process Translation Matrix template (example below).

Through a group discussion, document what will be measured to decide the achievement of each process goal, as well as your current estimate and the long-term target. If necessary, adjust the approximate target duration.

Project-client-centered approach to PPM process design improves client satisfaction and team confidence

CASE STUDY

Industry: Public Administration
Source: IAG / Info-Tech Interview

Challenge

Reactive instead of proactive

"We had no effective means of tracking project intake requests vs. capacity. We struggled using ad hoc processes and methods which worked to meet immediate needs, but we quickly realized that they were ineffective in tracking critical project metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), or performance measures...In short, we were being reactive, instead of proactive."

The result was a disorganized portfolio that led to low client satisfaction and team morale.

Solution

Examine processes “through the eyes of the client”

With the guiding principle of “through the eyes of the client,” PPM processes and tools were developed to formalize project intake, prioritization, and capacity planning. All touchpoints between client and PPM processes were identified, and practices for managing client expectations were put in place. A client satisfaction survey was formulated as part of the post-project assessment and review.

Results

Client-centered processes improved client satisfaction and team confidence

People, processes, and tools are now aligned to support client demand, manage client expectations, measure project KPIs, and perform post-project analysis. A standard for client satisfaction metrics was put in place. The overwhelmingly positive feedback has increased team confidence in their ability to deliver quality efforts.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team. Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop. Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

	Determine your actual resource capacity for projects Work with Info-Tech analysts to define your project vs. non-project ratio to help define how much of your overall resource capacity is actual available for projects.
	Set realistic PPM process goals Leverage Info-Tech facilitators to help walk you through our PPM framework and define achievable process goals that are rooted in your current PPM maturity levels and organizational culture.

Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

PHASE 2

Align PPM Processes to Your Strategic Goals

Phase 2 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Guided Implementation 2: Align PPM processes to your strategic goals

Proposed Time to Completion: 2-4 weeks

Read first: Overview of the methodology for articulating new strategy-aligned PPM processes

In the previous step of the blueprint, key department stakeholders established the PPM process goals, metrics, and targets in a way that aligns with the overall PPM strategy. In this phase, we draft a high-level description of the five PPM processes that reflect those goals using the following methodology:

Methodology at a glance

1. Articulate the current state of the process.
2. Examine the process against the strategy-aligned goals.
3. Create short- and long-term action items to refine the current process and meet the strategy-aligned targets.
4. Develop a high-level target-state description of the PPM process.
5. Estimate costs-in-use of the target-state process.

Out-of-scope topics

• Draft a detailed target-state description of the PPM process. Avoid falling into the “analysis paralysis” trap and keep the discussion focused on the overall PPM strategy.
• PPM tools to support the process. This discussion will take place in the next phase of the blueprint.

Download Info-Tech’s PPM Strategy Development Tool

Build a sound business case for implementing the new PPM strategy with realistic costs and benefits of managing your project portfolio.

Time spent on managing the project portfolio is an investment. Like any other business endeavors, the benefits must outweigh the costs to be worth doing.

As you draft a high-level description of the PPM processes in this phase of the blueprint, use Info-Tech’s PPM Strategy Development Tool to track the estimate the cost-in-use of the process. In the next phase, this information will be inform a cost-benefit analysis, which will be used to support your plan to implement the PPM strategy.

Download Info-Tech’s PPM Strategy Development Tool.

Step 2.1: Develop and refine project intake, prioritization, and resource management processes

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine your process maturity.
• Benchmark current processes against strategy-aligned goals.
• Set near- and long-term action items.
• Draft a high-level description of your target state.
• Document your new processes.

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director/Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Resource Managers
• Business Analysts

Outcomes of this step

• A definition of current and target state maturity levels for intake, prioritization, and resource management
• Near-term and long-term process goals for intake, prioritization, and resource management
• A high-level wireframe for your intake, prioritization, and resource management process steps

Project intake, prioritization, and approval: Get projects with the highest value done first

Give your organization the voice to say “no” (or “not yet”) to new projects.

Questions

• Who can request a project?
• How do you request a project?
• Who decides what to fund?
• What is the target investment mix?
• How will they decide?

Benefits

• Maximize value of time spent on project work by aligning projects with priorities and stakeholder needs.
• Finish the projects you start by improving alignment of intake and prioritization with resource capacity.
• Improve stakeholder satisfaction by managing expectations with consistent, streamlined processes.

Challenges

• Stakeholders who benefit from political or ad hoc prioritization processes will resist or circumvent formal intake processes.
• Many organizations lack sufficient awareness of resource capacity necessary to align intake with availability.

Info-Tech Insight

This process aims to control the project demand. A balance between rigor and flexibility is critical in order to avoid the “analysis paralysis” as much as the “gut feel” approach.

Funnel project requests into a triage system for project intake

Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for managing project intake.

1. Requestor fills out form and submits the request into the funnel.
2. Requests are triaged into the proper queue.
   1. Divert non-project request.
   2. Quickly assess value and urgency.
   3. Assign specialist to follow up on request.
   4. Inform the requestor.
3. Business analyst starts to gather preliminary requirements.
   1. Follow up with sponsors to validate and define scope.
   2. Estimate size and determine project management rigor required.
   3. Start to develop an initial business case.
4. Requestor is given realistic expectations for approval process.

Info-Tech Best Practice

An excess number of intake channels is the tell-tale sign of a project portfolio in distress. The PMO needs to exercise and enforce discipline on stakeholders. PMO should demand proper documentation and diligence from stakeholders before proceeding with requests.

Maintain reliable resourcing data with a recurrent project intake, prioritization, and approval practice

Info-Tech recommends following a five-step process for managing project intake, prioritization, and approval.

Info-Tech Insight

“Approval” can be a dangerous word in project and portfolio management. Use it carefully. Clarify precisely what is being “approved” at each step in the process, what is required to pass each gate, and how long the process will take.

Determine your project intake, prioritization, and approval process maturity

INPUT: Organizational strategy and culture

OUTPUT: Project intake, prioritization, and approval capability level

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Kick-off the discussion about the project intake, prioritization, and approval process by reading the capability level descriptions below and discussing which level currently applies to you the most.

Benchmark the current project intake, prioritization, and approval process against strategy-aligned goals

2.1.1b – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Documentation describing the current process (e.g. standard operating procedures), Process goals from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Retrospective review of current process

Materials: 4x6” recipe cards, Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out the process currently in place.

1. Use white 4”x6” recipe cards to write unique steps of a process. Use the intake, prioritization, and approval process from the previous slides as a guide.
2. Use green cards to write artifacts or deliverables that result from a step.
3. Use pink cards to write issues, problems, or risks.
4. Discuss how the process could better achieve the strategy-aligned goals from activity 1.2.1. Keep a list of possible changes in the form of a start-stop-continue retrospective (example below) on a whiteboard.

Set near- and long-term action items for the project intake, prioritization, and approval process

2.1.1c – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: Outcome of the retrospective review, Process goals and metrics from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

Materials: Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Analyze each item in the start-stop-continue retrospective to compile a set of near-term and long-term action items.

Review and customize slide 23, “Project intake, prioritization, and approval: action items,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Draft a high-level description of the intake, prioritization, and approval process at a target state

2.1.1d – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

OUTPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

Materials: Whiteboard, PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

1. Break down the process into several tasks at a high level. Avoid getting into too much detail by limiting the number of steps.

An example of high-level breakdown: project intake, prioritization, and approval
Collect project requests	–›	Screen requests	–›	Develop business case	–›	Prioritize project	–›	Approve project



2. Describe each task by answering the following questions. Document your response in the PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Question	Description
Input	What information do you need to perform the work?
Output	What artifacts/deliverables are produced as a result?
Frequency/Timing	How often, and when, will the work be performed?
Responsibility	Who will perform the work?
Accountability	Who will approve the work and assume the ownership of any decisions?



3. Record the time cost of each process using the PPM Strategy Development Tool; see next slide for instructions.

Use the PPM Strategy Development Tool to track the time cost of the process

Record the time cost of each high-level process task from Activity 2.1.1d.

Document the high-level description for the new intake, prioritization, and approval process

INPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

OUTPUT: Updated PPM strategic plan

Materials: Whiteboard, PPM Strategic Plan Template

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

Update your PPM strategic plan with the new high-level description for the new project intake, prioritization, and approval process. Depending on your current process capability level, you may wish to include additional information on your strategic document, for example:

• Updated prioritization scorecard.
• Roles and responsibility matrix, identifying consulted and informed parties.

Info-Tech has a dedicated blueprint to help you develop the high-level process description into a fully operationalized process. Upon completion of this PPM strategy blueprint, speak to an Info-Tech account manager or analyst to get started.

Read Info-Tech’s Optimize Project Intake, Prioritization, and Approval blueprint.

Review and customize slide 24, “Project intake, prioritization, and approval: target state,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Clarity in project prioritization process leads to enterprise-wide buy-in

CASE STUDY

Industry: Public Administration
Source: IAG / Info-Tech Interview

Challenge

"Our challenge from the start was to better understand the strategic perspective and priorities of our client departments.

In addition, much of the work requested was not aligned to corporate goals and efforts, and seemed to be contradictory, redundant, and lacking strategic focus."

Complicating this challenge was the fact that work requests were being received via all means of communication, which made the monitoring and controlling of requests more difficult.

Solution

Client departments were consulted to improve the understanding of their strategic goals and priorities. Based on the consultation:

• A new, enterprise-wide project prioritization criteria was developed.
• Priority of project requests from all business areas are evaluated on a quarterly basis.
• A prioritized list of projects are made available to the senior leadership team.

Results

"By creating and implementing a tool for departments to prioritize strategic efforts, we helped them consider the important overall project criteria and measure them uniformly, across all anticipated projects. This set a standard of assessment, prioritization, and ranking, which helped departments clearly see which efforts were supportive and matched their strategic goals."

Resource management process ensures that projects get the resources they need

Reclaim project capacity: properly allocate project work and establish more stable project timelines.

Questions

• Who assigns the resources?
• Who feeds the data on resources?
• How do we make sure it’s valid?
• How do we handle contingencies when projects are late, or if availability changes?

Benefits

• Ensure that approved projects can be completed by aligning intake with real project capacity.
• Reduce over-allocation of resources by allocating based on their proportion of project vs. non-project work.
• Forecast future resource requirements by maintaining accurate resource capacity data.

Challenges

• Time tracking can be difficult when project workers balance project work with “keep the lights on” activities and other administrative work.
• Continuous partial attention, interruptions, and distractions are a part of today’s reality that makes it very difficult to maximize productivity.

Maintain reliable resourcing data with a recurrent resource management practice

Info-Tech recommends following a five-step process for resource management.

Info-Tech Insight

This process aims to control the resource supply to meet the demand – project and non-project alike. Coordinate this process with the intake, approval, and prioritization process.

Determine your resource management process capability level

2.1.2a – 10 minutes

INPUT: Organizational strategy and culture

OUTPUT: Resource management capability level

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Kick-off the discussion about the resource management process by reading the capability level descriptions below and discussing which level currently applies to you the most.

Benchmark the current resource management process against strategy-aligned goals

2.1.2b – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Documentation describing the current process (e.g. standard operating procedures), Process goals from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Retrospective review of current process

Materials: 4x6” recipe cards, Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out the process currently in place.

1. Use white 4”x6” recipe cards to write unique steps of a process. Use the resource management process from the previous slides as a guide.
2. Use green cards to write artifacts or deliverables that result from a step.
3. Use pink cards to write issues, problems, or risks.
4. Discuss how the process could better achieve the strategy-aligned goals from activity 1.2.1. Keep a list of possible changes in the form of a start-stop-continue retrospective (example below) on a whiteboard.

Set near- and long-term action items for the resource management process

2.1.2c – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: Outcome of the retrospective review, Process goals and metrics from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

Materials: Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Analyze each item in the start-stop-continue retrospective to compile a set of near-term and long-term action items.

Review and customize slide 26, “Resource management: action items,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Draft a high-level description of the resource management process at a target state

2.1.2d – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

OUTPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

Materials: Whiteboard, PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

1. Break down the process into several tasks at a high level. Avoid getting into too much detail by limiting the number of steps.

An example of high-level breakdown: resource management
Collect resource availability	–›	Collect resource demand	–›	Identify need for reconciliation	–›	Resolve conflicts and over-allocation	–›	Update resource forecast




2. Describe each task by answering the following questions. Document your response in the PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Question	Description
Input	What information do you need to perform the work?
Output	What artifacts/deliverables are produced as a result?
Frequency/Timing	How often, and when, will the work be performed?
Responsibility	Who will perform the work?
Accountability	Who will approve the work and assume the ownership of any decisions?




3. Record the time cost of each process using the PPM Strategy Development Tool.

Document the high-level description for the new resource management process

2.1.2e – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

OUTPUT: Updated PPM strategic plan

Materials: PPM Strategic Plan Template

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

Update your PPM strategic plan with the new high-level description for the new resource management process. Depending on your current process capability level, you may wish to include additional information on your strategic plan, for example:

• Resource management meeting agenda template
• Roles and responsibility matrix, identifying consulted and informed parties

Info-Tech has a dedicated blueprint to help you develop the high-level process description into a fully operationalized process. Upon completion of this PPM strategy blueprint, speak to an Info-Tech account manager or analyst to get started.

Read Info-Tech’s Develop a Resource Management for the New Reality blueprint.

Review and customize slide 27, “Resource management: target state,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Step 2.2: Develop and refine portfolio reporting, project closure, and benefits realization processes

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine your process maturity.
• Benchmark current processes against strategy-aligned goals.
• Set near- and long-term action items.
• Draft a high-level description of your target state.
• Document your new processes.

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director/Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Outcomes of this step

• A definition of current and target state maturity levels for portfolio reporting, project closure, and benefits realization
• Near-term and long-term process goals for portfolio reporting, project closure, and benefits realization
• A high-level wireframe for your portfolio reporting, project closure, and benefits realization process steps

Portfolio reporting process makes trustworthy data accessible for informing decisions

Giving stakeholders the ability to make informed decisions is the most important function of managing the project portfolio.

Questions

• What project information should be reported?
• Who reports on project status?
• When and how do we report on the status of the project portfolio?

Benefits

• Reporting is the linchpin of any successful PPM strategy.
• Timely and accurate status reports enable decision makers to address issues risks and issues before they create bigger problems.
• Executive visibility can be achieved with or without a commercial tool using spreadsheets, a content management system such as SharePoint, or a combination of tools you already have.

Challenges

• Trying to increase detailed visibility too fast leads to difficulty gathering and maintaining data. As a result, reporting is rarely accurate and people quickly lose trust in the portfolio.
• If you are planning to adopt a commercial tool, Info-Tech strongly recommends validating your organization’s ability to maintain a consistent reporting process using simple tools before investing in a more sophisticated system.

Info-Tech Insight

If you can only do one thing, establish frequently current reporting on project status. Reporting doesn’t have to be detailed or precise, as long as it’s accurate.

Maintain reliable portfolio status data with a recurrent status and progress reporting practice

Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for portfolio status and progress reporting.

Start by establishing a regular reporting cadence with lightweight project status KPIs:

Determine your resource management process capability level

2.2.1a – 10 minutes

INPUT: Organizational strategy and culture

OUTPUT: Portfolio reporting capability level

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers

Kick-off the discussion about the portfolio reporting process by reading the capability level descriptions below and discussing which level currently applies to you the most.

Benchmark the current portfolio reporting process against strategy-aligned goals

INPUT: Documentation describing the current process (e.g. standard operating procedures), Process goals from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Retrospective review of current process

Materials: 4x6” recipe cards, Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers

Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out the process currently in place.

1. Use white 4”x6” recipe cards to write unique steps of a process. Use the portfolio reporting process from the previous slides as a guide.
2. Use green cards to write artifacts or deliverables that result from a step.
3. Use pink cards to write issues, problems, or risks.
4. Discuss how the process could better achieve the strategy-aligned goals from activity 1.2.1. Keep a list of possible changes in the form of a start-stop-continue retrospective (example below) on a whiteboard.

Set near- and long-term action items for the portfolio reporting process

2.2.1c – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: Outcome of the retrospective review, Process goals and metrics from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

Materials: Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers

Analyze each item in the start-stop-continue retrospective to compile a set of near-term and long-term action items.

Review and customize slide 29, “Portfolio reporting: action items,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Draft a high-level description of the portfolio reporting process at a target state

2.2.1d – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

OUTPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

Materials: Whiteboard, PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers

1. Break down the process into several tasks at a high level. Avoid getting into too much detail by limiting the number of steps.

An example of high-level breakdown: portfolio reporting
Create project status reports	–›	Create a project portfolio status report	–›	Report on project portfolio status	–›	Act on portfolio steering decisions




2. Describe each task by answering the following questions. Document your response in the PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Question	Description
Input	What information do you need to perform the work?
Output	What artifacts/deliverables are produced as a result?
Frequency/Timing	How often, and when, will the work be performed?
Responsibility	Who will perform the work?
Accountability	Who will approve the work and assume the ownership of any decisions?



3. Record the time cost of each process using the PPM Strategy Development Tool.

Document the high-level description for the new portfolio reporting process

2.2.1e – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

OUTPUT: Updated PPM strategic plan

Materials: PPM Strategic Plan Template

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

Update your PPM strategic plan with the new high-level description for the new portfolio reporting process. Depending on your current process capability level, you may wish to include additional information on your strategic plan, for example:

• Updated project status report template with new KPIs.
• Documentation of requirements for improved PPM dashboards and reports.

Info-Tech has a dedicated blueprint to help you develop the high-level process description into a fully operationalized process. Upon completion of this PPM strategy blueprint, speak to an Info-Tech account manager or analyst to get started.

Read Info-Tech’s Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports blueprint.

Review and customize slide 30, “Portfolio reporting: target state,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Streamlined status reporting improves portfolio visibility for executives, enabling data-driven steering of the portfolio

CASE STUDY

Industry: Public Administration
Source: IAG / Info-Tech Interview

Challenge

The client had no effective real-time reporting in place to summarize their work efforts. In addition, the client struggled with managing existing resources against the ability to deliver on the requested project workload.

Existing project reporting processes were manually intensive and lacked mature reporting capabilities.

Solution

Through a short and effective engagement, IAG conducted surveys and facilitated interviews to identify the information needed by each stakeholder. From this analysis and industry best practices, IAG developed scorecards, dashboards, and project summary reports tailored to the needs of each stakeholder group. This integrated reporting tool was then made available on a central portal for PPM stakeholders.

Results

Stakeholders can access project scorecard and dashboard reports that are available at any given time.

Resource reporting enabled the PMO to better balance client demand with available project capacity and forecast any upcoming deficiencies in resourcing that affect project delivery.

Project closure at the portfolio level controls throughput and responsiveness of the portfolio

Take control over projects that linger on, projects that don’t provide value, and projects that do not align with changing organizational priority.

Questions

• Who declares that a project is done?
• Who validates it?
• Who is this reported to?
• Who terminates low-value projects?
• How will they decide that a project is too low value to continue?

Benefits

• Minimize post-implementation problems by ensuring clean handoffs, with clear responsibilities for ongoing support and maintenance.
• Drive continuous improvement by capturing and applying lessons learned.
• Increase the project portfolio’s responsiveness to change by responding to emerging opportunities and challenges.

Challenges

• Completion criteria and “definition of done” need to be well defined and done so at project initiation.
• Scope changes need to be managed and documented throughout the project.
• Portfolio responsiveness requires deep cultural changes that will be met with confusion and resistance from some stakeholders.

Info-Tech Insight

Although “change in organizational priority” is the most frequently cited cause of project failure (PMI Pulse of Profession, 2017), closing projects that don’t align with organizational priority ought to be a key PPM goal. Therefore, don’t think of it as project failure; instead, think of it as PPM success.

Maintain the health of the project portfolio with a repeatable project closure process

Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for project closure.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Post-implementation review checks which benefits (including those set out in the business case) have been achieved and identifies opportunities for further improvement. Without it, it can be difficult to demonstrate that investment in a project was worthwhile.

Determine your project closure process capability level

2.2.2a – 10 minutes

INPUT: Organizational strategy and culture

OUTPUT: Project closure capability level

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Business Analysts

Kick-off the discussion about the project closure process by reading the capability level descriptions below and discussing which level currently applies to you the most.

Benchmark the current project closure process against strategy-aligned goals

2.2.2b – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Documentation describing the current process (e.g. standard operating procedures), Process goals from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Retrospective review of current process

Materials: 4x6” recipe cards, Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Business Analysts

Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out the process currently in place.

1. Use white 4”x6” recipe cards to write unique steps of a process. Use the project closure process from the previous slides as a guide.
2. Use green cards to write artifacts or deliverables that result from a step.
3. Use pink cards to write issues, problems, or risks.
4. Discuss how the process could better achieve the strategy-aligned goals from activity 1.2.1. Keep a list of possible changes in the form of a start-stop-continue retrospective (example below) on a whiteboard.

Set near- and long-term action items for the project closure process

2.2.2c – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: Outcome of the retrospective review, Process goals and metrics from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

Materials: Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Analyze each item in the start-stop-continue retrospective to compile a set of near-term and long-term action items.

Review and customize slide 32, “Project closure: action items,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Draft a high-level description of the project closure process at a target state

2.2.2d – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

OUTPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

Materials: Whiteboard, PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

1. Break down the process into several tasks at a high level. Avoid getting into too much detail by limiting the number of steps.

An example of high-level breakdown: project closure
Complete or terminate projects	–›	Validate project closure	–›	Conduct post-project work	–›	Conduct post-implementation review




2. Describe each task by answering the following questions. Document your response in the PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Question	Description
Input	What information do you need to perform the work?
Output	What artifacts/deliverables are produced as a result?
Frequency/Timing	How often, and when, will the work be performed?
Responsibility	Who will perform the work?
Accountability	Who will approve the work and assume the ownership of any decisions?




3. Record the time cost of each process using the PPM Strategy Development Tool.

Document the high-level description for the new project closure process

2.2.2e – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

OUTPUT: Updated PPM strategic plan

Materials: PPM Strategic Plan Template

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

Update your PPM strategic plan with the new high-level description for the new project closure process. Depending on your current process capability level, you may wish to include additional information on your strategic plan, for example:

• Updated project closure checklist.
• Project value review meeting process document.
• Post-implementation review process document.

Info-Tech has several research notes that elaborate on aspects of project closure. Upon completion of this PPM strategy blueprint, speak to an Info-Tech account manager or analyst to get started.

Read Info-Tech’s research notes on project closure:

• The Importance of Conducting a Post Implementation Review
• Five Key Steps to Mastering Project Closure
• ‘Governance’ Will Kill Your Projects

Review and customize slide 33, “Project closure: target state,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Validate the time and effort spent on projects with a benefits realization process

Maximizing benefits from projects is the primary goal of PPM. Tracking and reporting on benefits post-project closes the loop on benefits.

Questions

• How do validate the project benefits from the original business case?
• How do we track the benefits?
• Who reports it? When?

Benefits

• Maximize benefits realization by identifying and addressing unforeseen issues or limitations to success.
• Improve project approval and prioritization by improving validity of the business case definition process.

Challenges

• Project sponsors need to be willing to invest time – months and years post-project completion – to validate benefits realization.
• Portfolio management needs to proactively work with sponsors to facilitate benefits tracking.
• Business cases need to be well developed and documented to reflect real anticipated benefits.

Too many projects fail to achieve the originally proposed benefits, and too few organizations are able to identify and address the root causes of those shortfalls.

Info-Tech Insight

In reality, benefits realization process extends across the entire project life cycle: during intake, during the execution of the project, and after project completion. Be mindful of this extended scope when you discuss benefits realization in the following activity.

Keep project benefits front and center with a repeatable benefits realization process

Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for benefits realization.

Info-Tech Insight

At the heart of benefits realization is accountability: who is held accountable for projects that don’t realize the benefits and how? Without the buy-in from the entire executive layer team, addressing this issue is very difficult.

Determine your benefits realization process capability level

2.2.3a – 10 minutes

INPUT: Organizational strategy and culture

OUTPUT: benefits realization capability level

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Kick-off the discussion about the benefits realization process by reading the capability level descriptions below and discussing which level currently applies to you the most.

Benchmark the current benefits realization process against strategy-aligned goals

2.2.3b – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Documentation describing the current process (e.g. standard operating procedures), Process goals from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Retrospective review of current process

Materials: 4x6” recipe cards, Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out the process currently in place.

1. Use white 4”x6” recipe cards to write unique steps of a process. Use the benefits realization process from the previous slides as a guide.
2. Use green cards to write artifacts or deliverables that result from a step.
3. Use pink cards to write issues, problems, or risks.
4. Discuss how the process could better achieve the strategy-aligned goals from activity 1.2.1. Keep a list of possible changes in the form of a start-stop-continue retrospective (example below) on a whiteboard.

Set near- and long-term action items for the benefits realization process

2.2.3c – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: Outcome of the retrospective review, Process goals and metrics from activity 1.2.1

OUTPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

Materials: Whiteboard

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Analyze each item in the start-stop-continue retrospective to compile a set of near-term and long-term action items.

Review and customize slide 35, “Benefits realization: action items,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Draft a high-level description of the benefits realization process at a target state

2.2.3d – 1-2 hours

INPUT: Action items for evolving the process to a target state

OUTPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

Materials: Whiteboard, PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

1. Break down the process into several tasks at a high level. Avoid getting into too much detail by limiting the number of steps.

An example of high-level breakdown: benefits realization
Validate benefits in business case	–›	Update project benefits during execution	–›	Hand-off benefits ownership	–›	Monitor and report on benefits




2. Describe each task by answering the following questions. Document your response in the PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Question	Description
Input	What information do you need to perform the work?
Output	What artifacts/deliverables are produced as a result?
Frequency/Timing	How often, and when, will the work be performed?
Responsibility	Who will perform the work?
Accountability	Who will approve the work and assume the ownership of any decisions?



3. Record the time cost of each process using the PPM Strategy Development Tool.

Document the high-level description for the new benefits realization process

2.2.3e – 30 minutes - 1 hour

INPUT: High-level description of the process at the target state

OUTPUT: Updated PPM strategic plan

Materials: PPM Strategic Plan Template

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

Update your PPM strategic plan with the new high-level description for the new benefits realization process. Depending on your current process capability level, you may wish to include additional information on your strategic plan, for example:

• Updated business plan templates.
• Communication plan for project sponsors.

Info-Tech has a dedicated blueprint to help you develop the high-level process description into a fully operationalized process. Upon completion of this PPM strategy blueprint, speak to an Info-Tech account manager or analyst to get started.

Read Info-Tech’s Establish the Benefits Realization Process blueprint.

Review and customize slide 36, “Benefits realization: target state,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team. Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop. Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

	Align your project intake, prioritization, and approval process to the PPM strategy Examine the process at the current state and develop an action plan to improve it, with a high-level description of the process at a target state and its overhead costs. The outcome of this activity feeds into the overall PPM strategic plan.
	Align your resource management process to the PPM strategy Examine the process at the current state and develop an action plan to improve it, with a high-level description of the process at a target state and its overhead costs. The outcome of this activity feeds into the overall PPM strategic plan.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

	Align your portfolio reporting process to the PPM strategy Examine the process at the current state and develop an action plan to improve it, with a high-level description of the process at a target state and its overhead costs. The outcome of this activity feeds into the overall PPM strategic plan.
	Align your project closure process to the PPM strategy Examine the process at the current state and develop an action plan to improve it, with a high-level description of the process at a target state and its overhead costs. The outcome of this activity feeds into the overall PPM strategic plan.
	Align your benefits realization process to the PPM strategy Examine the process at the current state and develop an action plan to improve it, with a high-level description of the process at a target state and its overhead costs. The outcome of this activity feeds into the overall PPM strategic plan.

Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

PHASE 3

Complete Your PPM Strategic Plan

Phase 2 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Guided Implementation 3: Complete your PPM strategic plan

Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks

Step 3.1: Select a right-sized PPM solution for supporting your new processes

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine the functionality requirements of a PPM solution in the near and long terms.
• Estimate your PPM tool budget.
• Review tool assessment.

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• IT Managers

Outcomes of this step

• List of functional requirements for a PPM solution
• An estimate budget and cost for supporting a PPM tool in the near and long terms
• PPM tool requirements for the near and long terms

Right-size your PPM solution/tool to fit your PPM processes

Avoid a common pitfall: the disconnect between PPM processes and PPM tools.

PPM tools act as both a receptacle for portfolio data generated by your processes and a source of portfolio data to drive your processes forward. Therefore, choosing a suitable PPM tool is critical to the success of your PPM strategy:

• PPM tool inputs must match the type, level of detail, and amount of portfolio data generated by your PPM processes.
• PPM tool outputs must be useful, insightful, easy to access, and easy to understand for people who engage in your PPM processes.

User adoption is an often cited cause of failed PPM tool implementation:

"The biggest problem is getting the team to work with the tool. We need to make sure that we’re not wasting time delving too far down into the tool, yet putting enough information to get useful information back." (IT Director, Financial Services)

This final step of the blueprint will discuss the choice of PPM tools to ensure the success of PPM strategy by avoiding the process-tool disconnect.

Common pitfalls for PPM tools

• Purchasing and implementing a PPM tool before the process is defined and accepted.
• Poor expectation setting: inability of tools to perform the necessary analysis.
• Underleveraged: low user/process adoption.
• Poor integration with the corporate finance function.
(WGroup, 2017)

Leverage PPM tools to get the information you need

An optimized PPM solution is the vehicle that provides decision makers with four key pieces of information they require when making decisions for your project portfolio:

• Historical Insight – inform decision makers about how much time and resources have been spent to date, and benchmark the accuracy of prior project estimates and resource allocations.
• Forecasting – provide a trustworthy estimate of demand on resources and current projects.
• Portfolio Analytics – analyze portfolio data and generate easy-to-consume reports that provide answers to questions such as:
  • How big is our overall portfolio?
  • How much money/resource time is available?
  • How efficiently are we using our resources?
• Project Visibility – provide a trustworthy report on the status of current projects and the resources working on them.

Info-Tech Insight

Without the proper information, decision makers are driving blind and are forced to make gut feel decisions as opposed to data-informed decisions. Implement a PPM solution to allocate projects properly and ensure time and money don’t vanish without being accounted for.

Commercial PPM tools have more functionality but are more costly, complex, and difficult to adopt

Granular timesheet management Workflow and team collaboration Robust data and application integration Advanced what-if planning Mobile usability
Business case scoring and prioritization Multi-user reporting and request portal
High-level resource management Project status, cost, and risk tracking

"Price tags [for PPM tools] vary considerably. Expensive products don't always provide more capability. Inexpensive products are generally low cost for good reason." (Merkhofer)

Your PPM tool options are not limited to commercial offerings

Despite the rapid growth in the commercial PPM tool market today, homegrown approaches like spreadsheets and intranet sites continue to be used as PPM tools.

Kinds of PPM solutions used by Info-Tech clients

Determine the functional requirements of the PPM solution

3.1.1 – 20 minutes

INPUT: PPM strategic plan

OUTPUT: Modified PPM strategic plan with a proposed choice of PPM tool

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, IT Managers

Use the Tool Assessment tab (tab 4) of Info-Tech’s PPM Strategy Development Tool to rate and analyze functional requirements of your PPM solution.

• Review the list of PPM features provided on column B of tab 4. You can add any desired features not listed.
• Rate your near-term and long-term feature requirements using the drop-down menus in columns C and D. Your selections here will inform the tool selection bubble chart to the right of the features list.

Estimate your PPM tool budget

3.1.2 – 20 minutes

INPUT: PPM strategic plan

OUTPUT: Modified PPM strategic plan with a proposed choice of PPM tool

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: CIO, PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, IT Managers

Enter the PPM tool budget information on the Tool Assessment tab of Info-Tech’s PPM Strategy Development Tool.

• As a starting point, it can help to know that low-priced PPM tools cost around $1,000 per user per year. High-priced PPM tools cost around $3,000 per user per year.
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based pricing for PPM solutions is increasingly popular. If you plan to purchase perpetual licensing, divide the total implementation and licensing cost by three years to be comparable with a three-year SaaS total cost of ownership analysis.

Review the tool assessment graphic

3.1.3 – 20 minutes

If you are in one of the non-covered areas, consider revisiting your functional requirements and PPM strategy. You may need to lessen your expectations to be able to stay within your budget, or find a way to get more money.

Keep in mind that the long-term goal can be to work towards a commercial tool, while the short-term goal would be to be able to maintain your portfolio in a simple spreadsheet first.

Info-Tech Insight

If you choose a commercial solution, you will need to gain executive buy-in in order to implement the tool; proceed to near-term and long-term plans to get the ball rolling on this decision.

Review and customize slide 37, “Tools for PPM: proposed near- and long-term solutions,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Grow your own, or select and implement, a PPM solution with Info-Tech

Whether you choose spreadsheet-based or commercially available PPM solutions, use Info-Tech’s research for scoping, designing, and implementing them.

Info-Tech’s Grow Your Own PPM Solution blueprint will help you implement a highly evolved spreadsheet-based PPM solution. It features the Portfolio Manager 2017, a Microsoft Excel-based workbook that leverages its business intelligence features to provide a basis for implementing a scalable, highly customizable PPM tool with useful and easy-to-manipulate analytics.

Read Info-Tech’s Grow Your Own PPM Solution blueprint.

Info-Tech’s Select and Implement a PPM Solution blueprint is part of our Vendor Landscape research. Make sense of the diversity of PPM solutions available in today’s market, and choose the most appropriate solutions for your organization’s size and level of PPM maturity.

Read Info-Tech’s Select and Implement a PPM Solution blueprint.

A right-sized PPM strategy leads to a right-sized portfolio management tool based on Info-Tech’s template

CASE STUDY

Industry: Energy
Source: Info-Tech Client

“The approach makes it easy to run the portfolio without taking time away from the project themselves.” (IT Manager, Energy Resources Firm)

Situation

• A small IT department struggled with balancing project work with ongoing operational management and support work.
• The department includes experienced and successful project managers and a mature, skilled team.
• However, the nature of the department’s role has evolved to the point where the project and operational work demands have exceeded the available time.
• Prioritization needed to become more centralized and formalized while management control of the work assignments became increasingly decentralized.

Complication

• Agile projects offer clear advantages by lightening the requirement for proactive planning. However, getting the staff to adapt would be challenging because of the overall workload and competing priorities.
• Some of the team’s time needed to be carefully tracked and reported for time & materials-based billing, but the time sheet system was unsuited to their portfolio management needs.
• Commercial PPM systems were ruled out because strict task management seemed unlikely to gain adoption.

Resolution

• The team deployed Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Workbook, based on a Microsoft Excel template, and the Grow Your Own PPM Solution blueprint.
• For the first time, executive leadership was given a 12-month forecast of resource capacity based on existing and pending project commitments. The data behind the capacity forecast was based on allocating people to projects with a percentage of their time for each calendar month.
• The data behind the forecast is high level but easily maintainable.

Step 3.2: Finalize customizing your PPM Strategic Plan Template

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine the costs of support your PPM strategic plan.
• Estimate some of the benefits of your PPM strategic plan.
• Perform a cost-benefit analysis.
• Refine and consolidate the near-term action items into a cohesive plan.

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• IT Managers

Outcomes of this step

• A cost/benefit analyst
• An implementation action plan
• A finalized PPM Strategic Plan Template

Estimate the total cost-in-use of managing the project portfolio

The time cost of PPM processes (tab 3) and PPM tool costs (tab 4) are summarized in this tab. Enter additional data to estimate the total PPM cost-in-use: the setup information and the current cost of PPM software tools.

Estimate the benefits of managing the project portfolio

The benefits of PPM processes are estimated by projecting the sources of waste on your resource capacity.

1. Estimate the current extent of waste on your resource capacity. If you have completed Info-Tech’s PPM Current Score Scorecard, enter the data from the report.

2. Given your near- and long-term action items for improving PPM processes, estimate how each source of waste on your resource capacity will change.

Review the cost-benefit analysis results and update the PPM Strategic Plan Template

This tab summarizes the costs and benefits of your PPM strategic plan.

• Costs are estimated from wasted project capacity and time spent on PPM process work.
• Benefits are estimated from the project capacity to be reclaimed as a result of improvements in PPM.
• Return on investment is calculated by dividing the value of project capacity to be reclaimed by investment in PPM in addition to the current-state cost.

Capture this summary in your PPM strategic plan.

Customize slides 40 and 41, “Return on PPM investment,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Determine who will be responsible for coordinating the flow, collection, and reporting of portfolio data

You will need to determine responsibilities and accountabilities for portfolio management functions within your team.

If you do not have a clearly identifiable portfolio manager at this time, you will need to clarify who will wear which hats in terms of facilitating intake and prioritization, high-level capacity awareness, and portfolio reporting.

• Use Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Analyst Job Description Template to help clarify some of the required responsibilities to support your PPM strategy.
  • If you need to bring in an additional staff member to help support the strategy, you can customize the job description template to help advertise the position. Simply edit the text in grey within the template.
• If you have other PPM tasks that you need to define responsibilities for, you can use the RASCI chart on the final tab of the PPM Strategy Develop Tool.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Analyst Job Description Template.

Refine and consolidate the near-term action items into a cohesive plan

3.2.4 – 30 minutes

INPUT: Near-term action items

OUTPUT: Near-term action plan

Materials: PPM Strategy Development Tool

Participants: PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, Resource Managers, Business Analysts

Collect the near-term action items for each of the five PPM processes and arrange them into a table that outlines the near-term action plan. Once it is compiled, adjust the timeline and responsibility so that the plan is coherent and realistic as a whole.

Example:

"There is a huge risk of taking on too much too soon, especially with the introduction of specific tools and tool sets. There is also an element of risk involved that can lead to failure and disappointment with PPM if these tools are not properly introduced and supported." (Jim Carse, Director of the Portfolio Office, Queen’s University)

Review and customize slide 43, “Summary of near-term action plan,” in Info-Tech’s PPM Strategic Plan Template.

Finalize and publish your PPM strategic plan

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team. Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop. Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

	Scope the right-sized PPM solution for your PPM strategy Use the PPM Strategy Development Tool to quickly determine our near- and long-term recommendation for your PPM solution.
	Conduct a cost-benefit analysis of your PPM strategic plan Using the time cost estimates of each process and the requirement for a PPM tool, Info-Tech helps you quantify the overhead costs of PPM and estimate the monetary benefits of reclaimed project capacity for your project portfolio.

Insight breakdown

Insight 1

• Executive layer buy-in is a critical prerequisite for the success of a top-down PPM strategy. Ensure your executives are on board before preceding to implement your PPM strategy.

Insight 2

• The means of project and portfolio management (i.e. processes) shouldn’t eclipse the ends – strategic goals. Root your process in your PPM strategic goals to realize PPM benefits (e.g. optimized portfolio value, improved project throughput, increased stakeholder satisfaction).

Insight 3

• Without the proper information, decision makers are driving blind and are forced to make gut-feel decisions as opposed to data-informed decisions. Implement a PPM solution to allocate projects properly and ensure time and money don’t vanish without being accounted for.

Summary of accomplishment

Knowledge Gained

• Info-Tech’s thought model on PPM processes that create an infrastructure around projects
• Your current state of project portfolio: project capacity vs. project demand
• Importance of gaining executive buy-in for installing the PPM practice

Processes Optimized

• Project intake, prioritization, and approval process
• Resource management process
• Portfolio reporting process
• Project closure process
• Benefits realization process

Deliverables Completed

• Choice of PPM strategy and the leadership mandate
• Analysis of current project capacity and demand
• PPM process goals and metrics, aligned to meet PPM strategic expectations
• PPM process capability levels
• Retrospective examination of current state, near/long-term action items for improvement, and high-level descriptions of the five PPM processes
• Recommendation of PPM tools to support the processes
• Estimate of PPM overhead costs
• Cost-benefit analysis of PPM practice
• PPM strategic plan

Related Info-Tech Research

• Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy
• Grow Your Own PPM Solution
• Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization
• Develop a Resource Management Strategy for the New Reality
• Manage a Minimum-Viable PMO
• Establish the Benefits Realization Process
• Manage an Agile Portfolio
• Establish the Benefits Realization Process
• Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program
  The Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program is a low-effort, high-impact program designed to help project owners assess and improve their PPM practices. Gather and report on all aspects of your PPM environment in order to understand where you stand and how you can improve.

Research contributors and experts

Kiron D. Bondale PMP, PMI-RMP, CDAP, CDAI Senior Project Portfolio Management Professional Kiron has worked in the project management domain for more than fifteen years managing multiple projects, leading Project Management Offices (PMO) and providing project portfolio management consulting services to over a hundred clients across multiple industries. He has been an active member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) since 1999 and served as a volunteer director on the Board of the PMI Lakeshore Chapter for six years. Kiron has published articles on project and project portfolio management in multiple journals and has delivered over a hundred webinar presentations on a variety of PPM and PM topics and has presented at multiple industry conferences. Since 2009, Kiron has been blogging on a weekly basis on project management topics and responds to questions daily in the LinkedIn PMI Project, Program and Portfolio Management discussion group.

Shaun Cahill, Project Manager & Jim Carse, Director of the Project Portfolio Office Queen’s University

Research contributors and experts

Amy Fowler Stadler, Managing Partner Lewis Fowler Amy has more than 20 years of experience in business and technology, most recently owning her own management consulting firm since 2002, focused on business transformation, technology enablement, and operational improvement. Prior to that, she was at CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) as an IT Director, Perot Systems in various roles, and Information Handling Services, Inc. as a Software Development Product Manager. Amy holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a minor in Business Communications and is also a 2015 Hall of Fame inductee to Illinois State University College of Applied Science and Technology.

Rick Morris, President R2 Consulting LLC Rick A. Morris, PMP, is a certified Scrum Agile Master, Human Behavior Consultant, best-selling author, mentor, and evangelist for project management. Rick is an accomplished project manager and public speaker. His appetite for knowledge and passion for the profession makes him an internationally sought after speaker delivering keynote presentations for large conferences and PMI events around the world. He holds the PMP (Project Management Professional), MPM (Masters of Project Management), Scrum Agile Master, OPM3, Six Sigma Green Belt, MCITP, MCTS, MCSE, TQM, ATM-S, ITIL, and ISO certifications, and is a John Maxwell Certified Speaker, Mentor, and Coach. Rick is the Owner of R2 Consulting, LLC and has worked for organizations such as GE, Xerox, and CA, and has consulted with numerous clients in a wide variety of industries including financial services, entertainment, construction, non-profit, hospitality, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing.

Research contributors and experts

Terry Lee Ricci PgMP, PfMP, PMP, PPM Practice Lead IAG Consulting Terry is passionate and highly skilled at PMO transformation, developing high-performing teams that sustain long-term business results. Terry has a reputation built upon integrity, resourcefulness, and respect. She has the vision to implement long and short-term strategies, meeting both current and evolving business needs. Change Management/Business transformation: Terry has extensive background in PMO strategy development aligned to corporate goals. Many years in the PMO organization integration/transformation building or overhauling programs and processes. Governance: Terry loves to monitor and measure performance and outcomes and uses her collaborative style to successfully bring simplicity to complexity (technology – people – process). Performance optimization results are easy to use and clearly define who is doing what across functions. End results consistently align to business strategy while mitigating risks effectively. Comprehensive: A “through the ranks” executive with a comprehensive understanding of PMO operations, high-performance teams, and the respective business units they support.

Alana Ruckstuhl MSc, IT Project Officer Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario

Research contributors and experts

Jay Wardle, Director of the PMO Red Wing Shoes Co.

Bob White, Vice President/Chief Information Officer ALM Holding Company As vice president and chief information officer for ALM Holding Company, Bob White directs all technology activity and support for three main verticals: road construction, energy management, and delivery and transportation. He has been with ALM Holding Company for one and a half years, focusing on PPM process improvement, cybersecurity initiatives, and IT service management. Prior to joining ALM, Bob was executive vice president/chief information officer at Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. where he led the strategic direction, implementation, and management of information technology throughout the company’s global operations. Bob has also held VP/CIO positions at the Stride Rite Corporation and Timex Corporation. Bob holds a Master’s degree in Operations Management from the University of Arkansas and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Southern Illinois University.

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Merkhofer, Lee. “Keys to Implementing Project Portfolio Management.” Lee Merkhofer Consulting, 2017.

Perry, Mark Price. Business Driven Project Portfolio Management. J Ross Pub: 17 May 2011.

Project Management Institute. “Pulse of the Profession 2015: Capturing the Value of Project Management.” PMI, Feb. 2015. Web.

Project Management Institute. “Pulse of the Profession 2016: The High Cost of Low Performance.” PMI, 2016. Web.

Project Management Institute. “Pulse of the Profession 2017: Success Rates Rise.” PMI, 2017. Web.

Project Management Institute. The Standard for Portfolio Management – Third Edition. PMI: 1 Dec. 2012.

WGroup. “Common Pitfalls in Project Portfolio Management – Part 2.” WGroup, 24 Jan. 2017. Web.

Create an Effective SEO Keyword Strategy
Update your on-page SEO strategy with competitively relevant keywords.

Analyst Perspective

Most marketers fail in their SEO efforts because they focus on creating content for computers, not people.

Leading search engine optimization methods focus on creating and posting relevant keyword-rich content, not just increasing page rank. Content and keywords should move a buyer along their journey, close a sale, and develop long-term relationships. Unfortunately, many SEO specialists focus on computers, not the buyer. What's even more concerning is that up to 70% of SaaS businesses have already been impacted by outdated and inefficient SEO techniques. Poor strategies often focus on ballooning SEO metrics in the short-term instead of building the company's long-term PageRank.

Best-in-class digital marketers stop chasing the short-term highs and focus on long-term growth. This starts with developing a competitive keyword strategy and updating website content with the new keywords.

SEO is a large topic, so we have broken the strategy into small, easy-to-implement steps, taking the guesswork out of how to use the data from SEO tools and giving CMOs a solid path to increase their SEO results.

Terra Higginson
Marketing Research Director
SoftwareReviews

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Digital marketers working with an outdated or bad SEO strategy often see:

• Declining keyword ranking and traffic
• Poor keyword strategy
• On-page errors

Search algorithms change all the time, which means that the strategy is often sitting on the sifting sands of technology, making SEO strategies quickly outdated.

Common Obstacles

Digital marketers are responsible for developing and implementing a competitive SEO strategy but increasingly encounter the following obstacles:

• SEO practitioners that focus on gaming the system
• Ever-changing SEO technology
• Lack of understanding of the best SEO techniques
• SEO techniques focus on the needs of computers, not people
• Lack of continued investment

SoftwareReviews' Approach

Using the SoftwareReviews methodology, digital marketers are able to break up their SEO project and data into bite-sized, actionable steps that focus on long-term improvement. Our methodology includes:

• Competitive keyword research and identification of opportunities
• On-page keyword strategy

Our methodology will take a focused step-by-step strategy in a series of phases that will increase PageRank and competitive positioning.

SoftwareReviews' SEO Methodology

In this blueprint, we will cover:

Good SEO vs. Poor SEO Techniques

The difference between good and bad SEO techniques.

Companies With Great SEO…

Keyword Strategy

• Have identified a keyword strategy that carves out targets within the white space available between themselves and the competition.

Error-Free Site

• Have error-free sites without duplicate content. Their URLs and redirects are all updated. Their site is responsive, and every page loads in under two seconds.

Pillar & Content Clusters

• Employ a pillar and content cluster strategy to help move the buyer through their journey.

Authentic Off-Page Strategy

• Build an authentic backlink strategy that incorporates the right information on the right sites to move the buyer through their journey.

SEO Terms Defined

A glossary to define common Phase 1 SEO terms.

Search Volume: this measures the number of times a keyword is searched for in a certain time period. Target keywords with a volume of between 100-100,000. A search volume greater than 100,000 will be increasingly difficult to rank (A Beginner's Guide to Keyword Search Volume, 2022, Semrush).

Keyword Difficulty: the metric that quantifies how difficult it will be to rank for a certain keyword. The keyword difficulty percentage includes the number of competitors attempting to rank for the same keyword, the quality of their content, the search intent, backlinks, and domain authority (Keyword Difficulty: What Is It and Why Is It Important? 2022, Semrush).

Intent: this metric focuses on the intent of the user's search. All search intent is categorized into Informational, Commercial, Navigational, and Transactional (What Is Search Intent? A Complete Guide, 2022, Semrush).

On-Page SEO: refers to the practice of search engine optimizing elements of your site such as title tags, internal links, HTML code, URL optimization, on-page content, images, and user experience.

Off-Page SEO: refers to the practice of optimizing brand awareness (What Is Off-Page SEO? A Comprehensive Guide, 2022, Semrush).

H1: HTML code that tells a search engine the title of the page (neilpatel.com).

SEO Tool: A subscription-based all-in-one search engine optimization MarTech tool.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful… We believe Search should deliver the most relevant and reliable information available.
– An excerpt from Google's mission statement

Your Challenge

Google makes over 4.5k algorithm changes per year1, directly impacting digital marketing search engine optimization efforts.

Digital marketers with SEO problems will often see the following issues:

• Keyword ranking – A decline in keyword ranking is alarming and results in decreased PageRank.
• Bounce rate – Attracting the wrong audience to your site will increase the bounce rate because the H1 doesn't resonate with your audience.
• Outdated keywords – Many companies are operating on a poor keyword strategy, or even worse, no keyword strategy. In addition, many marketers haven't updated their strategy to include pillar and cluster content.
• Errors – Neglected sites often have a large number of errors.
• Bad backlinks – Neglected sites often have a large number of toxic backlinks.

The best place to hide a dead body is on page two of the search results.
– Huffington Post

Common Obstacles

Digital marketers are responsible for developing and executing a competitive SEO strategy but increasingly encounter the following obstacles:

• Inefficient and ineffective SEO practitioners.
• Changing SEO technology and search engine algorithms.
• Lack of understanding of the best-in-class SEO techniques.
• Lack of a sustainable plan to manage the strategy and invest in SEO.

SEO is a helpful activity when it's applied to people-first content. However, content created primarily for search engine traffic is strongly correlated with content that searchers find unsatisfying.
– Google Search Central Blog

Benefits of Proper SEO

A good SEO keyword strategy will create long-term, sustainable SEO growth:

• Write content for people, not algorithms – Good SEO prioritizes the needs of humans over the needs of computers, being ever thoughtful of the meaning of content and keywords.
• Content that aligns with intent – Content and keyword intent will align with the buyer journey to help move prospects through the funnel.
• Competitive keyword strategy – Find keyword white space for your brand. Keywords will be selected to optimize your ranking among competition with reasonable and sustainable targets.
• Actionable and impactful fixes – By following the SoftwareReviews phases of SEO, you will be able to take a very large task and divide it into conquerable actions. Small improvements everyday lead to very large improvements over time.

Digital Marketing SEO Stats

61%
61% of marketers believe that SEO is the key to online success.
Source: Safari Digital

437%
Updating an existing title tag with an SEO optimised one can increase page clicks by more than 437%.
Source: Safari Digital

Good SEO Aligns With Search Intent

What type of content is the user searching for? Align your keyword to the logical search objective.

Informational

This term categorizes search intent for when a user wants to inform or educate themselves on a specific topic.

Commercial

This term categorizes search intent for when a user wants to do research before making a purchase.

Transactional

This term categorizes search intent for when a user wants to purchase something.

Navigational

This term categorizes search intent for when a user wants to find a specific page.

SoftwareReviews' Methodology toCreate an Effective SEO Strategy

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 1 to 2 months.

SoftwareReviews offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

Insight Summary

People-First Content

Best-in-class SEO practitioners focus on people-first content, not computer-first content. Search engine algorithms continue to focus on how to rank better content first, and a strategy that moves your buyers through the funnel in a logical and cohesive way will beat any SEO trick over the long run.

Find White Space

A good SEO strategy uses competitive research to carve out white space and give them a competitive edge in an increasingly difficult ranking algorithm. An understanding of the ideal client profile and the needs of their buyer persona(s) sit as a pre-step to any good SEO strategy.

Optimize On-Page Keywords

By optimizing the on-page strategy with competitively relevant keywords that target your ideal client profile, marketers are able to take an easy first step at improving the SEO content strategy.

Understand the Strategy

If you don't understand the strategy of your SEO practitioner, you are in trouble. Marketers need to work hand in hand with their SEO specialists to quickly uncover gaps, create a strategy that aligns with the buyer persona(s), and execute the changes.

Quality Trumps Quantity

The quality of the prospect that your SEO efforts bring to your site is more important than the number of people brought to your site.

Stop Here and Ask Yourself:

• Do I have an updated (completed within the last two years) buyer persona and journey?
• Do I know who the ICP (ideal client profile) is for my product or company?

If not, stop here, and we can help you define your buyer persona and journey, as well as your ideal client profile before moving forward with SEO Phase 1.

The Steps to SEO Phase 1

The Keyword Strategy

1. Current Keywords
   • Identify the keywords your SEO strategy is currently targeting.
2. Competitive Analysis
   • Research the keywords of competitor(s). Identify keyword whitespace.
3. New Target Keywords
   • Identify and rank keywords that will result in more quality leads and less competition.
4. Product & Service Pages
   • Identify your current product and service pages. These pages represent the easiest content to update on your site.
5. Individual Page Update
   • Develop an SEO strategy for each of your product and service pages, include primary target keyword, H1, and title tags, as well as keyword-rich description.

Resources Needed for Search Engine Optimization

Consider the working skills required for search engine optimization.

Required Skills/Knowledge

• SEO
• Web development
• Competitive analysis
• Content creation
• Understanding of buyer persona and journey
• Digital marketing

Suggested Titles

• SEO Analyst
• Competitive Intelligence Analyst
• Content Marketing Manager
• Website Developer
• Digital Marketing Manager

Digital Marketing Software

• CMS that allows you to easily access and update your content

SEO Software

• SEO tool

Step 1: Current Keywords

Use this sheet to record your current keyword research.

Use your SEO tool to research keywords and find the following:
Use a quality tool like SEMRush to obtain SEO data.

1. Keyword difficulty
2. Search volume
3. Search intent

Step 2: Competitive Analysis

Use this sheet to guide the research on your competitors' keywords.

Use your SEO tool to find the following:

1. Top organic keywords
2. Ranking of keywords
3. Domain authority and trust
4. Position changes

Step 3: New Target Keywords

Use this sheet to record target keywords that have a good volume but are less competitive. The new target keywords should align with your buyer persona and their journey.

Use your SEO tool to research keywords and find the following:
Use a quality tool like SEMRush to obtain SEO data.

1. Keyword difficulty
2. Search volume
3. Search intent

Step 4: Product & Service Pages

Duplicate this page so that you have a separate page for each URL from Step 4

Use this sheet to identify your current product and service pages.

Use your SEO tool to find the following:

1. Current rank
2. Current keywords

Step 5: Individual Page Strategy

Develop a keyword strategy for each of your product and service pages. Use a fresh page for each URL.

Date last optimized:
mm/dd/yyyy

Bibliography

Council, Y. "Council Post: The Rundown On Black Hat SEO Techniques And Why You Should Avoid Them." Forbes, 2022. Accessed September 2022.

"Our approach – How Google Search works." Google Search. Accessed September 2022.

"The Best Place to Hide a Dead Body is Page Two of Google." HuffPost, 2022. Accessed September 2022.

Patel, Neil. "How to Create the Perfect H1 Tag for SEO." neilpatel.com. Accessed September 2022.

Schwartz, B. "Google algorithm updates 2021 in review: Core updates, product reviews, page experience and beyond." Search Engine Land, 2022. Accessed September 2022.

Schwartz, B. "Google algorithm updates 2021 in review: Core updates, product reviews, page experience and beyond." Search Engine Land, 2022. Accessed September 2022.

Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Guide

Streamline your organizational approach to selecting a right-sized marketing management platform.

Analyst perspective

A robustly configured and comprehensive MMS platform is a crucial ingredient to help kick-start your organization's cross-channel and multichannel marketing management initiatives.

Modern marketing management suites (MMS) are imperative given today's complex, multitiered, and often non-standardized marketing processes. Relying on isolated methods such as lead generation or email marketing techniques for executing key cross-channel and multichannel marketing initiatives is not enough to handle the complexity of contemporary marketing management activities.

Organizations need to invest in highly customizable and functionally extensive MMS platforms to provide value alongside the marketing value chain and a 360-degree view of the consumer's marketing journey. IT needs to be rigorously involved with the sourcing and implementation of the new MMS tool, and the necessary business units also need to own the requirements and be involved from the initial stages of software selection.

To succeed with MMS implementation, consider drafting a detailed roadmap that outlines milestone activities for configuration, security, points of integration, and data migration capabilities and provides for ongoing application maintenance and support.

Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Customer Experience Strategy
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Your Challenge

• Many organizations struggle with taking a systematic and structured approach to selecting a right-sized marketing management suite (MMS) – an indispensable part of managing an organization's specific and nuanced marketing management needs.
• Organizations must define a clear-cut strategic approach to investing in a new MMS platform. Exercising the appropriate selection and implementation rigor for a right-sized MMS tool is a critical step in delivering concrete business value to sustain various marketing value chains across the organization.

Common Obstacles

• An MMS vendor that is not well aligned to marketing requirements wastes resources and causes an endless cascade of end-user frustration.
• The MMS market is rapidly evolving, making it difficult for vendors to retain a competitive foothold in the space.
• IT managers and/or marketing professionals often find themselves in the unenviable position of taking the fall for MMS platforms that fail to deliver on the promise of the overarching marketing management strategy.

Info-Tech's Approach

• MMS platform selection must be driven by your overall marketing management strategy. Email marketing techniques, social marketing, and/or lead management strategies are often not enough to satisfy the more sophisticated use cases demanded by increasingly complex customer segmentation levels.
• For organizations with a large audience or varied product offerings, a well-integrated MMS platform enables the management of various complex campaigns across many channels, product lines, customer segments, and marketing groups throughout the enterprise.

Info-Tech Insight

IT must collaborate with marketing professionals and other key stakeholder groups to define a unified vision and holistic outlook for a right-sized MMS platform.

Info-Tech's methodology for selecting a right-sized marketing management suite platform

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

The MMS procurement process should be broken into segments:

1. Create a vendor shortlist using this buyer's guide.
2. Define a structured approach to selection.
3. Review the contract.

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

What are marketing management suite platforms?

Our Definition: Marketing management suite (MMS) platforms are core enterprise applications that provide a unified set of marketing processes for a given organization and, typically, the capability to coordinate key cross-channel marketing initiatives.

Key product capabilities for sophisticated MMS platforms include but are not limited to:

• Email marketing
• Lead nurturing
• Social media management
• Content curation and distribution
• Marketing reporting and analytics
• Consistent brand messaging

Using a robust and comprehensive MMS platform equips marketers with the appropriate tools needed to make more informed decisions around campaign execution, resulting in better targeting, acquisition, and customer retention initiatives. Moreover, such tools can help bolster effective revenue generation and ensure more viable growth initiatives for future marketing growth enablement strategies.

Info-Tech Insight

Feature sets are rapidly evolving over time as MMS offerings continue to proliferate in this market space. Ensure that you focus on core components such as customer conversion rates and new lead captures through maintaining well- integrated multichannel campaigns.

Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Buyer's Guide

Info-Tech Insight

A right-sized MMS software selection and procurement decision should involve comprehensive requirements and needs analysis by not just Marketing but also other organizational units such as IT, in conjunction with input suppled from the internal vendor procurement team.

Phase 1

Understand Core MMS Features

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Level-set an understanding of MMS technology.
• Define which MMS features are table stakes (standard) and which are key differentiating functionalities.
• Identify the art of the possible in a modern MMS platform from sales, marketing, and service lenses.

This phase involves the following participants:

• CMO
• Digital Marketing Project Manager
• Marketing Data Analytics Analyst
• Marketing Management Executive

What are marketing management suite platforms?

Our Definition: Marketing management suite (MMS) platforms are core enterprise applications that provide a unified set of marketing processes for a given organization and, typically, the capability to coordinate key cross-channel marketing initiatives.

Key product capabilities for sophisticated MMS platforms include but are not limited to:

• Email marketing
• Lead nurturing
• Social media management
• Content curation and distribution
• Marketing reporting and analytics
• Consistent brand messaging

Using a robust and comprehensive MMS platform equips marketers with the appropriate tools needed to make more informed decisions around campaign execution, resulting in better targeting, acquisition, and customer retention initiatives. Moreover, such tools can help bolster effective revenue generation and ensure more viable growth initiatives for future marketing growth enablement strategies.

Info-Tech Insight

Feature sets are rapidly evolving over time as MMS offerings continue to proliferate in this market space. Ensure that you focus on core components such as customer conversion rates and new lead captures through maintaining well- integrated multichannel campaigns.

Marketing through the ages

Tracing the foundational origins of marketing management practices

Initial traction for marketing management strategies began with the need to holistically understand the effects of advertising efforts and how the media mix could be best optimized.

Where it's going: the future state of marketing management

1. Increasing Complexity Driving Consumer Purchasing Decisions
   • "The main complexity is dealing with the increasing product variety and changing consumer demands, which is forcing marketers to abandon undifferentiated marketing strategies and even niche marketing strategies and to adopt a mass customization process interacting one-to-one with their customers." – Complexity, 2019
2. Consumers Seeking More Tailored Brand Personalization
   • Financial Services marketers lead all other industries in AI application adoption, with 37% currently using them (Salesforce, 2019).
3. The Inclusion of More AI-Enabled Marketing Strategies
   • According to a 2022 Nostro report, 70% of consumers say it is important that brands continue to offer personalized consumer experiences.
4. Green Marketing
   • Recent studies have shown that up to 80% of all consumers are interested in green marketing strategies (Marketing Schools, 2020).

Marketing management by the numbers

Key trends

Understand MMS table stakes features

Organizations can expect nearly all MMS vendors to provide the following functionality

Identify differentiating MMS features

While not always deemed must-have functionality, these features may be the deciding factor when choosing between two MMS-focused vendors.

Ensure you understand the art of the possible across the MMS landscape

Understanding the trending feature sets that encompass the broader MMS vendor landscape will best equip your organization with the knowledge needed to effectively match today's MMS platforms with your organization's marketing requirements.

Holistically examine the potential of any MMS solution through three main lenses:

Art of the possible: data-driven digital advertising

CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING INTELLIGENCE

Are you curious about the measures needed to boost engagement among your client base and other primary target audience groups? Conversational marketing intelligence metrics can help collect and disseminate key descriptive data points across a broader range of audience information.

AI-DRIVEN CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING DEVICES

Certain social media channels (e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook) like to take advantage of click-to-Messenger-style applications to help drive meaningful conversations with customers and learn more about their buying preferences. In addition, AI-driven chatbot applications can help the organization glean important information about the customer's persona by asking probing questions about their marketing purchase behaviors and preferences.

METAVERSE- DRIVEN BRANDING AND ADVERTISING

One of the newest phenomena in data-driven marketing technology and digital advertising techniques is the metaverse, where users can represent themselves and their brand via virtual avatars to further gamify their marketing strategies. Moreover, brands can create immersive experiences and engage with influencers and established communities and collect a wealth of information about their audience that can help drive customer retention and loyalty.

Case study

Metaverse marketing extends the potential for commercial brand development and representation: a deep dive into Gucci's metaverse practice

INDUSTRY: Luxury Goods Apparel
SOURCE: Vogue Business

Challenge

Beginning with a small, family-owned leather shop known as House of Gucci in Florence, Italy, businessman and fashion designer Guccio Gucci sold saddles, leather bags, and other accessories to horsemen during the 1920s. Over the years, Gucci's offerings have grown to include various other personal luxury goods.

As consumer preferences have evolved over time, particularly with the younger generation, Gucci's professional marketing teams looked to invest in virtual technology environments to help build and sustain better brand awareness among younger consumer audiences.

Solution

In response to the increasing presence of metaverse-savvy gamers on the internet, Gucci began investing in developing its online metaverse presence to bolster its commercial marketing brand there.

A recent collaboration with Roblox, an online gaming platform that offers virtual experiences, provided Gucci the means to showcase its fashion items using the Gucci Garden – a virtual art installation project for Generation Z consumers, powered by Roblox's VR technology. The Gucci Garden virtual system featured a French-styled garden environment where players could try on and buy Gucci virtual fashion items to dress up their blank avatars.

Results

Gucci's disruptive, innovative metaverse marketing campaign project with Roblox is proof of its commitment to tapping new marketing growth channels to showcase the brand to engage new and prospective consumers (e.g. Roblox's player base) across more unique sandboxed/simulation environments.

The freedom and flexibility in the metaverse environments allows brands such as Gucci to execute a more flexible digital marketing approach and enables them to take advantage of innovative metaverse-driven technologies in the market to further drive their data-driven digital marketing campaigns.

Art of the possible: next best action marketing (NBAM)

NEXT BEST ACTION PREDICTIVE MODELING

To improve conversion propensity, next best action techniques can use predictive modeling methods to help build a dynamic overview of the customer journey. With information sourced from actionable marketing intelligence data, MMS platforms can use NBAM techniques to identify customer needs based on their buying behavior, social media interactions, and other insights to determine what unique set of actions should be taken for each customer.

MACHINE LEARNING–BASED RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS

Rules-based recommender systems can help assign probabilities of purchasing behaviors based on the patterns in touchpoints of a customer's journey and interaction with your brand. For instance, a large grocery chain company such as Walmart or Whole Foods will use ML-based recommender systems to decide what coupons they should offer to their customers based on their purchasing history.

Art of the possible: AI-driven customer segmentation

MACHINE/DEEP LEARNING (ML/DL) ALGORITHMS

The inclusion of AI in data analytics helps make customer targeting more accurate
and meaningful. Organizations can analyze customer data more thoroughly and generate in-depth contextual and descriptive information about the targeted segments. In addition, they can use this information to automate the personalization of marketing campaigns for a specific target audience group.

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER SENTIMENTS

To greatly benefit from AI-powered customer segmentation, organizations must deploy specialized custom AI solutions to help organize qualitative comments into quantitative data. This approach requires companies to use custom AI models and tools that will analyze customer sentiments and experiences based on data extracted from various touchpoints (e.g. CRM systems, emails, chatbot logs).

Phase 2

Build the Business Case and Streamline Requirements

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Define and build the business case for the selection of a right-sized MMS platform.
• Elicit and prioritize granular requirements for your MMS platform.

This phase involves the following participants:

• CMO
• Technical Marketing Analyst
• Digital Marketing Project Manager
• Marketing Data Analytics Analyst
• Marketing Management Executive

Software Selection Engagement

5 Advisory Calls over a 5-Week Period to Accelerate Your Selection Process

Expert analyst guidance over 5 weeks on average to select software and negotiate with the vendor.

Save money, align stakeholders, speed up the process and make better decisions.

Use a repeatable, formal methodology to improve your application selection process.

Better, faster results, guaranteed, included in your membership.

CLICK HERE to book your Selection Engagement

Elicit and prioritize granular requirements for your marketing management suite (MMS) platform

Understanding business needs through requirements gathering is the key to defining everything you need from your software. However, it is an area where people often make critical mistakes.

Info-Tech Insight
Poor requirements are the number one reason projects fail. Review Info-Tech's Improve Requirements Gathering blueprint to learn how to improve your requirements analysis and get results that truly satisfy stakeholder needs.

Info-Tech's approach

Develop an inclusive and thorough approach to the RFP process

Info-Tech Insight

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.

The Info-Tech difference:

1. The secret to managing an RFP is to make it as manageable and as thorough as possible. The RFP process should be like any other aspect of business – by developing a standard process. With a process in place, you are better able to handle whatever comes your way, because you know the steps you need to follow to produce a top-notch RFP.
2. The business then identifies the need for more information about a product/service or determines that a purchase is required.
3. A team of stakeholders from each area impacted gather all business, technical, legal, and risk requirements. What are the expectations of the vendor relationship post-RFP? How will the vendors be evaluated?
4. Based on the predetermined requirements, either an RFI or an RFP is issued to vendors with a due date.

Leverage Info-Tech's Contract Review Service to level the playing field with your shortlisted vendors

You may be faced with multiple products, services, master service agreements, licensing models, service agreements, and more.
Use Info-Tech's Contract Review Service to gain insights on your agreements:

1. Are all key terms included?
2. Are they applicable to your business?
3. Can you trust that results will be delivered?
4. What questions should you be asking from an IT perspective?

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 to BOOK The Contract Review Service

CLICK to DOWNLOAD Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements

Phase 3

Discover the MMS Market Space and Prepare for Implementation

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Dive into the key players of the MMS vendor landscape.
• Understand best practices for building a vendor shortlist.
• Understand key implementation considerations for MMS.

This phase involves the following participants:

• CMO
• Marketing Management Executive
• Applications Manager
• Digital Marketing Project Manager
• Sales Executive
• Vendor Outreach and Partnerships Manager

Review your use cases to start your shortlist

Your Info-Tech analysts can help you narrow down the list of vendors that will meet your requirements.

Next steps will include:

1. Reviewing your requirements.
2. Checking out SoftwareReviews.
3. Shortlisting your vendors.
4. Conducting demos and detailed proposal reviews.
5. Selecting and contracting with a finalist!

Get to know the key players in the MMS landscape

The following slides provide a top-level overview of the popular players you will encounter in your MMS shortlisting process.

Evaluate software category leaders through vendor rankings and awards

SoftwareReviews

	The Data Quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions. 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.

Speak with category experts to dive deeper into the vendor landscape

SoftwareReviews

• Fact-based reviews of business software from IT professionals.
• Product and category reports with state-of-the-art data visualization.
• Top-tier data quality backed by a rigorous quality assurance process.
• User-experience insight that reveals the intangibles of working with a vendor.

SoftwareReviews is powered by Info-Tech

Technology coverage is a priority for Info-Tech, and SoftwareReviews provides the most comprehensive unbiased data on today's technology. Combined with the insight of our expert analysts, our members receive unparalleled support in their buying journey.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Advanced Campaign Management
• Email Marketing Automation
• Multichannel Integration

Areas to Improve:

• Mobile Marketing Management
• Advanced Data Segmentation
• Pricing Sensitivity and Implementation Support Model

history

"Adobe Experience Cloud (AEC), formerly Adobe Marketing Cloud (AMC), provides a host of innovative multichannel analytics, social, advertising, media optimization, and content management products (just to name a few). The Adobe Marketing Cloud package allows users with valid subscriptions to download the entire collection and use it directly on their computer with open access to online updates. Organizations that have a deeply ingrained Adobe footprint and have already reaped the benefits of Adobe's existing portfolio of cloud services products (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud) will find the AEC suite a functionally robust and scalable fit for their marketing management and marketing automation needs.

However, it is important to note that AEC's pricing model is expensive when compared to other competitors in the space (e.g. Sugar Market) and, therefore, is not as affordable for smaller or mid-sized organizations. Moreover, there is the expectation of a learning curve with the AEC platform. Newly onboarded users will need to spend some time learning how to navigate and work comfortably with AEC's marketing automaton modules. "
- Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

Adobe Experience Cloud Platform pricing is opaque.
Request a demo.*

*Info-Tech recommends reaching out to the vendor's internal sales management team for explicit details on individual pricing plans for the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Marketing Workflow Management
• Advanced Data Segmentation
• Marketing Operations Management

Areas to Improve:

• Email Marketing Automation
• Marketing Asset Management
• Process of Creating and/or Managing Marketing Lists

history

"Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing remains a viable option for organizations that require a range of innovative MMS tools that can provide a wealth of functional capabilities (e.g. AI-powered analytics to create targeted segments, A/B testing, personalizing engagement for each customer). Moreover, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing offers trial options to sandbox their platform for free for 30 days to help users familiarize themselves with the software before buying into the product suite.

However, ensure that you have the time to effectively train users on implementing the MS Dynamics 365 platform. The platform does not score high on customizability in SoftwareReviews reports. Developers have only a limited ability to modify the core UI, so organizations need to be fully equipped with the knowledge needed to successfully navigate MS-based applications to take full advantage of the platform. For organizations deep in the Microsoft stack, D365 Marketing is a compelling option."
Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

* Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Marketing Analytics
• Marketing Workflow Management
• Lead Nurturing

Areas to Improve:

• Advanced Campaign Management
• Email Marketing Automation
• Marketing Segmentation

history

"HubSpot's Marketing Hub software ranks consistently high in scores across SoftwareReviews reports and remains a strong choice for organizations that want to run successful inbound marketing campaigns that make customers interested and engaged with their business. HubSpot Marketing Hub employs comprehensive feature sets, including the option to streamline ad tracking and management, perform various audience segmentation techniques, and build personalized and automated marketing campaigns.

However, SoftwareReviews reports indicate end users are concerned that HubSpot Marketing Hub's platform may be slightly overpriced in recent years and not cost effective for smaller and mid-sized companies that are working with a limited budget. Moreover, when it comes to mobile user accessibility reports, HubSpot's Marketing Hub does not directly offer data usage reports in relation to how mobile users navigate various web pages on the customer's website."
Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

*Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Email Marketing Automation
• Customer Journey Mapping
• Contacts Management

Areas to Improve:

• Pricing Model Flexibility
• Integrational API Support
• Antiquated UI/CX Design Elements

history

*Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Advanced Data Segmentation
• Marketing Analytics
• Multichannel Integration

Areas to Improve:

• Marketing Operations
  Management
• Marketing Asset Management
• Community Marketing Management

history

"Oracle Marketing Cloud offers a comprehensive interwoven and integrated marketing management solution that can help end users launch cross-channel marketing programs and unify all prospect and customer marketing signals within one singular view. Oracle Marketing Cloud ranks consistently high across our SoftwareReviews reports and sustains top scores in overall customer experience rankings at a factor of 9.0. The emotional sentiment of users interacting with Oracle Marketing Cloud is also highly favorable, with Oracle's Emotional Footprint score at +93.

Users should be aware that some of the reporting mechanisms and report-generation capabilities may not be as mature as those of some of its competitors in the MMS space (e.g. Salesforce, Adobe). Data exportability also presents a challenge in Oracle Marketing Cloud and requires a lot of internal tweaking between end users of the system to function properly. Finally, pricing sensitivity may be a concern for small and mid-sized organizations who may find Oracle's higher-tiered pricing plans to be out of reach. "
Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

*Info-Tech recommends reaching out to the vendor's internal sales management team for explicit details on individual pricing plans for the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Marketing Analytics
• Advanced Campaign Management
• Email Marketing Automation
• Social Media Marketing Management

Areas to Improve:

• Community Marketing Management
• Marketing Operations Management
• Pricing Sensitivity and Vendor Support Model

history

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a long-term juggernaut of the marketing management software space and is the subject of many Info-Tech member inquiries. It retains strong composite and customer experience (CX) scores in our SoftwareReviews reports. Some standout features of the platform include marketing analytics, advanced campaign management functionalities, email marketing automation, and customer journey management capabilities. In recent years Salesforce has made great strides in improving the overall user experience by investing in new product functionalities such as the Einstein What-If Analyzer, which helps test how your next email campaign will impact overall customer engagement, triggers personalized campaign messages based on an individual user's behavior, and uses powerful real-time segmentation and sophisticated AI to deliver contextually relevant experiences that inspire customers to act.

On the downside, we commonly see Salesforce's solutions as costlier than competitors' offerings, and its commercial/sales teams tend to be overly aggressive in marketing its solutions without a distinct link to overarching business requirements. "
Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

*Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Email Marketing Automation
• Marketing Workflow Management
• Marketing Analytics

Areas to Improve:

• Mobile Marketing Management
• Marketing Operations Management
• Advanced Data Segmentation

history

"Over the years, SAP has positioned itself as one of the usual suspects across the enterprise applications market. While SAP has a broad range of capabilities within the CRM and customer experience space, it consistently underperforms in many of our user-driven SoftwareReviews reports for MMS and adjacent areas, ranking lower in MMS product feature capabilities such as email marketing automation and advanced campaign management than other mainstream MMS vendors, including Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Adobe Experience Cloud. The SAP Customer Engagement Marketing platform seems decidedly a secondary focus for SAP, behind its more compelling presence across the enterprise resource planning space.

If you are approaching an MMS selection from a greenfield lens and with no legacy vendor baggage for SAP elsewhere, experience suggests that your needs will be better served by a vendor that places greater primacy on the MMS aspect of their portfolio."
Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

*Info-Tech recommends reaching out to the vendor's internal sales management team for explicit details on individual pricing plans for the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite.

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Social Media Automation
• Email Marketing Automation
• Marketing Analytics

Areas to Improve:

• Ease of Data Integration
• Breadth of Features
• Marketing Workflow Management

b

SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

Strengths:

• Campaign Management
• Segmentation
• Email Delivery

Areas to Improve:

• Mobile Optimization
• A/B Testing
• Content Authoring

history

"Zoho maintains a long-running repertoire of end-to-end software solutions for business development purposes. In addition to its flagship CRM product, the company also offers Zoho Campaigns, which is an email marketing software platform that enables contextually driven marketing techniques via dynamic personalization, email interactivity, A/B testing, etc. For organizations that already maintain a deep imprint of Zoho solutions, Zoho Campaigns will be a natural extension to their immediate software environment.

Zoho Campaigns is a great ecosystem play in environments that have a material Zoho footprint. In the absence of an existing Zoho environment, it's prudent to consider other affordable products as well."
Yaz Palanichamy
Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

*Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.

See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

Leverage Info-Tech's research to plan and execute your MMS implementation

Use Info-Tech's three-phase implementation process to guide your planning:

Download Info-Tech's Governance and Management of Enterprise Software Implementation
Establish and execute an end-to-end, agile framework to succeed with the implementation of a major enterprise application.

Ensure your implementation team has a high degree of trust and communication

If external partners are needed, dedicate an internal resource to managing the vendor and partner relationships.

Communication

Teams must have some type of communication strategy. This can be broken into:

• Regularity: Having a set time each day to communicate progress and a set day to conduct retrospectives.
• Ceremonies: Injecting awards and continually emphasizing delivery of value to encourage relationship building and constructive motivation.
• Escalation: Voicing any concerns and having someone responsible for addressing them.

Proximity

Distributed teams create complexity as communication can break down. This can be mitigated by:

• Location: Placing teams in proximity to eliminate the barrier of geographical distance and time zone differences.
• Inclusion: Making a deliberate attempt to pull remote team members into discussions and ceremonies.
• Communication Tools: Having the right technology (e.g. video conference) to help bring teams closer together virtually.

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:

• Accountability: Having frequent quality reviews and feedback sessions. As work becomes more transparent, people become more accountable.
• Role Clarity: Having a clear definition of what everyone's role is.

Selecting a right-sized MMS platform

This selection guide allows organizations to execute a structured methodology for picking an MMS platform that aligns with their needs. This includes:

• Alignment and prioritization of key business and technology drivers for an MMS selection business case.
• Identification of key use cases and requirements for a right-sized MMS platform.
• A comprehensive market scan of key players in the MMS market space.

This formal MMS selection initiative will drive business-IT alignment, identify pivotal sales and marketing automation priorities, and thereby allow for the rollout of a streamlined MMS platform that is highly likely to satisfy all stakeholder needs.

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

contact your account representative for more information

workshops@infotech.com

1-888-670-8889

Summary of accomplishment

Knowledge Gained

• What marketing management is
• Historical origins of marketing management
• The future of marketing management
• Key trends in marketing management suites

Processes Optimized

• Requirements gathering
• RFPs and contract reviews
• Marketing management suite vendor selection
• Marketing management platform implementation

Marketing Management

• Adobe Experience Cloud
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing
• HubSpot Marketing Hub
• Maropost Marketing Cloud
• Oracle Marketing Cloud

Vendors Analyzed

• Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• SAP
• Sugar Market
• Zoho Campaigns

Related Info-Tech Research

Select a Marketing Management Suite

Many organizations struggle with taking a systematic approach to selection that pairs functional requirements with specific marketing workflows, and as a result they choose a marketing management suite (MMS) that is not well aligned to their needs, wasting resources and causing end-user frustration.

Get the Most Out of Your CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) application portfolios are often messy,
with multiple integration points, distributed data, and limited ongoing end-user training. A properly optimized CRM ecosystem will reduce costs and increase productivity.

Customer Relationship Management Platform Selection Guide

Speed up the process to build your business case and select your CRM solution. 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.

Bibliography

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Annual CIO Survey Report 2024

An inaugural look at what's on the minds of CIOs.

1. Firmographics

• Region
• Title
• Organization Size
• IT Budget Size
• Industry

Firmographics

The majority of CIO responses came from North America. Contributors represent regions from around the world.

n=354

Firmographics

A typical CIO respondent held a C-level position at a small to mid-sized organization.

Half of CIOs hold a C-level position, 10% are VP-level, and 20% are director level

38% of respondents are from an organization with above 1,000 employees

Firmographics

A typical CIO respondent held a C-level position at a small to mid-sized organization.

40% of CIOs report an annual budget of more than $10 million

A range of industries are represented, with 29% of respondents in the public sector or financial services

2. Key Factors

• IT Maturity
• Disruptive Factors
• IT Spending Plans
• Talent Shortage

Two in three respondents say IT can deliver outcomes that Support or Optimize the business

Most CIOs are concerned with cybersecurity disruptions, and one in four expect a budget increase of above 10%

How likely is it that the following factors will disrupt your business in the next 12 months?

Looking ahead to 2024, how will your organization's IT spending change compared to spending in 2023?

3. Adoption of Emerging Technology

• Fastest growing tech for 2024 and beyond

CIOs plan the most new spend on AI in 2024 and on mixed reality after 2024

Top five technologies for new spending planned in 2024:

1. Artificial intelligence - 35%
2. Robotic process automation or intelligent process automation - 24%
3. No-code/low-code platforms - 21%
4. Data management solutions - 14%
5. Internet of Things (IoT) - 13%

Top five technologies for new spending planned after 2024:

1. Mixed reality - 20%
2. Blockchain - 19%
3. Internet of Things (IoT) - 17%
4. Robotics/drones - 16%
5. Robotic process automation or intelligent process automation - 14%

n=301

Info-Tech Insight
Three in four CIOs say they have no plans to invest in quantum computing, more than any other technology with no spending plans.

4. Adoption of AI

• Interest in generative AI applications
• Tasks to be completed with AI
• Progress in deploying AI

CIOs are most interested in industry-specific generative AI applications or text-based

Rate your business interest in adopting the following generative AI applications:

There is interest across all types of generative AI applications. CIOs are least interested in visual media generators, rating it just 2.4 out of 5 on average.

n=251

Info-Tech Insight
Examples of generative AI solutions specific to the legal industry include Litigate, CoCounsel, and Harvey.

By the end of 2024, CIOs most often plan to use AI for analytics and repetitive tasks

Most popular use cases for AI by end of 2024:

1. Business analytics or intelligence - 69%
2. Automate repetitive, low-level tasks - 68%
3. Identify risks and improve security - 66%
4. IT operations - 62%
5. Conversational AI or virtual assistants - 57%

Fastest growing uses cases for AI in 2024:

1. Automate repetitive, low-level tasks - 39%
2. IT operations - 38%
3. Conversational AI or virtual assistants - 36%
4. Business analytics or intelligence - 35%
5. Identify risks and improve security - 32%

n=218

Info-Tech Insight
The least popular use case for AI is to help define business strategy, with 45% saying they have no plans for it.

One in three CIOs are running AI pilots or are more advanced with deployment

How far have you progressed in the use of AI?

Info-Tech Insight
Almost half of CIOs say ChatGPT has been a catalyst for their business to adopt new AI initiatives.

5. AI Risk

• Perceived impact of AI
• Approach to third-party AI tools
• AI features in business applications
• AI governance and accountability

Six in ten CIOs say AI will have a positive impact on their organization

What overall impact do you expect AI to have on your organization?

The majority of CIOs are waiting for professional-grade generative AI tools

Which of the following best describes your organization's approach to third-party generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT or Midjourney)?

Info-Tech Insight
Business concerns over intellectual property and sensitive data exposure led OpenAI to announce ChatGPT won't use data submitted via its API for model training unless customers opt in to do so. ChatGPT users can also disable chat history to avoid having their data used for model training (OpenAI).

One in three CIOs say they are accountable for AI, and the majority are exploring it cautiously

Who in your organization is accountable for governance of AI?

More than one-third of CIOs say no AI governance steps are in place today

What AI governance steps does your organization have in place today?

Among organizations that plan to invest in AI in 2024, 30% still say there are no steps in place for AI governance. The most popular steps to take are to publish clear explanations about how AI is used, and to conduct impact assessments (n=170).

Among all CIOs, including those that do not plan to invest in AI next year, 37% say no steps are being taken toward AI governance today (n=243).

6. Contribute to Info-Tech's Research Community

• Volunteer to be interviewed
• Attend LIVE in Las Vegas

It's not too late; take the Future of IT online survey

Contribute to our tech trends insights

If you haven't already contributed to our Future of IT online survey, we are keeping the survey open to continue to collect insights and inform our research reports and agenda planning process. You can take the survey today. Those that complete the survey will be sent a complimentary Tech Trends 2024 report.

Complete an interview for the Future of IT research project

Help us chart the future course of IT

If you are receiving this for completing the Future of IT online survey, thank you for your contribution. If you are interested in further participation and would like to provide a complementary interview, please get in touch at brian.Jackson@infotech.com. All interview subjects must also complete the online survey.

If you've already completed an interview, thank you very much, and you can look forward to seeing more impacts of your contribution in the near future.

Methodology

All data in this report is from Info-Tech's Future of IT online survey 2023 edition.

A CIO focus for the Future of IT

Data in this report represents respondents to the Future of IT online survey conducted by Info-Tech Research Group between May 11 and July 7, 2023.

Only CIO respondents were selected for this report, defined as those who indicated they are the most senior member of their organization's IT department.

This data segment reflects 355 total responses with 239 completing every question on the survey.

Further data from the Future of IT online survey and the accompanying interview process will be featured in Info-Tech's Tech Trends 2024 report this fall and in forthcoming Priorities reports including Applications, Data & EA, CIO, Infrastructure, and Security.

Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook

Automation, SDI, and DevOps – build a cheat sheet to manage a changing Infrastructure & Operations environment.

Table of contents

Analyst Perspective

Executive Summary

Project Overview

• Phase 1: Define and Prioritize Infrastructure Services
  • 1.1: Define the services you own
  • 1.2: Prioritize infrastructure services
• Phase 2: Build Workflows and an Infrastructure Services Playbook
  • 2.1: Design workflow for service delivery
  • 2.2: Build a services playbook
• Phase 3: Identify Costs and Mature Service Delivery Capabilities
  • 3.1: Eliminate infrastructure service costs
  • 3.2: Mature your I&O organization into a service broker

Summary and Conclusion

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Technology is changing how infrastructure services are delivered.

"Managing a hybrid infrastructure environment is challenge enough. Add to this the pressure on IT Operations to deliver services faster and more continuously – it’s a recipe for boondoggle deployments, overcommitted staff, end-user frustration, and operational gridlock.

It’s not every service you provide that causes problems, so prioritize a few in-demand, painful services. Build and maintain durable, flexible processes that enable your team to provide consistent, repeatable services at a standard cost. Identify opportunities to improve service delivery.

You’ll save the business time and money and your own team significant grief." (Andrew Sharp, Research Manager, Infrastructure & Operations, Info-Tech Research Group)

Your infrastructure and operations team is a service provider; standardize, document, and communicate service capabilities

This Research is Designed For:

• CTOs and Infrastructure Managers
• Service Level Managers
• ITSM Managers and Process Owners

This Research Will Help You:

• Inventory services that IT Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) provides to the business (servers, storage, and network).
• Standardize services and track costs.
• Articulate the value of these services to business owners.
• Develop a catalog of infrastructure services.

This Research Will Also Assist:

• CIOs
• Application Development Managers
• Security Managers
• Auditors

This Research Will Help Them:

• Understand the complexities of technical service delivery.
• Make better strategic IT infrastructure decisions.

Executive summary

Situation

• Infrastructure and operations teams are managing deployments on- and off-premises and across multiple infrastructure service providers.
• Though automation tools speed up the delivery process, documentation is always pushed off so the team can meet urgent deadlines.

Complication

• Cloud providers have set the bar high for ease of access to stable infrastructure services.
• Without documented delivery processes, wait times are longer, controls are adequate but ad hoc, builds are non-standard, and errors are more likely to be introduced in production.

Resolution

• Prioritize in-demand services for documentation and standardization.
• Build service workflows and document service requirements in the services playbook.
• Create a costing model and track costs to deliver defined services.
• Leverage data on costs and service requirements to improve service delivery.

Info-Tech Insight

1. Keep it simple. Work through a few in-demand services to get early value from the project.
2. Don’t get lost in automation or tooling. You don’t need a complex tool or back-end automation to get value from standardized services.
3. Do then iterate. With a few completed service processes, it’s much easier to identify opportunities for service automation.

Create an infrastructure services playbook to improve efficiency, support DevOps, and streamline service delivery

Begin building an infrastructure services playbook by defining the services you provide. This will also help your team support changes to service delivery (e.g. more use of cloud services and the shift to DevOps).

In this blueprint, the first step will be to document infrastructure services to:

1. Clarify infrastructure capabilities and achievable service levels.

   Document infrastructure services to clarify achievable service levels with given resources and what you will need to meet service-level requirement gaps. Establishing your ability to meet customer demands is the first step toward becoming a broker of internal or external services.

2. Standardize infrastructure service delivery.

   Sometimes, it’s extremely important to do the exact same thing every time (e.g. server hardening). Sometimes, your team needs room to deviate from the script. Create a playbook that allows you to standardize service delivery as needed.

3. Make good strategic infrastructure decisions.

   Knowledge is power. Defined services and capabilities will help you make important strategic infrastructure decisions around capacity planning and when outsourcing is appropriate.

Review and optimize infrastructure service delivery as you shift to more cloud-based services

If you can’t standardize and streamline how you support cloud services, you risk AppDev and business leaders circumventing the I&O team.

	Example: Create a new server resource in a virtual environment vs. public cloud In a virtualized environment, provisioning processes can still be relatively siloed. In a software-defined environment, many steps require knowledge across the infrastructure stack. Better documentation will help your team deliver services outside their area of specialty.
Identify CPU requirements for a virtual machine (VM) Calculate VM memory requirements Configure the floppy drive for a VM Configure IDE devices for a VM Configure SCSI adapters for a VM Configure network adapters for a VM Configure VM priority for host CPU resources Server is live		Complete SDI code development & review, version control, build status, etc. Identify software and specifications for the instance you want to use Review configuration, storage, and security settings Secure the instance with an existing key pair or create a new key pair Update documentation – public IP address, physical & logical connections, data flows, etc. Launch and connect to instance Server is live

Strengthen DevOps with an infrastructure playbook

The purpose behind DevOps is to reduce friction and deliver faster, more continuous, more automated services through the use of cross-functional teams.

DevOps: bridging Applications Development and Infrastructure & Operations by embracing a culture, practices, and tools born out of Lean and Agile methodologies.

• Create a common language across functions.
• Ensure that all service steps are documented.
• Move towards more standard deployments.
• Increase transparency within the IT department.
• Cultivate trust across teams.
• Build the foundation for automated services.

"The bar has been raised for delivering technology products and services – what was good enough in previous decades is not good enough now." (Kim, Humble, Debois, Willis (2016))

Leverage an infrastructure services playbook to improve service delivery, one step at a time

Crawl Prioritize infrastructure services that are good candidates for standardization. Document the steps and requirements to deliver the service. Use the playbook and workflows internally as you gather requirements and deliver on requests. Track costs internally.	Walk Provide infrastructure clients with the playbook and allow them to make requests against it. Update and maintain existing documentation. Automate, where possible. Showback costs to the business.	Run Provide infrastructure customers with scripts to provision infrastructure resources. Audit requests before fulfilling them. Chargeback costs, as needed.

Focus on in-demand infrastructure services — PHASE 1

Standardize in-demand, repeatable services first.

Demand for infrastructure services is usually driven by external requests or operational requirements. Prioritize services based on criticality, durability, frequency, availability, and urgency requirements.

Scheduling Delays

• Dealing with a slew of capital projects driven by a major funding initiative, the IT team of a major US transit system is struggling to execute on basic operational tasks.

Action:
• A brainstorming and prioritization exercise identifies web server deployment as their most in-demand service.
• Identifying breakdowns in web server deployment helps free up resources for other tasks and addresses a serious pain point.

Think outside the box

• On a new project for a sporting goods client, the IT department for a marketing firm deploys and supports a “locker” kiosk that users engage with for a chance to win a gift.

Action:
• As the campaign proves successful, the I&O Manager creates a playbook to guide kiosk support and deployment in the future, including required skills, timelines, success metrics, and costs.

Keep it standard, keep it safe

• An IT audit at a higher education institution finds that no standard process for server hardening has been defined or documented by the infrastructure team.

Action:
• Improving IT security is a strategic priority for the department.
• The infrastructure team decides to standardize and document processes, guidelines, and configurations for hardening OS, SCCM, SaltStack, scripting, and patching.

Leverage service workflows to populate the playbook — PHASE 2

Infrastructure as Code is breaking down traditional infrastructure silos and support models.

1. Document the workflow to deliver the service. Identify pain points and target broken processes first.
   Provision –› Configure –› Run –› Quiesce –› Destroy
2. Define logical expected results and metrics for problematic steps in the process. Identify challenges and possible improvements to each problematic step.
   

   Building and deploying toolsets is taking a long time
   Start Create a baseline offering for common requests. Make clear that non-standard requests will take time to fulfil.	Stop Move to just one web server.	Continue Use weekly drop-ins to communicate the change.

3. Document skills and roles, approvers, and pre-requirements to fill out the documentation, as needed. Use the documented process to guide internal process and align with external expectations.

Cross-silo knowledge is needed: In a software-defined environment, building and launching a new server requires knowledge across the stack.

• Complete SDI code development & review, version control, build status, etc.
• Identify software and specifications for the instance you want to use
• Review configuration, storage, and security settings
• Secure the instance with an existing key pair, or create a new key pair
• Update documentation – public IP address, physical & logical connections, data flows, etc.
• Launch and connect to the instance

Server is live

Take a progressive approach to cost tracking — PHASE 3

Infrastructure & Operations are bound by two metrics:

1. Are systems up?
2. Is technology delivered as efficiently as possible?

Because tracking cost is integral to efficiency, cost and budget management, by proxy, is one of the most important Infrastructure & Operations metrics.

Cost management is not a numbers game. It is an indicator of how well infrastructure is managed.

Track costs in a practical way that delivers value to your organization:

1. Build and leverage an internal rate sheet to help estimate cost to serve.
2. Showback rate sheet to help managers and architects make better infrastructure decisions.
3. Chargeback costs to defined cost centers.

Project overview

Use Info-Tech’s methodology to get value faster from your infrastructure services playbook.

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation Overview

Your Trusted Advisor is just a call away.

Your Guided Implementation will pair you with an advisor from our analyst team for the duration of your infrastructure services project.

Workshop Overview

Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook

PHASE 1

Define and Prioritize Infrastructure Services

Step 1.1: Define the services you own

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Define “infrastructure service”
• Brainstorm service offerings
• Consolidate services with affinity map

This step involves the following participants:

• Infrastructure Manager
• I&O SMEs

Results & Insights

• Results: Consolidated list of end-to-end services
• Insights: Avoid analysis paralysis by brainstorming without restrictions. It is more effective to cut down in Step 1.2 rather than risk neglecting important services for the playbook.

Consider a range of infrastructure services

Your infrastructure team is a service provider to the applications team – and sometimes other users as well.

Service Requests

• A developer requests a new web server.
• The marketing department asks for a database to support a six-month digital marketing campaign.

Projects

• A new service is promoted to production.

Operations

• Firewall rules are updated to support server, network, or security posture changes.
• Standard practices are followed and maintained to harden a range of different operating systems.
• Engineers follow a standard process to integrate new tools and entitlements into Active Directory.
• Patches and firmware updates are applied to core infrastructure components as needed.

Problems

• A database batch job often breaks on overnight batch jobs and requires manual intervention to check and restart.

IT infrastructure & operations teams deliver services that fulfil requests, support projects, resolve problems, and operate systems.

CIO Priorities 2022

Info-Tech’s annual CIO priorities are formed from proprietary primary data and consultation with our internal experts with CIO stature

2022 Tech Trends Survey CIO Demographic N=123

Info-Tech’s Tech Trends 2022 survey was conducted between August and September 2021 and collected a total of 475 responses from IT decision makers, 123 of which were at the C-level. Fourteen countries and 16 industries are represented in the survey.

2022 IT Talent Trends Survey CIO Demographic N=44

Info-Tech’s IT Talent Trends 2022 survey was conducted between September and October 2021 and collected a total of 245 responses from IT decision makers, 44 of which were at the C-level. A broad range of countries from around the world are represented in the survey.

Internal CIO Panels’ 125 Years Of Combined C-Level IT Experience

Panels of former CIOs at Info-Tech focused on interpreting tech trends data and relating it to client experiences. Panels were conducted between November 2021 and January 2022.

CEO-CIO Alignment Survey Benchmark Completed By 107 Different Organizations

Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment program helps CIOs align with their supervisors by asking the right questions to ensure that IT stays on the right path. It determines how IT can best support the business’ top priorities and address the gaps in your strategy. In 2021, the benchmark was formed by 107 different organizations.

Build IT alignment

IT Management & Governance Diagnostic Benchmark Completed By 320 Different Organizations

Info-Tech’s Management and Governance Diagnostic helps IT departments assess their strengths and weaknesses, prioritize their processes and build an improvement roadmap, and establish clear ownership of IT processes. In 2021, the benchmark was formed by data from 320 different organizations.

Assess your IT processes

The CIO priorities are informed by Info-Tech’s trends research reports and surveys

Priority: “The fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important than others.” (Lexico/Oxford)

Trend: “A general direction in which something is developing or changing.” (Lexico/Oxford)

Visit Info-Tech’s Trends & Priorities Research Center

The Five Priorities

Priorities to compete in the digital economy

1. Reduce Friction in the Hybrid Operating Model
2. Improve Your Ransomware Readiness
3. Support an Employee-Centric Retention Strategy
4. Design an Automation Platform
5. Prepare to Report on New Environmental, Social, and Governance Metrics

Reduce friction in the hybrid operating model

Priority 01 | APO07 Human Resources Management

Deliver solutions that create equity between remote workers and office workers and make collaboration a joy.

Hybrid work is here to stay

CIOs must deal with new pain points related to friction of collaboration

In 2020, CIOs adapted to the pandemic’s disruption to offices by investing in capabilities to enable remote work. With restrictions on gathering in offices, even digital laggards had to shift to an all-remote work model for non-essential workers.

Most popular technologies already invested in to facilitate better collaboration

• 24% Web Conferencing
• 23% Instant Messaging
• 20% Document Collaboration

In 2022, the focus shifts to solving problems created by the new hybrid operating model where some employees are in the office and some are working remotely. Without the ease of collaborating in a central hub, technology can play a role in reducing friction in several areas:

• Foster more connections between employees. Remote workers are less likely to collaborate with people outside of their department and less likely to spontaneously collaborate with their peers. CIOs should provide a digital employee experience that fosters collaboration habits and keeps workers engaged.
• Prevent employee attrition. With more workers reevaluating their careers and leaving their jobs, CIOs can help employees feel connected to the overall purpose of the organization. Finding a way to maintain culture in the new context will require new solutions. While conference room technology can be a bane to IT departments, making hybrid meetings effortless to facilitate will be more important.
• Provide new standards for mediated collaboration. Meeting isn’t as easy as simply gathering around the same table anymore. CIOs need to provide structure around how hybrid meetings are conducted to create equity between all participants. Business continuity processes must also consider potential outages for collaboration services so employees can continue the work despite a major outage.

Three in four organizations have a “hybrid” approach to work. (Tech Trends 2022 Survey)

In most organizations, a hybrid model is being implemented. Only 14.9% of organizations are planning for almost everyone to return to the office, and only 9.9% for almost everyone to work remotely.

Elizabeth Clark CIO, Harvard Business School "I want to create experiences that are sticky. That keep people coming back and engaging with their colleagues."

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Frictionless hybrid working: How the Harvard Business School did it

Internal interpretation: Harvard Business School

• March 2020

  The pandemic disrupts in-class education at Harvard Business School. Their case study method of instruction that depends on in-person, high-quality student engagement is at risk. While students and faculty completed the winter semester remotely, the Dean and administration make the goal to restore the integrity of the classroom experience with equity for both remote and in-person students.

• May 2020

  A cross-functional task force of about 100 people work intensively, conducting seven formal experiments, 80 smaller tests, and hundreds of polling data points, and a technology and facilities solution is designed: two 4K video cameras capturing both the faculty and the in-class students, new ceiling mics, three 85-inch TV screens, and students joining the videoconference from their laptops. A custom Zoom room, combining three separate rooms, integrated all the elements in one place and integrated with the lecture capture system and learning management system.

• October 2020

  Sixteen classrooms are renovated to install the new solution. Students return to the classroom but in lower numbers due to limits on in-room capacity, but students rotate between the in-person and remote experience.

• September 2021

  Renovations for the hybrid solution are complete in 26 classrooms and HBS has determined this will be its standard model for the classroom. The case method of teaching is kept alive and faculty and students are thrilled with the results.

• November 2021

  HBS is adapting its solution for the classroom to its conference rooms and has built out eight different rooms for a hybrid experience. The 4K cameras and TV screens capture all participants in high fidelity as well as the blackboard.

The renovated classrooms integrate all students, whether they are participating remotely or in person. (Image courtesy of Harvard Business School.)

Implications: Organization, Process, Technology

External

• Organization – About half of IT practitioners in the Tech Trends 2022 survey feel that IT leaders, infrastructure and operations teams, and security teams were “very busy” in 2021. Capacity to adapt to hybrid work could be constrained by these factors.
• Process – Organizations that want employees to benefit from being back in the office will have to rethink how workers can get more value out of in-person meetings that also require videoconference participation with remote workers.
• Technology – Fifty-four percent of surveyed IT practitioners say the pandemic raised IT spending compared to the projections they made in 2020. Much of that investment went into adapting to a remote work environment.

Internal

• Organization – HBS added 30 people to its IT staff on term appointments to develop and implement its hybrid classroom solutions. Hires included instructional designers, support technicians, coordinators, and project managers.
• Process – Only 25 students out of the full capacity of 95 could be in the classroom due to COVID-19 regulations. On-campus students rotated through the classroom seats. An app was created to post last-minute seat availability to keep the class full.
• Technology – A Zoom room was created that combines three rooms to provide the full classroom experience: a view of the instructor, a clear view of each student that enlarges when they are speaking, and a view of the blackboard.

Resources Applied

Appetite for Technology

CIOs and their direct supervisors both ranked internal collaboration tools as being a “critical need to adopt” in 2021, according to Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Benchmark Report.

Intent to Invest

Ninety-seven percent of IT practitioners plan to invest in technology to facilitate better collaboration between employees in the office and outside the office by the end of 2022, according to Info-Tech’s 2022 Tech Trends survey.

“We got so many nice compliments, which you don’t get in IT all the time. You get all the complaints, but it’s a rare case when people are enthusiastic about something that was delivered.” (Elizabeth Clark, CIO, Harvard Business School)

Harvard Business School

• IT staff were reassigned from other projects to prioritize building a hybrid classroom solution. A cloud migration and other portfolio projects were put on pause.
• The annual capital A/V investment was doubled. The amount of spend on conference rooms was tripled.
• Employees were hired to the media services team at a time when other areas of the organization were frozen.

Outcomes at Harvard Business School

The new normal at Harvard Business School

New normal: HBS has found its new default operating model for the classroom and is extending its solution to its operating environment.

Improved CX: The high-quality experience for students has helped avoid attrition despite the challenges of the pandemic.

Engaged employees: The IT team is also engaged and feels connected to the mission of the school.

A custom Zoom room brings together multiple different views of the classroom into one single experience for remote students. (Image courtesy of Harvard Business School.)

From Priorities to Action

Make hybrid collaboration a joy

Align with your organization’s goals for collaboration and customer interaction, with the target of high satisfaction for both customers and employees. Invest in capital projects to improve the fidelity of conference rooms, develop and test a new way of working, and increase IT capacity to alleviate pressure points.

Foster both asynchronous and synchronous collaboration approaches to avoid calendars filling up with videoconference meetings to get things done and to accommodate workers contributing from across different time zones.

“We’ll always have hybrid now. It’s opened people’s eyes and now we’re thinking about the future state. What new markets could we explore?” (Elizabeth Clark, CIO, Harvard Business School)

Take the next step

Run Better Meetings
Hybrid, virtual, or in person – set meeting best practices that support your desired meeting norms.

Prepare People Leaders for the Hybrid Work Environment
Set hybrid work up for success by providing people leaders with the tools they need to lead within the new model.

Hoteling and Hot-Desking: A Primer
What you need to know regarding facilities, IT infrastructure, maintenance, security, and vendor solutions for desk hoteling and hot-desking.

“Human Resources Management” gap between importance and effectiveness
Info-Tech Research Group Management and Governance Diagnostic Benchmark 2021

Improve your ransomware readiness

Priority 02 | APO13 Security Strategy

Mitigate the damage of successful ransomware intrusions and make recovery as painless as possible.

The ransomware crisis threatens every organization

Prevention alone won’t be enough against the forces behind ransomware.

Cybersecurity is always top of mind for CIOs but tends to be deprioritized due to other demands related to digital transformation or due to cost pressures. That’s the case when we examine our data for this report.

Cybersecurity ranked as the fourth-most important priority by CIOs in Info-Tech’s 2022 Tech Trends survey, behind business process improvement, digital transformation, and modernization. Popular ways to prepare for a successful attack include creating offline backups, purchasing insurance, and deploying new solutions to eradicate ransomware.

CIOs and their direct supervisors ranked “Manage IT-Related Security” as the third-most important top IT priority on Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Benchmark for 2021, in support of business goals to manage risk, comply with external regulation, and ensure service continuity.

Most popular ways for organizations to prepare for the event of a successful ransomware attack:

• 25% Created offline backups
• 18% Purchased cyberinsurance
• 19% New tech to eradicate ransomware

Whatever priority an organization places on cybersecurity, when ransomware strikes, it quickly becomes a red alert scenario that disrupts normal operations and requires all hands on deck to respond. Sophisticated attacks executed at wide scale demonstrate that security can be bypassed without creating an alert. After that’s accomplished, the perpetrators build their leverage by exfiltrating data and encrypting critical systems.

CIOs can plan to mitigate ransomware attacks in several constructive ways:

• Business impact analysis. Determine the costs of an outage for specific periods and the system and data recovery points in time.
• Engage a partner for 24/7 monitoring. Gain real-time awareness of your critical systems.
• Review your identity access management (IAM) policies. Use of multi-factor authentication and limiting access to only the roles that need it reduces ransomware risk.