Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Create and implement a vendor management framework to begin obtaining measurable results in 90 days.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

What is vendor management?

When you read the phrase “vendor management,” what comes to mind? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Take your time … I’ll wait.

Unfortunately, those words conjure up a lot of different meanings, and much of that depends on whom you ask. Those who work in the vendor management field will provide a variety of answers. To complicate matters, those who are vendor management “outsiders” will have a totally different view of what vendor management is. Why is this important? Because we need a common definition to communicate more effectively, even if the definition is broad.

Let’s start creating a working definition that is not circular. Vendor management is not simply managing vendors. That expression basically reorders the words and does nothing to advance our cause; it only adds to the existing confusion surrounding the concept.

Vendor management is best thought of as a spectrum or continuum with many points rather than a specific discipline like accounting or finance. There are many functions and activities that fall under the umbrella term of vendor management: some of them will be part of your vendor management initiative (VMI), some will not, and some will exist in your organization but be outside the VMI. This is the unique part of vendor management – the part that makes it fun, but also the part that leads to the confusion. For example, accounts payable sits within the accounting department almost exclusively, but contract management can sit within or outside the VMI. The beauty of vendor management is its flexibility; your VMI can be created to meet your specific needs and goals while leveraging common vendor management principles.

Every conversation around vendor management needs to begin with “What do you mean by that?” Only then can we home in on the scope and nature of what people are discussing. “Managing vendors” is too narrow because it often ignores many of the reasons organizations create VMIs in the first place: to reduce costs, to improve performance, to improve processes, to improve relationships, to improve communication, and to manage risk better.

Vendor management is a strategic initiative that takes the big picture into account … navigating the cradle to grave lifecycle to get the most out of your interactions and relationships with your vendors. It is flexible and customizable; it is not plug and play or overly prescriptive. Tools, principles, templates, and concepts are adapted rather than adopted as is. Ultimately, you define what vendor management is for your organization.

We look forward to helping you on your vendor management journey no matter what it looks like. But first, let’s have a conversation about how you want to define vendor management in your environment.

Phil Bode
Principal Research Director, Vendor Management
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Each year, IT organizations “outsource” tasks, activities, functions, and other items. During 2021:

• Spend on as-a-service providers increased 38% over 2020.*
• Spend on managed service providers increased 16% over 2020.*
• IT service providers increased their merger and acquisition numbers by 47% over 2020.*

*Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

Common Obstacles

As new contracts are negotiated and existing contracts are renegotiated or renewed, there is a perception that the contracts will yield certain results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes. The hope is that these will provide a measurable expected value to IT and the organization. Oftentimes, much of the expected value is never realized. Many organizations don’t have a VMI to help:

• Ensure at least the expected value is achieved.
• Improve on the expected value through performance management.
• Significantly increase the expected value through a proactive VMI.

Info-Tech’s Approach

Vendor management is a proactive, cross-functional lifecycle. It can be broken down into four phases:

• Plan
• Build
• Run
• Review

The Info-Tech process addresses all four phases and provides a step-by-step approach to configure and operate your VMI. The content in this blueprint helps you quickly establish your VMI and set a solid foundation for its growth and maturity.

Info-Tech Insight

Vendor management is not a one-size-fits-all initiative. It must be configured:

• For your environment, culture, and goals.
• To leverage the strengths of your organization and personnel.
• To focus your energy and resources on your critical vendors.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Spend on managed service providers and as-a-service providers continues to increase. In addition, IT services vendors continue to be active in the mergers and acquisitions arena. This increases the need for a VMI to help with the changing IT vendor landscape. In 2021, there was increases of:

38%

Spend on As-a-Service Providers

16%

Spend on Managed Services Providers

47%

IT Services Merger & Acquisition Growth (Transactions)

Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

Executive Summary

Common Obstacles

When organizations execute, renew, or renegotiate a contract, there is an “expected value” associated with that contract. Without a robust VMI, most of the expected value will never be realized. With a robust VMI, the realized value significantly exceeds the expected value during the contract term.

A contract’s realized value with and without a vendor management initiative

Source: Based on findings from Geller & Company, 2003.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech’s Approach

A sound, cyclical approach to vendor management will help you create a VMI that meets your needs and stays in alignment with your organization as they both change (i.e. mature and grow).

Info-Tech’s Methodology for Creating and Operating Your VMI

Insight Summary

Insight 1

Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. While there are commonalities and leading practices associated with vendor management, your initiative won’t look exactly like another organization’s. The key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs.

Insight 2

All vendors are not of equal importance to your organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.

Insight 3

Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally,” starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

Blueprint Deliverables

The four phases of creating and running a vendor management initiative are supported with configurable tools, templates, and checklists to help you stay aligned internally and achieve your goals.

VMI Tools and Templates

Build a solid foundation for your VMI and configure tools and templates to help you manage your vendor relationships.

Key Deliverables:

1. Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium
2. Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium
3. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool
4. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

A suite of tools and templates to help you create and implement your vendor management initiative.

Blueprint benefits

IT Benefits

• Identify and manage risk proactively.
• Reduce costs and maximize value.
• Increase visibility with your critical vendors.
• Improve vendor performance.
• Create a collaborative environment with key vendors.
• Segment vendors to allocate resources more effectively and more efficiently.

Business Benefits

• Improve vendor accountability.
• Increase collaboration between departments.
• Improve working relationships with your vendors.
• Create a feedback loop to address vendor or customer issues before they get out of hand or are more costly to resolve.
• Increase access to meaningful data and information regarding important vendors.

Establish Baseline Metrics

Baseline metrics will be improved through:

Using the Maturity Assessment and 90-Day Plan tools, track how well you are able to achieve your goals and objectives:

• Did you meet the targeted maturity level for each maturity category as determined by the point system?
• Did you finish each activity in the 90-Day Plan completely and on time?

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Workshop Overview

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

Phase 1: Plan

Get Organized

1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
1.2 Scope
1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
1.5 Process Mapping
1.6 Charter
1.7 Vendor Inventory
1.8 Maturity Assessment
1.9 Structure

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Procurement/Sourcing
• IT
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 1: Plan

Get organized.

Phase 1: Plan focuses on getting organized. Foundational elements (mission statement, goals, scope, strengths and obstacles, roles and responsibilities, and process mapping) will help you define your VMI. These and the other elements of this Phase will follow you throughout the process of standing up your VMI and running it.

Spending time up front to ensure that everyone is on the same page will help avoid headaches down the road. The tendency is to skimp (or even skip) on these steps to get to “the good stuff.” To a certain extent, the process provided here is like building a house. You wouldn’t start building your dream home without having a solid blueprint. The same is true with vendor management. Leveraging vendor management tools and techniques without the proper foundation may provide some benefit in the short term, but in the long term it will ultimately be a house of cards waiting to collapse.

Step 1.1: Mission statement and goals

Identify why the VMI exists and what it will achieve.

Whether you are starting your vendor management journey or are already down the path, it is important to know why the vendor management initiative exists and what it hopes to achieve. The easiest way to document this is with a written declaration in the form of a mission statement and goals. Although this is the easiest way to proceed, it is far from easy.

The mission statement should identify at a high level the nature of the services provided by the VMI, who it will serve, and some of the expected outcomes or achievements. The mission statement should be no longer than one or two sentences.

The complement to the mission statement is the list of goals for the VMI. Your goals should not be a reassertion of your mission statement in bullet format. At this stage it may not be possible to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based), but consider making them as SMART as possible. Without some of the SMART parameters attached, your goals are more like dreams and wishes. At a minimum, you should be able to determine the level of success achieved for each of the VMI goals.

Although the VMI’s mission statement will stay static over time (other than for significant changes to the VMI or organization as a whole), the goals should be re-evaluated periodically using a SMART filter and adjusted as needed.

1.1.1: Mission statement and goals

20-40 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the reasons why the VMI will exist.
2. Review external mission statements for inspiration.
3. Review internal mission statements from other areas to ensure consistency.
4. Draft and document your mission statement in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
5. Continue brainstorming and identify the high-level goals for the VMI.
6. Review the list of goals and make them as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based) as possible.
7. Document your goals in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
8. Obtain sign-off on the mission statement and goals from stakeholders and executives as required.

Input

• Brainstorming results
• Mission statements from other internal and external sources

Output

• Completed mission statement and goals

Materials

• Whiteboard/Flip Charts
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.2: Scope

Determine what is in scope and out of scope for the VMI

Regardless of where your VMI resides or how it operates, it will be working with other areas within your organization. Some of the activities performed by the VMI will be new and not currently handled by other groups or individuals internally; at the same time, some of the activities performed by the VMI may be currently handled by other groups or individuals internally. In addition, executives, stakeholders, and other internal personnel may have expectations or make assumptions about the VMI. As a result, there can be a lot of confusion about what the VMI does and doesn’t do, and the answers cannot always be found in the VMI’s mission statement and goals.

One component of helping others understand the VMI landscape is formalizing the VMI scope. The scope will define boundaries for the VMI. The intent is not to fence itself off and keep others out but provide guidance on where the VMI’s territory begins and ends. Ultimately, this will help clarify the VMI’s roles and responsibilities, improve workflow, and reduce errant assumptions.

When drafting your VMI scoping document, make sure you look at both sides of the equation (similar to what you would do when following best practices for a statement of work): Identify what is in scope and what is out of scope. Be specific when describing the individual components of the VMI scope, and make sure executives and stakeholders are on board with the final version.

1.2.1: Scope

20-40 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the activities and functions in scope and out of scope for the VMI.
   1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
   2. Go back and forth between in scope and out of scope as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the in-scope items and then turn your attention to the out-of-scope items.
2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity. An item may be in scope or out of scope but not both.
3. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope, to document the results.
4. Obtain sign-off on the scope from stakeholders and executives as required.

Input

• Brainstorming
• Mission statement and goals

Output

• Completed list of items in and out of scope for the VMI

Materials

• Whiteboard/Flip Charts
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.3: Strengths and obstacles

Pinpoint the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a valuable tool, but it is overkill for your VMI at this point. However, using a modified and simplified form of this tool (strengths and obstacles) will yield significant results and benefit the VMI as it grows and matures.

Your output will be two lists: the strengths associated with the VMI and the obstacles facing the VMI. For example, strengths could include items such as smart people working within the VMI and executive support. Obstacles could include items such as limited headcount and training required for VMI staff.

The goals are 1) to harness the strengths to help the VMI be successful and 2) to understand the impact of the obstacles and plan accordingly. The output can also be used to enlighten executives and stakeholders about the challenges associated with their directives or requests (e.g. human bandwidth may not be sufficient to accomplish some of the vendor management activities and there is a moratorium on hiring until the next budget year).

For each strength identified, determine how you will or can leverage it when things are going well or when the VMI is in a bind. For each obstacle, list the potential impact on the VMI (e.g. scope, growth rate, and number of vendors that can actively be part of the VMI).

As you do your brainstorming, be as specific as possible and validate your lists with stakeholders and executives as needed.

1.3.1: Strengths and obstacles

20-40 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.
   1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
   2. Go back and forth between strengths and obstacles as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the strengths and then turn your attention to the obstacles.
   3. It is possible for an item to be a strength and an obstacle; when this happens, add details to distinguish the situations.
2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity.
3. Determine how you will leverage each strength and how you will manage each obstacle.
4. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles, to document the results.
5. Obtain sign-off on the strengths and obstacles from stakeholders and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Mission statement and goals
• Scope

Output

• Completed list of items impacting the VMI’s ability to be successful: strengths the VMI can leverage and obstacles the VMI must manage

Materials

• Whiteboard/Flip Charts
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities

Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

One crucial success factor for VMIs is gaining and maintaining internal alignment. There are many moving parts to an organization, and a VMI must be clear on the various roles and responsibilities related to the relevant processes. Some of this information can be found in the VMI’s scope, referenced in Step 1.2, but additional information is required to avoid stepping on each other’s toes since many of the processes require internal departments to work together. (For example, obtaining requirements for a request for proposal takes more than one person or one department to complete this process.) While it is not necessary to get too granular, it is imperative that you have a clear understanding of how the VMI activities will fit within the larger vendor management lifecycle (which is comprised of many sub processes) and who will be doing what.

As we have learned through our workshops and guided implementations, a traditional RACI* or RASCI* chart does not work well for this purpose. These charts are not intuitive, and they lack the specificity required to be effective. For vendor management purposes, a higher-level view and a slightly different approach provide much better results.

This step will lead your through the creation of an OIC* chart to determine vendor management lifecycle roles and responsibilities. Afterward, you’ll be able to say, “Oh, I see clearly who is involved in each part of the process and what their role is.”

*RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed
*RASCI – Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consulted, Informed
*OIC – Owner, Informed, Contributor

Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities (cont.)

Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

To start, define the vendor management lifecycle steps or process applicable to your VMI. Next, determine who participates in the vendor management lifecycle. There is no need to get too granular – think along the lines of departments, subdepartments, divisions, agencies, or however you categorize internal operational units. Avoid naming individuals other than by title; this typically happens when a person oversees a large group (e.g. the CIO [chief information officer] or the CPO [chief procurement officer]). Be thorough, but the chart can get out of hand quickly. For each role and step of the lifecycle, ask whether the entry is necessary – does it add value to the clarity of understanding the responsibilities associated with the vendor management lifecycle? Consider two examples, one for roles and one for lifecycle steps: 1) Is IT sufficient or do you need IT Operations and IT Development? 2) Is “negotiate contract documents” sufficient or do you need “negotiate the contract” and “negotiate the renewal”? The answer will always depend on your culture and environment, but be wary of creating a spreadsheet that requires an 85-inch monitor to view it in its entirety.

After defining the roles (departments, divisions, agencies) and the vendor management lifecycle steps or process, assign one of three letters to each box in your chart:

• O – Owner – who owns the process; they may also contribute to it.
• I – Informed – who is informed about the progress or results of the process.
• C – Contributor – who contributes or works on the process; it can be tangible or intangible contributions.

This activity can be started by the VMI or done as a group with representatives from each of the named roles. If the VMI starts the activity, the resulting chart should be validated by the each of the named roles.

1.4.1: Roles and responsibilities

1-6 hours

1. Meet with the participants and configure the OIC Chart in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart.
   1. Review the steps or activities across the top of the chart and modify as needed.
   2. Review the roles listed along the left side of the chart and modify as needed.
2. For each activity or step across the top of the chart, assign each role a letter – O for owner of that activity or step; I for informed; or C for contributor. Use only one letter per cell.
3. Work your way across the chart. Every cell should have an entry or be left blank if it is not applicable.
4. Review the results and validate that every activity or step has an O assigned to it; there must be an owner for every activity or step.
5. Obtain sign-off on the OIC chart from stakeholders and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• A list of activities or steps to complete a project, starting with requirements gathering and ending with ongoing risk management
• A list of internal areas (departments, divisions, agencies, etc.) and stakeholders that contribute to completing a project

Output

• Completed OCI chart indicating roles and responsibilities for the VMI and other internal areas

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart

Participants

• VMI team
• Procurement/Sourcing
• IT
• Representatives from other areas as needed
• Applicable stakeholders and executives as needed

Step 1.5: Process mapping

Diagram the workflow.

Although policies and procedures are important, their nature can make it difficult to grasp how things work at a high level (or even at the detail level). To help bridge the gap, map the applicable processes (determined by how deep and wide you want to go) involving the VMI. To start, look at the OIC chart from Step 1.4. You can expand the breadth and depth of your mapping to include the VMI scope, the 3-year roadmap (see Step 2.9), and the processes driven by the day-to-day work within the VMI.

Various mapping tools can be used. Three common approaches that can be mixed and matched are:

• Traditional flowcharts.
• Swimlane diagrams.
• Work breakdown structures.

Step 1.5: Process mapping (cont.)

Diagram the workflow.

Your goal is not to create an in-depth diagram for every step of the vendor management lifecycle. However, for steps owned by the VMI, the process map should include sufficient details for the owner and the contributors (see Step 1.4) to understand what is required of them to support that step in the lifecycle.

For VMI processes that don’t interact with other departments, follow the same pattern as outlined above for steps owned by the VMI.

Whatever methodology you use to create your process map, make sure it includes enough details so that readers and users can identify the following elements:

• Input:
  • What are the inputs?
  • Where do the inputs originate or come from?
• Process:
  • Who is involved/required for this step?
  • What happens to the inputs in this step?
  • What additional materials, tools, or resources are used or required during this step?
• Output:
  • What are the outputs?
  • Where do the outputs go next?

1.5.1: Process Mapping

1-8 hours (or more)

1. Meet with the participants and determine which processes you want to map.
   1. For processes owned by the VMI, map the entire process.
   2. For processes contributed to by the VMI, map the entire process at a high level and map the VMI portion of the process in greater detail.
2. Select the right charts/diagrams for your output.
   1. Flowchart
   2. Swimlane diagram
   3. Modified SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer)
   4. WBS (work breakdown structure)
3. Begin mapping the processes either in a tool or using sticky notes. You want to be able to move the steps and associated information easily; most people don’t map the entire process accurately or with sufficient detail the first time through. An iterative approach works best.
4. Obtain signoff on the process maps from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping, if desired.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Existing processes (formal, informal, documented, and undocumented)
• OIC chart

Output

• Process maps for processes contributed to or owned by the VMI

Materials

• Sticky Notes
• Flowchart/process mapping software or something similar
• (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping

Participants

• VMI team
• Procurement/Sourcing
• IT
• Representatives from other areas as needed
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.6: Charter

Document how the VMI will operate.

As you continue getting organized by working through steps 1.1-1.5, you may want to document your progress in a charter and add some elements. Basically, a charter is a written document laying out how the VMI will operate within the organization. It clearly states the VMI’s mission, goals, scope, roles and responsibilities, and vendor governance model. In addition, it can include a list of team members and sponsors.

Whether you create a VMI charter will largely depend on:

• Your organization’s culture.
• Your organization’s formality.
• The perceived value of creating a charter.

If you decide to create a VMI charter, this is a good place in the process to create an initial draft. As you continue working through the blueprint and your VMI matures, update the VMI charter as needed.

VMI Charter:

• Purpose
• Sponsors
• Roles
• Responsibilities
• Governance

1.6.1: Charter

1-4 hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the template in Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter.
2. Determine whether the participants will use this template or add materials to your standard charter template.
3. Complete as much of the charter as possible, knowing that some information may not be available until later.
4. Return to the charter as needed until it is completed.
5. Obtain sign-off on the charter from stakeholders and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Mission statement and goals
• Scope
• Strengths and obstacles
• OIC chart
• List of stakeholders and executives and their VMI roles and responsibilities

Output

• Completed VMI charter

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter
• Your organization’s standard charter document

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.7: Vendor inventory

Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

As you prepare your VMI for being operational, it’s critical to identify all of your current vendors providing IT products or services to the organization. This can be tricky and may depend on how you view things internally. For example, you may have traditional IT vendors that are managed by IT, and you may have IT vendors that are managed by other internal departments (shadow IT or out-in-the-open IT). If it wasn’t determined with the help of stakeholders and executives before now, make sure you establish the purview of the VMI at this point. What types of vendors are included and excluded from the VMI?

You may find that a vendor can be included and excluded based on the product or service they provide. A vendor may provide a service that is managed by IT and a service that is managed/controlled by another department. In this instance, a good working relationship and clearly defined roles and responsibilities between the VMI and the other department will be required. But, it all starts with compiling a list of vendors and validating the VMI’s purview (and any limitations) for the vendors with stakeholders and executives.

Step 1.7: Vendor inventory (cont.)

Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

At a minimum, the VMI should be able to quickly retrieve key information about each of “its” vendors:

• Vendor Name
• Classification (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1)
• Categories of Service
• Names of Products and Services Provided
• Brief Descriptions of Products and Services Provided
• Annualized Vendor Spend
• Vendor Contacts
• Internal Vendor Relationship Owner

Not all of this information will be available at this point, but you can begin designing or configuring your tool to meet your needs. As your VMI enters Phase 3: Run and continues to mature, you will return to this tool and update the information. For example, the vendor classification category won’t be known until Phase 3, and it can change over time.

1.7.1: Vendor inventory

1-10 hours

Meet with the participants and review the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory. Determine whether the VMI wants to collect and/or monitor additional information and make any necessary modifications to the tool.

Enter the “Annual IT Vendor Spend” amount in the appropriate cell toward the top of the spreadsheet. This is for IT spend for vendor-related activities within the VMI’s scope; include shadow IT spend and “non-shadow” IT spend if those vendors will be included in the VMI’s scope.

Populate the data fields for your top 50 vendors by annual spend; you may need multiple entries for the same vendor depending on the nature of the products and services they provide.

Ignore the “Classification” column for now; you will return to this later when classification information is available.

Ignore the “Percentage of IT Budget” column as well; it uses a formula to calculate this information.

Input

• Data from various internal and external sources such as accounts payable, contracts, and vendor websites

Output

• List of vendors with critical information required to manage relationships with key vendors

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

Participants

• VMI team (directly)
• Other internal and external personnel (indirectly)

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Step 1.8: Maturity assessment

Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

Knowing where you are and where you want to go are essential elements for any journey in the physical world, and the same holds true for your VMI journey. Start by assessing your current-state VMI maturity. This will provide you with a baseline to measure progress against. Next, using the same criteria, determine the level of VMI maturity you would like to achieve one year in the future. This will be your future-state VMI maturity. Lastly, identify the gaps and plot your course.

The maturity assessment provides three main benefits:

1. Focus – you’ll know what is important to you moving forward.
2. 3-Year Roadmap (discussed more fully in Step 2.9) – you’ll have additional input for your short-term and long-term roadmap (1, 2, and 3 years out).
3. Quantifiable Improvement – you’ll be able to measure your progress and make midcourse corrections when necessary.

Step 1.8: Maturity assessment (cont.)

Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

The Info-Tech VMI Maturity Assessment tool evaluates your maturity across several criteria across multiple categories. Once completed, the assessment will specify:

• A current-state score by category and overall.
• A target-state score by category and overall.
• A quantifiable gap for each criterion.
• A priority assignment for each criterion.
• A level of effort required by criterion to get from the current state to the target state.
• A target due date by criterion for achieving the target state.
• A rank order for each criterion (note: limit your ranking to your top 7 or 9).

Many organizations will be tempted to mature too quickly. Resource constraints and other items from Step 1.3 (Strengths and Obstacles) will impact how quickly you can mature. Being aggressive is fine, but it must be tempered with a dose of reality. Otherwise, morale, perception, and results can suffer.

1.8.1: Maturity assessment

45-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input, to complete the first part of this activity. Provide the required information indicated below.
   1. Review each statement in column B and enter a value in the “Current” column using the drop-down menus based on how much you disagree or agree (0-4) with the statement. This establishes a baseline maturity.
   2. Repeat this process for the “Future” column using a target date of one year from now to achieve this level. This is your desired maturity.
   3. Enter information regarding priority, level of effort, and target due date in the applicable columns using the drop-down menus. (Priority levels are critical, high, medium, low, and maintain; Levels of Effort are high, medium, and low; Target Due Dates are broken into timelines: 1-3 months, 4-6 months, 7-9 months, and 10-12 months.)
2. Review the information on Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output; use the Distribution Tables to help you rank your top priorities. Enter a unique number into the Priority (Rank) column. Limit your ranking to the top 7 to 9 activities to provide focus.

Input

• Knowledge of current VMI practices and desired future states

Output

• VMI maturity baseline
• Desired VMI target maturity state (in one year)
• Prioritized areas to improve and due dates
• Graphs and tables to identify maturity deltas and track progress

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.9: Structure

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

There are two parts to the VMI structure:

1. Organization Structure. Who owns the VMI – where does it fit on the organization chart?
2. Reporting Structure. What is the reporting structure within the VMI – what are the job functions, titles, and solid and dotted lines of accountability?

VMI Organization Structure

The decision regarding who owns the VMI can follow one of two paths:

1. The decision has already been made by the board of directors, executives, senior leadership, or stakeholders; OR
2. The decision has not been made, and options will be reviewed and evaluated before it is implemented.

Many organizations overlook the importance of this decision. The VMI’s position on the organization chart can aid or hinder its success. Whether the decision has already been made or not, this is the perfect time to evaluate the decision or options based on the following question: Why is the VMI being created and how will it operate? Review the documents you created during Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors to answer this question.

Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors, select where the VMI will be best located from the following areas/offices or their equivalent:

• Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
• Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
• Chief Procurement Officer (CPO)
• Chief Operating Officer (COO)
• Other area

Without the proper support and placement in the organization chart, the VMI can fail. It is important for the VMI to find a suitable home with a direct connection to one of the sponsors identified above and for the VMI lead to have significant stature (aka title) within the organization. For example, if the VMI lead is a “manager” level who is four reporting layers away from the chief officer/sponsor, the VMI will have an image issue within and outside of the sponsor’s organization (as well as within the vendor community). While this is not to say that the VMI lead should be a vice president* or senior director, our experience and research indicate that the VMI and the VMI lead will be taken more seriously when the VMI lead is at least a director level reporting directly to a CXO.

*For purposes of the example above, the reporting structure hierarchy used is manager, senior manager, director, senior director, vice president, CXO.

Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

VMI Reporting Structure

As previously mentioned, the VMI reporting structure describes and identifies the job functions, titles, and lines of accountability. Whether you have a formal vendor management office or you are leveraging the principles of vendor management informally, your VMI reporting structure design will involve some solid lines and some dotted lines. In this instance, the dotted lines represent part-time participation or people/areas that will assist the VMI in some capacity. For example, if the VMI sits within IT, a dotted line to Procurement will show that a good working relationship is required for both parties to succeed; or a dotted line to Christina in Legal will indicate that Christina will be helping the VMI with legal issues.

There is no one-size-fits-all reporting structure for VMIs, and your approach must leverage the materials from Steps 1.1-1.8, your culture, and your needs. By way of example, your VMI may include some or all of the following functions:

• Contract Management
• Relationship Management
• Financial Management
• Asset Management
• Performance Management
• Sourcing/Procurement
• Risk Management

Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

Once you’ve identified the functional groups, you can assign titles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. A good diagram goes a long way to helping others understand your organization. Traditional organization charts work well with VMIs, but a target diagram allows for rapid absorption of the dotted-line relationships. Review the two examples below and determine an approach that works best for you.

1.9.1: Structure

15-60 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review decisions that have been made or options that are available regarding the VMI’s placement in the organization chart.
   1. Common options include the Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), or Chief Procurement Officer (CPO).
   2. Less common but viable options include the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), or another area.
2. Brainstorm and determine the job functions and titles
3. Define the reporting structure within the VMI.
4. Identify the “dotted line” relationships between the VMI and other internal areas.
5. Using flowchart, org. chart, or other similar software, reduce your results to a graphic representation that indicates where the VMI resides, its reporting structure, and its dotted-line relationships.
6. Obtain sign-off on the structure from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure, if desired.

Input

• Mission statement and goals
• Scope
• Maturity assessment results (current and target state)
• Existing org. charts
• Brainstorming

Output

• Completed org. chart with job titles and reporting structure

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip chart
• Sticky notes
• Flowchart/org. chart software or something similar
• (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure

Participants

• VMI team
• VMI sponsor
• Stakeholders and executives

Phase 2: Build

Create and Configure Tools, Templates, and Processes

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Human Resources
• Legal
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 2: Build

Create and configure tools, templates, and processes.

Phase 2: Build focuses on creating and configuring the tools and templates that will help you run your VMI. Vendor management is not a plug-and-play environment, and unless noted otherwise, the tools and templates included with this blueprint require your input and thought. The tools and templates must work in concert with your culture, values, and goals. That will require teamwork, insights, contemplation, and deliberation.

During this Phase, you’ll leverage the various templates and tools included with this blueprint and adapt them for your specific needs and use. In some instances, you’ll be starting with mostly a blank slate; while in others, only a small modification may be required to make it fit your circumstances. However, it is possible that a document or spreadsheet may need heavy customization to fit your situation. As you create your VMI, use the included materials for inspiration and guidance purposes rather than as absolute dictates.

Step 2.1: Classification model

Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

One of the functions of a VMI is to allocate the appropriate level of vendor management resources to each vendor since not all vendors are of equal importance to your organization. While some people may be able intuitively to sort their vendors into vendor management categories, a more objective, consistent, and reliable model works best. Info-Tech’s COST model helps you assign your vendors to the appropriate vendor management category so that you can focus your vendor management resources where they will do the most good.

COST is an acronym for Commodity, Operational, Strategic, and Tactical. Your vendors will occupy one of these vendor management categories, and each category helps you determine the nature of the resources allocated to that vendor, the characteristics of the relationship desired by the VMI, and the governance level used.

The easiest way to think of the COST model is as a 2x2 matrix or graph. The model should be configured for your environment so that the criteria used for determining a vendor’s classification align with what is important to you and your organization. However, at this point in your VMI’s maturation, a simple approach works best. The Classification Model included with this blueprint requires minimal configuration to get you started and that is discussed on the activity slide associated with this Step 2.1.

Step 2.1: Classification model (cont.)

Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

Common Characteristics by Vendor Management Category

Source: Compiled in part from Stephen Guth, “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More)”

2.1.1: Classification Model

15-30 minutes

1. Meet with the participants to configure the spend ranges in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration, for your environment.
2. Sort the data from Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory, by spend; if you used multiple line items for a vendor in the Vendor Inventory tab, you will have to aggregate the spend data for this activity.
3. Update cells F14-J14 in the Classification Model based on your actual data.
   1. Cell F14 – set the boundary at a point between the spend for your 10th and 11th ranked vendors. For example, if the 10th vendor by spend is $1,009,850 and the 11th vendor by spend is $980,763, the range for F14 would be $1,000,00+.
   2. Cell G14 – set the bottom of the range at a point between the spend for your 30th and 31st ranked vendors; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in F14.
   3. Cell H14 – set the bottom of the range slightly below the spend for your 50th ranked vendor; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in G14.
   4. Cells I14 and J14 – divide the remaining range in half and split it between the two cells; for J14 the range will be $0 to $1 less than the bottom range in I14.
4. Ignore the other variables at this time.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

Input

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

Output

• Configured Vendor Classification Tool

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.2: Risk assessment tool

Identify risks to measure, monitor, and report on.

One of the typical drivers of a VMI is risk management. Organizations want to get a better handle on the various risks their vendors pose. Vendor risks originate from many areas: financial, performance, security, legal, and many others. However, security risk is the high-profile risk and the one organizations often focus on almost exclusively, which leaves the organization vulnerable in other areas.

Risk management is a program, not a project – there is no completion date. A proactive approach works best and requires continual monitoring, identification, and assessment. Reacting to risks after they occur can be costly and can have other detrimental effects on the organization. Any risk that adversely affects IT will adversely affect the entire organization.

While the VMI won’t necessarily be quantifying or calculating the risk directly, it generally is the aggregator of risk information across the risk categories, which it then includes in its reporting function. (See Steps 2.12 and 3.8.)

At a minimum, your risk management strategy should involve:

• Identifying the risks you want to measure and monitor.
• Identifying your risk appetite (the amount of risk you are willing to live with).
• Measuring, monitoring, and reporting on the applicable risks.
• Developing and deploying a risk management plan to minimize potential risk impact.

Vendor risk is a fact of life, but you do have options for how you handle it. Be proactive and thoughtful in your approach, and focus your resources on what is important.

2.2.1: Risk assessment tool

30-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants to configure the risk indicators in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool, Tab 1. Set Parameters, for your environment.
2. Review the risk categories and determine which ones you will be measuring and monitoring.
3. Review the risk indicators under each risk category and determine whether the indicator is acceptable as written, is acceptable with modifications, should be replaced, or should be deleted.
4. Make the necessary changes to the risk indicators; these changes will cascade to each of the vendor tabs. Limit the number of risk indicators to no more than seven per risk category.
5. Gain input and approval as needed from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

Input

• Scope
• OIC Chart
• Process Maps
• Brainstorming

Output

• Configured Vendor Classification Tool

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

A vendor management scorecard is a great tool for measuring, monitoring, and improving relationship alignment. In addition, it is perfect for improving communication between you and the vendor.

Conceptually, a scorecard is similar to a report card you received when you were in school. At the end of a learning cycle, you received feedback on how well you did in each of your classes. For vendor management, the scorecard is also used to provide periodic feedback, but there are some different nuances and some additional benefits and objectives when compared to a report card.

Although scorecards can be used in a variety of ways, the main focus here will be on vendor management scorecards – contract management, project management, and other types of scorecards will not be included in the materials covered in this Step 2.3 or in Step 3.4.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Anatomy

The Info-Tech Scorecard includes five areas:

• Measurement Categories. Measurement categories help organize the scorecard. Limit the number of measurement categories to three to five; this allows the parties to stay focused on what’s important. Too many measurement categories make it difficult for the vendor to understand the expectations.
• Criteria. The criteria describe what is being measured. Create criteria with sufficient detail to allow the reviewers to fully understand what is being measured and to evaluate it. Criteria can be objective or subjective. Use three to five criteria per measurement category.
• Measurement Category Weights. Not all of your measurement categories may be of equal importance to you; this area allows you to give greater weight to a measurement category when compiling the overall score.
• Rating. Reviewers will be asked to assign a score to each criteria using a 1 to 5 scale.
• Comments. A good scorecard will include a place for reviewers to provide additional information regarding the rating or other items that are relevant to the scorecard.

An overall score is calculated based on the rating for each criteria and the measurement category weights.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Goals and Objectives

Scorecards can be used for a variety of reasons. Some of the common ones are listed below:

• Improve vendor performance.
• Convey expectations to the vendor.
• Identify and recognize top vendors.
• Increase alignment between the parties.
• Improve communication with the vendor.
• Compare vendors across the same criteria.
• Measure items not included in contract metrics.
• Identify vendors for “strategic alliance” consideration.
• Help the organization achieve specific goals and objectives.
• Identify and resolve issues before they impact performance or the relationship.

Identifying your scorecard drivers first will help you craft a suitable scorecard.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Info-Tech recommends starting with simple scorecards to allow you and the vendors to acclimate to the new process and information. As you build your scorecards, keep in mind that internal personnel will be scoring the vendors and the vendors will be reviewing the scorecard. Make your scorecard easy for your personnel to fill out and composed of meaningful content to drive the vendor in the right direction. You can always make the scorecard more complex in the future.

Our recommendation of five categories is provided below. Choose three to five categories to help you accomplish your scorecard goals and objectives:

1. Timeliness – responses, resolutions, fixes, submissions, completions, milestones, deliverables, invoices, etc.
2. Cost – total cost of ownership, value, price stability, price increases/decreases, pricing models, etc.
3. Quality – accuracy, completeness, mean time to failure, bugs, number of failures, etc.
4. Personnel – skilled, experienced, knowledgeable, certified, friendly, trustworthy, flexible, accommodating, etc.
5. Risk – adequate contractual protections, security breaches, lawsuits, finances, audit findings, etc.

Some criteria may be applicable in more than one category. The categories above should cover at least 80% of the items that are important to your organization. The general criteria listed for each category is not an exhaustive list, but most things break down into time, money, quality, people, and risk issues.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Additional Considerations

• Even a good rating system can be confusing. Make sure you provide some examples or a way for reviewers to discern the differences between 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Don’t assume your “Rating Key” will be intuitive.
• When assigning weights, don’t go lower than 10% for any measurement category. If the weight is too low, it won’t be relevant enough to have an impact on the total score. If it doesn’t “move the needle,” don’t include it.
• Final sign-off on the scorecard template should occur outside of the VMI. The heavy lifting can be done by the VMI to create it, but the scorecard is for the benefit of the organization overall and those impacted by the vendors specifically. You may end up playing arbiter or referee, but the scorecard is not the exclusive property of the VMI. Try to reach consensus on your final template whenever possible.
• You should notice improved ratings and total scores over time for your vendors. One explanation for this is the Pygmalion Effect: “The Pygmalion [E]ffect describes situations where someone’s high expectations improves our behavior and therefore our performance in a given area. It suggests that we do better when more is expected of us.”* Convey your expectations and let the vendors’ competitive juices take over.
• While you’re creating your scorecard and materials to explain the process to internal personnel, identify those pieces that will help you explain it to your vendors as part of your vendor orientation (see steps 2.6 and 3.4). Leveraging pre-existing materials is a great shortcut.

*Source: The Decision Lab, 2020

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Vendor Feedback

After you’ve built your scorecard, turn your attention to the second half of the equation – feedback from the vendor. A communication loop cannot be successful without the dialogue flowing both ways. While this can happen with just a scorecard, a mechanism specifically geared toward the vendor providing you with feedback improves communication, alignment, and satisfaction.

You may be tempted to create a formal scorecard for the vendor to use. Our recommendation is to avoid that temptation until later in your maturity or development of the VMI. You’ll be implementing a lot of new processes, deploying new tools and templates, and getting people to work together in new ways. Work on those things first.

For now, implement an informal process for obtaining information from the vendor. Start by identifying information that you will find useful, information that will allow you to improve overall, to reduce waste or time, to improve processes, to identify gaps in skills. Incorporate these items into your business alignment meetings (see Steps 2.4 and 3.5). Create three to five good questions to ask the vendor and include these in the business alignment meeting agenda. The goal is to get meaningful feedback, and that starts with asking good questions.

Keep it simple at first. When the time is right, you can build a more formal feedback form or scorecard. Don’t be in a rush though. So long as the informal method works, keep using it.

2.3.1: Scorecards and feedback

30-60 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for your scorecard measurement categories:
   1. What makes a vendor valuable to your organization?
   2. What differentiates a “good” vendor from a “bad” vendor?
   3. What items would you like to measure and provide feedback to the vendor to improve performance, the relationship, risk, and other areas?
2. Select three, but no more than five, of the following measure categories: timeliness, cost, quality, personnel, and risk.
3. Within each measurement category, list two or three criteria that you want to measure and track for your vendors; choose items that are as universal as possible rather than being applicable to one vendor or one vendor type.
4. Assign a weight to each measurement category, ensuring that the total weight is 100% for all measurement categories.
5. Document your results as you go in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming

Output

• Configured scorecard template

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

2.3.2: Scorecards and feedback

15-30 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for feedback to seek from your vendors during your business alignment meetings. During the brainstorming, identify questions to ask the vendor about your organization that will:
   1. Help you improve the relationship.
   2. Help you improve your processes or performance.
   3. Help you improve ongoing communication.
   4. Help you evaluate your personnel.
2. Identify the top five questions you want to include in your business alignment meeting agenda. (Note: you may need to refine the actual questions from the brainstorming activity before they are ready to include in your business alignment meeting agenda.)
3. Document both your brainstorming activity and your final results in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback. The brainstorming questions can be used in the future as your VMI matures and your feedback transforms from informal to formal. The final results will be used in Steps 2.4 and 3.5.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming

Output

• Feedback questions to include with the business alignment meeting agenda

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda

Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

A business alignment meeting (BAM) is a great, multi-faceted tool to ensure the customer and the vendor stay focused on what is important to the customer at a high level. BAMs are not traditional “operational” meetings where the parties get into the details of the contracts, deal with installation problems, address project management issues, or discuss specific cost overruns. The main focus of the BAM is the scorecard (see Step 2.3), but other topics are discussed and other purposes are served. For example, you can use the BAM to develop the relationship with the vendor’s leadership team so that if escalation is ever needed, your organization is more than just a name on a spreadsheet or customer list; you can learn about innovations the vendor is working on (without the meeting turning into a sales call); you can address high-level performance trends and request corrective action as needed; you can clarify your expectations; you can educate the vendor about your industry, culture, and organization; and you can learn more about the vendor.

As you build your BAM agenda, someone in your organization may say, “Oh, that’s just a quarterly business review (QBR) or top-to-top meeting.” However, in most instances, an existing QBR or top-to-top meeting is not the same as a BAM. Using the term QBR or top-to-top meeting instead of BAM can lead to confusion internally. The VMI may say to the business unit, Procurement, or another department, “We’re going to start running some QBRs for our strategic vendors.” The typical response is, “There’s no need to do that. We already run QBRs/top-to-top meetings with our important vendors.” This may be accompanied by an invitation to join their meeting, where you may be an afterthought, have no influence, and get five minutes at the end to talk about your agenda items. Keep your BAM separate so that it meets your needs.

Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

As previously noted, using the term BAM more accurately depicts the nature of the VMI meeting and prevents confusion internally with other meetings already occurring. In addition, hosting the BAM yourself rather than piggybacking onto another meeting ensures that the VMI’s needs are met. The VMI will set and control the BAM agenda and determine the invite list for internal personnel and vendor personnel. As you may have figured out by now, having the right customer and vendor personnel attend will be essential.

BAMs are conducted at the vendor level … not the contract level. As a result, the frequency of the BAMs will depend on the vendor’s classification category (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1). General frequency guidelines are provided below, but they can be modified to meet your goals:

• Commodity Vendors – Not applicable
• Operational Vendors – Biannually or annually
• Strategic Vendors – Quarterly
• Tactical Vendors – Quarterly or biannually

BAMs can help you achieve some additional benefits not previously mentioned:

• Foster a collaborative relationship with the vendor.
• Avoid erroneous assumptions by the parties.
• Capture and provide a record of the relationship (and other items) over time.

Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

As with any meeting, building the proper agenda will be one of the keys to an effective and efficient meeting. A high-level BAM agenda with sample topics is set out below:

BAM Agenda

• Opening Remarks
  • Welcome and introductions
  • Review of previous minutes
• Active Discussion
  • Review of open issues
  • Scorecard and feedback
  • Current status of projects to ensure situational awareness by the vendor
  • Roadmap/strategy/future projects
  • Accomplishments
• Closing Remarks
  • Reinforce positives (good behavior, results, and performance, value added, and expectations exceeded)
  • Recap
• Adjourn

2.4.1: Business alignment meeting agenda

20-45 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review the sample agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.
2. Using the sample agenda as inspiration and brainstorming activities as needed, create a BAM agenda tailored to your needs.
   1. Select the items from the sample agenda applicable to your situation.
   2. Add any items required based on your brainstorming.
   3. Add the feedback questions identified during Activity 2.3.2 and documented in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback.
3. Gain input and approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required or appropriate.
4. Document the final BAM agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

Output

• Configured BAM agenda

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.5: Relationship alignment document

Draft a document to convey important VMI information to your vendors.

Throughout this blueprint, alignment is mentioned directly (e.g. business alignment meetings [Steps 2.4 and 3.5]) or indirectly implied. Ensuring you and your vendors are on the same page, have clear and transparent communication, and understand each other’s expectations is critical to fostering strong relationships. One component of gaining and maintaining alignment with your vendors is the relationship alignment document (RAD). Depending upon the scope of your VMI and what your organization already has in place, your RAD will fill in the gaps on various topics.

Early in the VMI’s maturation, the easiest approach is to develop a short document (i.e. 1 page) or a pamphlet (i.e. the classic trifold) describing the rules of engagement when doing business with your organization. The RAD can convey expectations, policies, guidelines, and other items. The scope of the document will depend on 1) what you believe is important for the vendors to understand, and 2) any other similar information already provided to the vendors.

The first step to drafting a RAD is to identify what information vendors need to know to stay on your good side. For example, you may want vendors to know about your gift policy (e.g. employees may not accept gifts from vendors above a nominal value such as a pen or mousepad). Next, compare your list of what vendors need to know and determine if the content is covered in other vendor-facing documents such as a vendor code of conduct or your website’s vendor portal. Lastly, create your RAD to bridge the gap between what you want and what is already in place. In some instances, you may want to include items from other documents to reemphasize them with the vendor community.

Info-Tech Insight

The RAD can be used with all vendors regardless of classification category. It can be sent directly to the vendors or given to them during vendor orientation (see Step 3.3)

2.5.1: Relationship alignment document

1-4 hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the RAD sample and checklist in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc.
2. Determine:
   1. Whether you will create one RAD for all vendors or one RAD for strategic vendors and another RAD for tactical and operational vendors; whether you will create a RAD for commodity vendors.
   2. The concepts you want to include in your RAD(s).
   3. The format for your RAD(s) – traditional, pamphlet, or other.
   4. Whether signoff or acknowledgement will be required by the vendors.
3. Draft your RAD(s) and work with other internal areas such as Marketing to create a consistent brand for the RADS and Legal to ensure consistent use and preservation of trademarks or other intellectual property rights and other legal issues.
4. Review other vendor-facing documents (e.g. supplier code of conduct, onsite safety and security protocols) for consistencies between them and the RAD(s).
5. Obtain signoff on the RAD(s) from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Marketing, and others as needed.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Vendor-facing documents, policies, and procedures

Output

• Completed relationship alignment document(s)

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc

Participants

• VMI team
• Marketing, as needed
• Legal, as needed

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Your organization is unique. It may have many similarities with other organizations, but your culture, risk tolerance, mission, vision, and goals, finances, employees, and “customers” (those that depend on you) make it different. The same is true of your VMI. It may have similar principles, objectives, and processes to other organizations’ VMIs, but yours is still unique. As a result, your vendors may not fully understand your organization and what vendor management means to you.

Vendor orientation is another means to helping you gain and maintain alignment with your important vendors, educate them on what is important to you, and provide closure when/if the relationship with the vendor ends. Vendor orientation is comprised of three components, each with a different function:

• Orientation
• Reorientation
• Debrief

Vendor orientation focuses on the vendor management pieces of the puzzle (e.g. the scorecard process) rather than the operational pieces (e.g. setting up a new vendor in the system to ensure invoices are processed smoothly).

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Orientation

Orientation is conceptually similar to new hire orientation for employees at your organization. Generally conducted as a meeting, orientation provides your vendors with the information they need to be successful when working with your organization. Sadly, this is often overlooked by customers; it can take months or years for vendors to figure it out by themselves. By controlling the narrative and condensing the timeline, vendor relationships and performance improve more rapidly.

A partial list of topics for orientation is set out below:

• Your organization’s structure
• Your organization’s culture
• Your relationship expectations
• Your governances (VMI and other)
• Their vendor classification designation (commodity, operational, strategic, or tactical)
• The scorecard process
• Business alignment meetings
• Relationship alignment documents

In short, this is the first step toward building (or continuing to build) a robust, collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship with your important vendors.

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Reorientation

Reorientation is either identical or similar to orientation, depending upon the circumstances. Reorientation occurs for a number of reasons, and each reason will impact the nature and detail of the reorientation content. Reorientation occurs whenever:

• There is a significant change in the vendor’s products or services.
• The vendor has been through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.
• A significant contract renewal/renegotiation has recently occurred.
• Sufficient time has passed from orientation; commonly 2 to 3 years.
• The vendor has been placed in a “performance improvement plan” or “relationship improvement plan” protocol.
• Significant turnover has occurred within your organization (executives, key stakeholders, and/or VMI personnel).
• Substantial turnover has occurred at the vendor at the executive or account management level.
• The vendor has changed vendor classification categories after the most current classification.

As the name implies, the goal is to refamiliarize the vendor with your current VMI situation, governances, protocols, and expectations. The drivers for reorientation will help you determine its scope, scale, and frequency.

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Debrief

To continue the analogy from orientation, debrief is similar to an exit interview for an employee when their employment is terminated. In this case, debrief occurs when the vendor is no longer an active vendor with your organization – all contracts have terminated or expired, and no new business with the vendor is anticipated within the next three months.

Similar to orientation and reorientation, debrief activities will be based on the vendor’s classification category within the COST model. Strategic vendors don’t go away very often; usually, they transition to operational or tactical vendors first. However, if a strategic vendor is no longer providing products or services to you, dig a little deeper into their experiences and allocate extra time for the debrief meeting.

The debrief should provide you with feedback on the vendor’s experience with your organization and their participation in your VMI. In addition, it can provide closure for both parties since the relationship is ending. Be careful that the debrief does not turn into a finger-pointing meeting or therapy session for the vendor. It should be professional and productive; if it is going off the rails, terminate the meeting before more damage can occur.

End the debrief on a high note if possible. Thank the vendor, highlight its key contributions, and single out any personnel who went above and beyond. You never know when you will be doing business with this vendor again – don’t burn bridges!

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

• As you create your vendor orientation materials, focus on the message you want to convey.
• For orientation and reorientation:
  • What is important to you that vendors need to know?
  • What will help the vendors understand more about your organization … your VMI?
  • What and how are you different from other organizations overall … in your “industry”?
  • What will help them understand your expectations?
  • What will help them be more successful?
  • What will help you build the relationship?
• For debrief:
  • What information or feedback do you want to obtain?
  • What information or feedback to you want to give?
• The level of detail you provide strategic vendors during orientation and reorientation may be different from the information you provide tactical and operational vendors. Commodity vendors are not typically involved in the vendor orientation process. The orientation meetings can be conducted on a one-to-one basis for strategic vendors and a one-to-many basis for operational and tactical vendors; reorientation and debrief are best conducted on a one-to-one basis. Lastly, face-to-face or video meetings work best for vendor orientation; voice-only meetings, recorded videos, or distributing only written materials seldom hit their mark or achieve the desired results.

2.6.1: Vendor orientation

1 to several hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation.
   1. Use the orientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your orientation meetings.
   2. Use the reorientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your reorientation meetings.
2. The selections can be made by classification category (i.e. different items can apply to strategic, operational, and tactical vendors).
3. Create the materials and seek input and/or approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as needed.
4. Use the debrief section of the tool to create an agenda, list the questions you want to ask vendors, and list information you want to provide to vendors. The agenda, questions, and information can be segregated by classification category.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming

Output

• Agendas and materials for orientation, reorientation, and debrief

Materials

• Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.7: Job descriptions

Ensure new and existing job descriptions are up to date.

Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.9, it’s time to start drafting new or modifying existing job descriptions applicable to the VMI team members. Some of the VMI personnel may be dedicated full-time to the VMI, while others may be supporting the VMI on a part-time basis. At a minimum, create or modify your job descriptions based on the categories set out below. Remember to get the internal experts involved so that you stay true to your environment and culture.

01 Title

This should align overall with what the person will be doing and what the person will be responsible for. Your hands may be tied with respect to titles, but try to make them intuitively descriptive if possible.

02 Duties

This is the main portion of the job description. List the duties, responsibilities, tasks, activities, and results expected. Again, there may be some limitations imposed by your organization, but be as thorough as possible.

03 Qualifications

This tends to be a gray area for many organizations, with the qualifications, certifications, and experience desired expressed in “ranges” so that good candidates are not eliminated from consideration unnecessarily.

2.7.1: Job descriptions

1 to several hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the VMI structure from Step 1.9.
   1. List the positions that require new job descriptions.
   2. List the positions that require updated job descriptions.
2. Review the other Phase 1 work product and list the responsibilities, tasks, and functions that need to be incorporated into the new and updated job descriptions.
3. Review the sample VMI job descriptions and sample VMI job description language in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions, and identify language and concepts you want to include in the new and revised job descriptions.
4. Using your template, draft the new job descriptions and modify the existing job descriptions to synchronize with the VMI structure. Work with other internal areas such as Human Resources to ensure cultural fit and compliance.
5. Obtain input and signoff on the job descriptions from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Human Resources, and others as needed.
6. Document your final job descriptions in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Existing job descriptions
• Work product from Phase 1

Output

• Job descriptions for new positions
• Updated job descriptions for existing positions

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions

Participants

• VMI team
• Human Resources (as needed)
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.8: Policies and procedures

Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

Policies and procedures are often thought of as boring documents that are 1) tedious to create, 2) seldom read after creation, and 3) only used to punish people when they do something “wrong.” However, when done well, these documents:

• Communicate expectations.
• Capture institutional knowledge.
• Provide guidance for decision making.
• Help workers avoid errors and minimize risk.
• Ensure regulatory and organizational compliance.
• List the steps required to achieve consistent results.

Definitions of Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures are essential, but they are often confused with each other. A policy is a rule, guideline, or framework for making decisions. For example, in the vendor management space, you may want a policy indicating your organization’s view on gifts from vendors. A procedure is a set of instructions for completing a task or activity. For example, staying in the vendor management space, you may want a procedure to outline the process for classifying vendors.

Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

Start With Your Policy/Procedure Template or Create One for Consistency

When creating policies and procedures, follow your template. If you don’t have one (or want to see if anything is missing from your template) the following list of potential components for your governance documents is provided.* Not every concept is required. Use your judgment and err on the side of caution when drafting; balance readability and helpfulness against over documenting and over complicating.

• Descriptive Title
• Policy Number
• Brief Overview
• Purpose
• Scope
• The Policy or Procedure
• Definitions
• Revision Date
• History
• Related Documents
• Keywords

Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

Although they are not ever going to be compared to page-turning novels, policies and procedures can be improved by following a few basic principles. By following the guidelines set out below, your VMI policies and procedures will contribute to the effectiveness of your initiative.*

• Use short sentences.
• Organize topics logically.
• Use white space liberally.
• Use mandatory language.
• Use gender-neutral terms.
• Write with an active voice.
• Avoid jargon when possible.
• Use a consistent “voice” and tone.
• Use pictures or diagrams when they will help.
• Write in the same tense throughout the document.
• Use icons and colors to designate specific elements.
• Make sure links to other policies and procedures work.
• Define all acronyms and jargon (when it must be used).
• Avoid a numbering scheme with more than three levels.

*Adapted in part from smartsheet.com

Info-Tech Insight

Drafting policies and procedures is an iterative process that requires feedback from the organization’s leadership team.

2.8.1: Policies and procedures

Several hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the sample policies and procedures topics in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
2. Determine:
   1. The concepts you want to include in your policies and procedures; brainstorm for any additional concepts you want to include.
   2. The format/template for your policies and procedures.
3. Draft your policies and procedures based on the sample topics and your brainstorming activity. Work with other internal areas such as Legal and Human Resources to ensure cultural and environmental fit within your organization.
4. Obtain input and signoff on the policies and procedures from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Human Resources, and others as needed.
5. Document your final policies and procedures in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
6. Publish your policies and procedures and conduct training sessions or awareness sessions as needed.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Existing policies and procedures (if any)
• Existing policies and procedures template (if any)
• Scope
• OIC chart
• Process maps
• Brainstorming

Output

• VMI policies and procedures

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures

Participants

• VMI team
• Legal and Human Resources (as needed)
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.9: 3-year roadmap

Plot your path at a high level.

The VMI exists in many planes concurrently: 1) it operates both tactically and strategically, and 2) it focuses on different timelines or horizons (e.g. the past, the present, and the future). Creating a 3-year roadmap facilitates the VMI’s ability to function effectively across these multiple landscapes.

The VMI roadmap will be influenced by many factors. The work product from Phase 1: Plan, input from executives, stakeholders, and internal clients, and the direction of the organization as a whole are great sources of information as you begin to build your roadmap.

To start, identify what you would like to accomplish in Year 1. This is arguably the easiest year to complete: budgets are set (or you have a good idea what the budget will look like), personnel decisions have been made, resources have been allocated, and other issues impacting the VMI are known with a higher degree of certainty than any other year. This does not mean things won’t change during the first year of the VMI, but expectations are usually lower and the short event horizon makes things more predictable during the Year-1 ramp-up period.

Years 2 and 3 are more tenuous, but the process is the same: identify what you would like to accomplish or roll out in each year. Typically, the VMI maintains the Year 1 plan into subsequent years and adds to the scope or maturity. For example, you may start Year 1 with BAMs and scorecards for three of your strategic vendors; during Year 2, you may increase that to five vendors; and during Year 3, you may increase that to nine vendors. Or, you may not conduct any market research during Year 1, waiting to add it to your roadmap in Year 2 or 3 as you mature.

Breaking things down by year helps you identify what is important and the timing associated with your priorities. A conservative approach is recommended. It is easy to overcommit, but the results can be disastrous and painful.

2.9.1: 3-year roadmap

45-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate Year 1 of your 3-year roadmap with your existing fiscal year or reporting year. Year 1 may be shorter or longer than a calendar year.
2. Review the VMI activities listed in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap. Use brainstorming and your prior work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2 to identify additional items for the roadmap and add them at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
3. Starting with the first activity, determine when that activity will begin and put an X in the corresponding column; if the activity is not applicable, leave it blank or insert N/A.
4. Go back to the top of the list and add information as needed.
   1. For any Year-1 or Year-2 activities, add an X in the corresponding columns if the activity will be expanded/continued in subsequent periods (e.g. if a Year 2 activity will continue in Year 3, put an X in Year 3 as well).
   2. Use the comments column to provide clarifying remarks or additional insights related to your plans or “X’s.” For example, “Scorecards begin in Year 1 with three vendors and will roll out to five vendors in Year 2 and nine vendors in Year 3.”
5. Obtain signoff from stakeholders, sponsors, and executives as needed.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Phase 1 work product
• Steps 2.1-2.8 work product
• Brainstorming

Output

• High level 3-year roadmap for the VMI

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.10: 90-day plan

Pave your short-term path with a series of detailed quarterly plans.

Now that you have prepared a 3-year roadmap, it’s time to take the most significant elements from the first year and create action plans for each three-month period. Your first 90-day plan may be longer or shorter if you want to sync to your fiscal or calendar quarters. Aligning with your fiscal year can make it easier for tracking and reporting purposes; however, the more critical item is to make sure you have a rolling series of four 90-day plans to keep you focused on the important activities and tasks throughout the year. The 90-day plan is a simple project plan that will help you measure, monitor, and report your progress. Use the Info-Tech tool to help you track: Activities Tasks comprising each activity Who will be performing the tasks An estimate of the time required per person per task An estimate of the total time to achieve the activity A due date for the activity A priority of the activity The first 90-day plan will have the greatest level of detail and should be as thorough as possible; the remaining three 90-day plans will each have less detail for now. As you approach the middle of the first 90-day plan, start adding details to the next 90-day plan; toward the end of the first quarter add a high-level 90-day plan to the end of the chain. Continue repeating this cycle each quarter and consult the 3-year roadmap and the leadership team as necessary.

2.10.1: 90-day plan

45-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate the first 90-day plan with your existing fiscal year or reporting cycles. Your first plan may be shorter or longer than 90 days.
2. Looking at the Year 1 section of the 3-year roadmap, identify the activities that will be started during the next 90 days.
3. Using the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan, enter the following information into the spreadsheet for each activity to be accomplished during the next 90 days:
   1. Activity description
   2. Tasks required to complete the activity (be specific and descriptive)
   3. The people who will be performing each task
   4. The estimated number of hours required to complete each task
   5. The start date and due date for each task or the activity
4. Validate the tasks are a complete list for each activity and the people performing the tasks have adequate time to complete the tasks by the due date(s).
5. Assign a priority to each activity.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• 3-year roadmap
• Phase 1 work product
• Steps 2.1-2.9 work product
• Brainstorming

Output

• Detailed plan for the VMI for the next quarter or 90 days

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.11: Quick wins

Identify potential short-term successes to gain momentum and show value immediately.

As the final step in the timeline trilogy, you are ready to identify some quick wins for the VMI. Using the first 90-day plan and a brainstorming activity, create a list of things you can do in 15 to 30 days that add value to your initiative and build momentum.

As you evaluate your list of potential candidates, look for things that:

• Are achievable within the stated timeline.
• Don’t require a lot of effort.
• Involve stopping a certain process, activity, or task; this is sometimes known as a “stop doing stupid stuff” approach.
• Will reduce or eliminate inefficiencies; this is sometimes known as the war on waste.
• Have a moderate to high impact or bolster the VMI’s reputation.

As you look for quick wins, you may find that everything you identify does not meet the criteria. That’s ok … don’t force the issue. Return your focus to the 90-day plan and 3-year roadmap, and update those documents if the brainstorming activity associated with this Step 2.11 identified anything new.

2.11.1: Quick wins

15-30 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review the 3-year roadmap and 90-day plan. Determine if any item on either document can be completed:
   1. Quickly (30 days or less)
   2. With minimal effort
   3. To provide or show moderate to high levels of value or provide the VMI with momentum
2. Brainstorm to identify any other items that meet the criteria in step 1 above.
3. Compile a comprehensive list of these items and select up to five to pursue.
4. Document the list in the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins.
5. Manage the quick wins list and share the results with the VMI team and applicable stakeholders and executives.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• 3-year roadmap
• 90-day plan
• Brainstorming

Output

• A list of activities that require low levels of effort to achieve moderate to high levels of value in a short period

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.12: Reports

Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

Issuing reports is a critical piece of the VMI since the VMI is a conduit of information for the organization. It may be aggregating risk data from internal areas, conducting vendor research, compiling performance data, reviewing market intelligence, or obtaining relevant statistics, feedback, comments, facts, and figures from other sources. Holding onto this information minimizes the impact a VMI can have on the organization; however, the VMI’s internal clients, stakeholders, and executives can drown in raw data and ignore it completely if it is not transformed into meaningful, easily-digested information.

Before building a report, think about your intended audience:

• What information are they looking for … what will help them understand the big picture?
• What level of detail is appropriate, keeping in mind the audience may not be like-minded?
• What items are universal to all of the readers and what items are of interest to one or two readers?
• How easy or hard will it be to collect the data … who will be providing it, how time consuming will it be?
• How accurate, valid, and timely will the data be?
• How frequently will each report need to be issued?

Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

Use the following guidelines to create reports that will resonate with your audience:

• Value information over data, but sometimes data does have a place in your report.
• Use pictures, graphics, and other representations more than words, but words are often necessary in small, concise doses.
• Segregate your report by user; for example, general information up top, CIO information below that on the right, CFO information to the left of CIO information, etc.
• Send a draft report to the internal audience and seek feedback, keeping in mind you won’t be able to cater to or please everyone.

Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

The report’s formatting and content display can make or break your reports.*

• Make the report look inviting and easy to read. Use:
  • Short paragraphs and bullet points.
  • A simple layout and uncluttered, wide margins.
  • Minimal boldface, underline, or italics to attract the readers’ attention.
  • High contrast between text and background.
• Charts, graphs, and infographics should be intuitive and tell the story on their own.
• Make it easy to peruse the report for topics of interest.
  • Maintain consistent design features.
  • Use impactful, meaningful headings and subheadings.
  • Include callouts to draw attention to important high-level information.
• Demonstrate the impact of the accomplishments or success stories when appropriate.
• Finish with a simple concise summary when appropriate. Consider adding:
  • Key points for the reader to takeaway.
  • Action items or requests.
  • Plans for next reporting period.

*Sources: Adapted and compiled in part from: designeclectic.com, ahrq.gov, and 60secondmarketer.com.

2.12.1: Reports

15-45 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review the applicable work product from Phases 1 and 2; identify qualitative and quantitative items the VMI measures, monitors, tracks, or aggregates.
2. Determine which items will be reported and to whom (by category):
   1. Internally to personnel within the VMI
   2. Internally to personnel outside the VMI
   3. Externally to vendors
3. Within each category above, determine your intended audiences/recipients. For example, you may have a different list of recipients for a risk report than you do a scorecard summary report. This will help you identify the number of reports required.
4. Create a draft structure for each report based on the audience and the information being conveyed. Determine the frequency of each report and person responsible for creating for each report.
5. Document your final choices in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Phase 1 work product
• Steps 2.1-2.11 work product

Output

• A list of reports used by the VMI
• For each report:
• The conceptual content
• A list of who will receive or have access
• A creation/distribution frequency

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Phase 3: Run

Implement Your Processes and Leverage Your Tools and Templates

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 3: Run

Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates.

All of the hard work invested in Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build begins to pay off in Phase 3: Run. It’s time to stand up your VMI and ensure that the proper level of resources is devoted to your vendors and the VMI itself. There’s more hard work ahead, but the foundational elements are in place. This doesn’t mean there won’t be adjustments and modifications along the way, but you are ready to use the tools and templates in the real world; you are ready to begin reaping the fruits of your labor.

Phase 3: Run guides you through the process of collecting data, monitoring trends, issuing reports, and conducting effective meetings to:

• Manage risk better.
• Improve vendor performance.
• Improve vendor relationships.
• Identify areas where the parties can improve.
• Improve communication between the parties.
• Increase the value proposition with your vendors.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors

Begin classifying your top 25 vendors by spend.

Step 3.1 sets the table for many of the subsequent steps in Phase 3: Run. The results of your classification process will determine: which vendors go through the scorecarding process (Step 3.4); which vendors participate in BAMs (Step 3.5); the nature and content of the vendor orientation activities (Step 3.3); which vendors will be part of the risk measurement and monitoring process (Step 3.8); which vendors will be included in the reports issued by the VMI (Step 3.9); and which vendors you will devote relationship-building resources to (Step 3.10).

As you begin classifying your vendors, Info-Tech recommends using an iterative approach initially to validate the results from the classification model you configured in Step 2.1.

1. Using the information from the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7), identify your top 25 vendors by spend.
2. Run your top 10 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results.
   1. If the results are what you expected and do not contain any significant surprises, go to next page.
   2. If the results are not what you expected or contain significant surprises, look at the configuration page of the tool (Tab 1) and adjust the weights or the spend categories slightly. Be cautious in your evaluation of the results before modifying the configuration page – some legitimate results are unexpected or surprising based on bias. If you modify the weighting, review the new results and repeat your evaluation. If you modify the spend categories, review the answers on the vendor tabs to ensure that the answers are still accurate; review the new results and repeat your evaluation.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Review your results and adjust the classification tool as needed.

3. Run your top 11 through 25 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results. Identify any unexpected results or surprises. Determine if further configuration makes sense and repeat the process outlined in 2.b, previous page, as necessary. If no further modifications are required, continue to 4, below.
4. Share the preliminary results with the leadership team, executives, and stakeholders to obtain their approval or adjustments to the results.
   1. They may have questions and want to understand the process before approving the results.
   2. They may request that you move a vendor from one quadrant to another based on your organization’s roadmap, the vendor’s roadmap, or other information not available to you.
5. Identify the vendors that will be part of the VMI at this stage – how many and which ones. Based on this number and the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2), make sure you have the resources necessary to accommodate the number of vendors participating in the VMI. Proceed cautiously and gradually increase the number of vendors participating in the VMI.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Finalize the results and update VMI tools and templates.

6. Update the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7) to indicate the current classification status for the top 25 vendors by spend. Once your vendors have been classified, you can sort the Vendor Inventory tab by classification status to see all the vendors in that category at once.
7. Review your 3-year roadmap (Step 2.9) and 90-day plans (Step 2.10) to determine if any modifications are needed to the activities and timelines.

Additional classification considerations:

• You should only have a few vendors that fit in the strategic category. As a rough guideline, no more than 5% to 10% of your IT vendors should end up in the strategic category. If you have a large number of vendors, even 5% may be too many. The classification model is an objective start to the classification process, but common sense must prevail over the “math” at the end of the day.
• At this point, there is no need to go beyond the top 25 by spend. Most VMIs starting out can’t handle more than three to five strategic vendors initially. Allow the VMI to run a pilot program with a small sample size, work out any bugs, make adjustments, and then ramp up the VMI’s rollout in waves. Vendors can be added quarterly, biannually, or annually, depending upon the desired goals and available resources.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Align your vendor strategy to your classification results.

As your VMI matures, additional vendors will be part of the VMI. Review the table below and incorporate the applicable strategies into your deployment of vendor management principles over time. Stay true to your mission, goals, and scope, and remember that not all of your vendors are of equal importance.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Be careful when using the word “partner” with your strategic and other vendors.

For decades, vendors have used the term “partner” to refer to the relationship they have with their clients and customers. In many regards, this is often an emotional ploy used by the vendors to get the upper hand. To fully understand the terms “partner” and “partnership” let’s evaluate them through two more-objective, less-cynical lenses.

If you were to talk to your in-house or outside legal counsel, you may be told that partners share in profits and losses, and they have a fiduciary obligation to each other. Unless there is a joint venture between the parties, you are unlikely to have a partnership with a vendor from this perspective.

What about a “business” partnership … one that doesn’t involve sharing profits and losses? What would that look like? Here are some indicators of a business partnership (or preferably a strategic alliance):

• Trust and transparent communication exist.
• You have input into the vendor’s roadmap for products and services.
• The vendor is aligned with your desired outcomes and helps you achieve success.
• You and the vendor are accountable for actions and inactions, with both parties being at risk.
• There is parity in the peer-to-peer relationships between the organizations (e.g. C-Level to C-Level).
• The vendor provides transparency in pricing models and proactively suggests ways for you to reduce costs.
• You and the vendor work together to make each party better, providing constructive feedback on a regular basis.
• The vendor provides innovative suggestions for you to improve your processes, performance, the bottom line, etc.
• Negotiations are not one-sided; they are meaningful and productive, resulting in an equitable distribution of money and risk.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Understand the implications and how to leverage the words “partner” and “partnership.”

By now you might be thinking, “What’s all the fuss? Why does it matter?” At Info-Tech, we’ve seen firsthand how referring to the vendor as a partner can have the following impact:

• Confidences are disclosed unnecessarily.
• Negotiation opportunities and leverage are lost.
• Vendors no longer have to earn the customer’s business.
• Vendor accountability is missing due to shared responsibilities.
• Competent skilled vendor resources are assigned to other accounts.
• Value erodes over time since contracts are renewed without being competitively sourced.
• One-sided relationships are established, and false assurances are provided at the highest levels within the customer organization.

Proceed with caution when using partner or partnership with your vendors. Understand how your organization benefits from using these terms and mitigate the negatives outlined above by raising awareness internally to ensure people understand the psychology behind the terms. Finally, use the term to your advantage when warranted by referring to the vendor as a partner when you want or need something that the vendor is reluctant to provide. Bottom line: Be strategic in how you refer to vendors and know the risks.

Step 3.2: Conduct internal “kickoff” meeting

Raise awareness about the VMI and its mission, vision, and goals.

To be effective, your VMI needs executive support, a clear vision, appropriate governances and tools, personnel with the right skills, and other items discussed in this blueprint. However, the VMI doesn’t exist in a vacuum … it can’t sit back and be reactive. As part of being proactive, the VMI must be aware of its brand and “market” its services. An effective way to market the VMI is to conduct an internal kickoff meeting. There are at least a couple of ways to do this:

• Host a meeting for stakeholders, executives, and others who will be contributing to the VMI processes (but are not part of the VMI). The meeting can be part of a townhall or standalone meeting; it can be done live or via a recorded video.
• Attend appropriate staff meetings and make your presentation.

With either approach above or one of your choosing, keep in mind the following objectives for your kickoff meeting:

• Make sure you provide a way for those in attendance to ask questions at that time and later. You want to create and foster a communication loop with the people who will be impacted by the VMI or participating with it.
• Raise awareness of your existence and personnel. Tell the VMI’s story by sharing your mission statement, goals, and scope; this will help dispel (or confirm) rumors about the VMI that often lead to confusion and faulty assumptions.
• As you share the VMI’s vision, connect the story to how the VMI will impact the organization and individuals and to how they can help. The VMI tends to be the least autonomous area within an organization; it needs the assistance of others to be successful. Convey an atmosphere of collaboration and appreciation for their help.

Host a kickoff meeting annually to kickoff the new year. Remind people of your story, announce successes from the past year, and indicate what the future year holds. Keep it brief, make it personal for the audience, and help them connect the names of VMI personnel to faces.

Step 3.3: Conduct vendor orientation

Introduce your VMI to your top vendors.

Based on the results from your vendor classification (Step 3.1) and your VMI deployment timeline, identify the vendors who will participate in the initial orientation meetings. Treat the orientation as a formal, required meeting for the vendors to attend. Determine the attendee list for your organization and the vendors, and send out invites. Ideally, you will want the account manager, a sales director or vice president, the “delivery” director or vice president, and an executive from the vendor in the meeting. From the customer side, you may need more than one or two people from the VMI to entice the vendor’s leadership team to attend; you may need attendance from your own leadership team to add weight or credibility to the meeting (unfortunately).

Before going into the meeting, make sure everyone on your side knows their roles and responsibilities, and review the agenda. Control the agenda or the meeting is likely to get out of hand and turn into a sales call.

Conduct orientation meetings even if the participating vendors have been doing business with you for several years. Don’t assume they know all about your organization and your VMI (even if their other clients have a VMI).

Run two or three orientation meetings and then review the “results.” What needs to be modified? What lessons have you learned? Make any necessary adjustments and continue rolling out the orientation meetings.

Early in the VMI’s deployment, reorientation and debrief may not be in play. As time passes, it is important to remember them! Use them when warranted to help with vendor alignment.

Step 3.4: Compile scorecards

Begin scoring your top vendors.

The scorecard process typically is owned and operated by the VMI, but the actual rating of the criteria within the measurement categories is conducted by those with day-to-day interactions with the vendors, those using or impacted by the services and products provided by the vendors, and those with the skills to research other information on the scorecard (e.g. risk). Chances are one person will not be able to complete an entire scorecard by themselves. As a result, the scorecard process is a team sport comprising sub-teams where necessary.

The VMI will compile the scores, calculate the final results, and aggregate all of the comments into one scorecard. There are two common ways to approach this task:

1. Send out the scorecard template to those who will be scoring the vendor and ask them to return it when completed, providing them with a due date a few days before you actually need it; you’ll need time to compile, calculate, and aggregate.
2. Invite those who will be scoring the vendor to a meeting and let the contributors use that time to score the vendors; make VMI team members available to answer questions and facilitate the process.

Step 3.4: Compile scorecards (cont.)

Gather input from stakeholders and others impacted by the vendors.

Since multiple people will be involved in the scorecarding process or have information to contribute, the VMI will have to work with the reviewers to ensure that the right mix of data is provided. For example:

• If you are tracking lawsuits filed by or against the vendor, one person from Legal may be able to provide that, but they may not be able to evaluate any other criteria on the scorecard.
• If you are tracking salesperson competencies, multiple people from multiple areas may have valuable insights.
• If you are tracking deliverable timeliness, several project managers may want to contribute across several projects.

Where one person is contributing exclusively to limited criteria, make it easy for the person to identify the criteria they are to evaluate. When multiple people from the same functional area will provide insights, they can contribute individually (and the VMI will average their responses) or they can respond collectively after reaching consensus among themselves.

After the VMI has compiled, calculated, and aggregated, share the results with executives, impacted stakeholders, and others who will be attending the BAM for that vendor. Depending upon the comments provided by internal personnel, you may need to create a sanitized version of the scorecard for the vendor.

Make sure your process timeline has a buffer built in. You’ll be sending the final scorecard to the vendor three to five days before the BAM, and you’ll need some time to assemble the results. The scorecarding process can be perceived as a low-priority activity for people outside of the VMI, and other “priorities” will arise for them. Without a timeline buffer, the VMI may find itself behind schedule and unprepared due to things beyond its control.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings

Determine which vendors will participate and how long the meetings will last.

At their core, BAMs aren’t that different from any other meeting. The basics of running a meeting still apply, but there are a few nuances that apply to BAMs Set out below are leading practices for conducing your BAMs; adapt them to meet your needs and suit your environment.

Who

Initially, BAMs are conducted with the strategic vendors in your pilot program. Over time, you’ll add vendors until all of your strategic vendors are meeting with you quarterly. After that, roll out the BAMs to those tactical and operational vendors located close to the strategic quadrant in the classification model (Steps 2.1 and 3.1) and as VMI resources allow. It may take several years before you are holding regular BAMs with all of your strategic, tactical, and operational vendors.

Duration

Keep the length of your meetings reasonable. The first few with a vendor may need to be 60 to 90 minutes long. After that, you should be able to trim them to 45 to 60 minutes. The BAM does not have to fill the entire time. When you are done, you are done.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

Identify who will be invited and send out invitations.

Invitations

Set up a recurring meeting whenever possible. Changes will be inevitable, but keeping the timeline regular works to your advantage. Also, the vendors included in your initial BAMs won’t change for twelve months. For the first BAM with a vendor, provide adequate notice; four weeks is sufficient in most instances, but calendars will fill up quickly for the main attendees from the vendor. Treat the meeting as significant and make sure your invitation reflects this. A simple meeting request will often be rejected, treated as optional, or ignored completely by the vendor’s leadership team (and maybe yours as well!).

Invitees

Internal invitees should include those with a vested interest in the vendor’s performance and the relationship. In addition, other functional areas may be invited based on need or interest. Be careful the attendee list doesn’t get too big. Based on this, internal BAM attendees often include representatives from IT, Sourcing/Procurement, and the applicable business units. At times, Finance and Legal are included.

From the vendor’s side, strive to have decision makers and key leaders attend. The salesperson/account manager is often included for continuity, but a director or vice president of sales will have more insights and influence. The project manager is not needed at this meeting due to the nature of the meeting and its agenda; however, a director or vice president from the “product or service delivery” area is a good choice. Bottom line: get as high into the vendor’s organization as possible whenever possible; look at the types of contracts you have with that vendor to provide guidance on the type of people to invite.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

Prepare for the meetings and maintain control.

Preparation

Send the scorecard and agenda to the vendor five days prior to the BAM. The vendor should provide you with any information you require for the meeting five days prior as well.

Decide who will run the meeting. Some customers like to lead and others let the vendor present. How you craft the agenda and your preferences will dictate who runs the show.

Make sure the vendor knows what materials it should bring to the meeting or have access to. This will relate to the agenda and any specific requests listed under the discussion points. You don’t want the vendor to be caught off guard and unable to discuss a matter of importance to you.

Running the BAM

Regardless of which party leads, make sure you manage the agenda to stay on topic. This is your meeting – not the vendor’s, not IT’s, not Procurement’s or Sourcing’s. Don’t let anyone hijack it.

Make sure someone is taking notes. If you are running this virtually, consider recording the meeting. Check with your legal department first for any concerns, notices, or prohibitions that may impact your recording the session.

As a reminder, this is not a sales call, and this is not a social activity. Innovation discussions are allowed and encouraged, but that can quickly devolve into a sales presentation. People can be friendly toward one another, but the relationship building should not overwhelm the other purposes.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

Follow these additional guidelines to maximize your meetings.

More Leading Practices

• Remind everyone that the conversation may include items covered by various confidentiality provisions or agreements.
• Publish the meeting minutes on a timely basis (within 48 hours).
• Focus on the bigger picture by looking at trends over time; get into the details only when warranted.
• Meet internally immediately beforehand to prepare – don’t go in cold; review the agenda and the roles and responsibilities for the attendees.
• Physical meetings are better than virtual meetings, but travel constraints, budgets, and pandemics may not allow for physical meetings.

Final Thoughts

• When performance or the relationship is suffering, be constructive in your feedback and conversations rather than trying to assign blame; lead with the carrot rather than the stick.
• Look for collaborative solutions whenever possible and avoid referencing the contract if possible. Communicate your willingness to help resolve outstanding issues.
• Use inclusive language and avoid language that puts the vendor on the defensive.
• Make sure that your meetings are not focused exclusively on the negative, but don’t paint a rosy picture where one doesn’t exist.
• A vendor that is doing well should be commended. This is an important part of relationship building.

Step 3.6: Work the 90-day plan

Monitor your progress and share your results.

Having a 90-day plan is a good start, but assuming the tasks on the plan will be accomplished magically or without any oversight can lead to failure. While it won’t take a lot of time to work the plan, following a few basic guidelines will help ensure the 90-day plan gets results and wasn’t created in vain.

1. Measure and track your progress against the initial/current 90-day plan at least weekly; with a short timeline, any delay can have a huge impact.
2. If adjustments are needed to any elements of the plan, understand the cause and the impact of those adjustments before making them.
3. Make adjustments ONLY when warranted. The temptation will be to push activities and tasks further out on the timeline (or to the next 90-day plan!) when there is any sort of “hiccup” along the way, especially when personnel outside the VMI are involved. Hold true to the timeline whenever possible; once you start slipping, it often becomes a habit.
4. Report on progress every week and hold people accountable for their assignments and contributions.
5. Take the 90-day plan seriously and treat it as you would any significant project – this is part of the VMI’s branding and image.

Step 3.7: Manage the 3-year roadmap

Keep an eye on the future since it will feed the present.

The 3-year roadmap is a great planning tool, but it is not 100% reliable. There are inherent flaws and challenges. Essentially, the roadmap is a set of three “crystal balls” attempting to tell you what the future holds. The vision for Year 1 may be fairly clear, but for each subsequent year, the crystal ball becomes foggier. In addition, the timeline is constantly changing; before you know it, tomorrow becomes today and Year 2 becomes Year 1.

To help navigate through the roadmap and maximize its potential, follow these principles:

• Manage each year of the roadmap differently.
  • Review the Year 1 map each quarter to update your 90-day plans (See steps 2.10 and 3.6).
  • Review the Year 2 map every six months to determine if any changes are necessary. As you cycle through this, your vantage point of Year 2 will be 6 months or 12 months away from the beginning of Year 2, and time moves quickly.
  • Review the Year 3 map annually, and determine what needs to be added, changed, or deleted. Each time you review Year 3, it will be a “new” Year 3 that needs to be built.
• Analyze the impact on the proposed modifications from two perspectives: 1) What is the impact if a requested modification is made? 2) What is the impact if a requested modification is not made?
• Validate all modifications with leadership and stakeholders before updating the 3-year roadmap to ensure internal alignment.

Step 3.8: Measure and monitor risk

Understand and manage risk levels.

Using the configured Vendor Risk Assessment Tool (Step 2.2), confirm which risks you will be measuring and monitoring and identify the vendors that will be part of the initial risk management process. Generally, organizations start measuring and monitoring risk in two to five risk categories for two or three strategic vendors. Over time, additional risk categories and/or vendors can be added in waves. Resist the temptation to add risk categories or vendors into the mix too quickly. Expanding requires resources inside and outside of the VMI.

The VMI will rely heavily on other areas to provide input or the risk data, and the VMI needs to establish good working relationships with those areas. For example, if legal risk is something being measured and monitored, the VMI will need data from Legal on the number and nature of any lawsuits filed by or against the applicable vendors; the VMI will need data from Legal, Contract Management, or Procurement/Sourcing on the number and nature of any agreed upon deviations from your organization’s preferred contract terms that increase legal risk.

With respect to risk, the VMI’s main role is threefold: 1) take the data obtained from others (or in some instances the VMI may have the data) and turn it into useful information, 2) monitor the risk categories over time and periodically issue reports, and 3) work with other areas to manage the risk.

Step 3.9: Issue reports

Inform internal personnel and vendors about trends, issues, progress, and results.

Issuing the reports created in Step 2.12 is one of the main ways the VMI 1) will communicate with internal and external personnel and 2) track trends and information over time. Even with input from the potential reviewers of the reports, you’ll still want to seek their feedback and input periodically. It may take a few iterations until the reports are hitting their mark. You may find that a metric is no longer required, that a metric is missing completely or it is missing a component, or a formatting change would improve the report’s readability. Once a report has been “finalized,” try not to change it until you are engaged in Phase 4: Review activities. It can be unsettling for the reviewers when reports change constantly.

Whenever possible, find ways to automate the reports. While issuing reports is critical, the function should not consume more time than necessary. Automation can remove some of the manual and repetitive tasks.

Internal reports may need to be kept confidential. An automated dashboard or reporting tool can help lock down who has access to the information. At a minimum, the internal reports should contain a “Confidential” stamp, header, watermark, or other indicator that the materials are sensitive and should not be disclosed outside of your organization without approval.

Reports for vendors may not need to be sent as often as reports are generated or prepared for internal personnel. Establish a cadence by classification model category and stick to it. Letting each vendor choose the frequency will make it more difficult for you to manage. The vendors can choose to ignore the report if they so choose.

Step 3.10: Develop/improve vendor relationships

Drive better performance through better relationships.

One of the key components of a VMI is relationship management. Good relationships with your vendors provide many benefits for both parties, but they don’t happen by accident. Do not assume the relationship will be good or is good merely because your organization is buying products and services from a vendor.

In many respects, the VMI should mirror a vendor’s sales organization by establishing relationships at multiple levels within the vendor organizations – not just with the salesperson or account manager. Building and maintaining relationships is hard work, but the return on investment makes it worthwhile.

Business relationships are comprised of many components, not all of which have to be present to have a great relationship. However, there are some essential components. Whether you are trying to develop, improve, or maintain a relationship with a vendor, make sure you are conscious of the following:*

• Focus your energies on strategic vendors first and then tactical and operational vendors.
• Be transparent and honest in your communications.
• Continue building trust by being responsive and honoring commitments (timely).
• Create a collaborative environment and build upon common ground.
• Thank the vendor when appropriate.
• Resolve disputes early, avoid the “blame game,” and be objective when there are disagreements.

Step 3.11: Contribute to other processes

Continue assisting others and managing roles and responsibilities outside of the VMI.

The VMI has processes that it owns and processes that it contributes to. Based on the VMI scope (Step 1.2), the OIC chart (Step 1.4), and the process mapping activities (Step 1.5), ensure that the VMI is honoring its contribution commitments. This is often easier said than done though. A number of factors can make it difficult to achieve the balance required to handle VMI processes and contribute to other processes associated with the VMI’s mission and vision. Understanding the issues is half the battle. If you see signs of these common “vampires,” take action quickly to address the situation.

• The VMI’s first focus is often internal, and the tendency is to operate in a bubble. Classifying vendors, running BAMs, coordinating the risk process, and other inward-facing processes can consume all of the VMI’s energy. As a result, there is little time, effort, or let’s be honest, desire to participate in other processes outside of the VMI.
• It is easy for VMI personnel to get dragged into processes and situations that are outside of its scope. This often happens when personnel join the VMI from other internal areas or departments and have good relationships with their former teammates. The relationships make it hard to say “No” when out-of-scope assistance is being requested.
• The VMI may have “part-time” personnel who have responsibilities across internal departments, divisions, agencies, or teams. When the going gets tough and time is at a premium, people gravitate toward the easiest or most comfortable work. That work may not be VMI work.

Phase 4: Review

Keep Your VMI Up to Date and Running Smoothly

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Identify what the VMI should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 4: Review

Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly.

As the old adage says, “The only thing constant in life is change.” This is particularly true for your VMI. It will continue to mature; people inside and outside of the VMI will change; resources will expand or contract from year to year; your vendor base will change. As a result, your VMI needs the equivalent of a physical every year. In place of bloodwork, x-rays, and the other paces your physician may put you through, you’ll assess compliance with your policies and procedures, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

Be thorough in your actions during this Phase to get the most out of it. It requires more than the equivalent of gauging a person’s health by taking their temperature, measuring their blood pressure, and determining their body mass index. Keeping your VMI up to date and running smoothly takes hard work.

Some of the items presented in this Phase require an annual review; others may require quarterly review or timely review (i.e. when things are top of mind and current). For example, collecting lessons learned should happen on a timely basis rather than annually, and classifying your vendors should occur annually rather than every time a new vendor enters the fold.

Ultimately, the goal is to improve over time and stay aligned with other areas internally. This won’t happen by accident. Being proactive in the review of your VMI further reinforces the nature of the VMI itself – proactive vendor management, NOT reactive!

Step 4.1: Assess compliance

Determine what is functionally going well and not going well.

Whether you have a robust set of vendor management-related policies and procedures or they are the bare minimum, gathering data each quarter and conducting an assessment each year will provide valuable feedback. The scope of your assessment should focus on two concepts: 1) are the policies and procedures being followed and 2) are the policies and procedures accurate and relevant. This approach requires parallel thinking, but it will help you understand the complete picture and minimize the amount of time required.

Use the steps listed below (or modify them for your culture) to conduct your assessment:

• Determine the type of assessment – formal or informal.
• Determine the scale of the assessment – which policies and procedures will be reviewed and how many people will be interviewed.
• Determine the compliance levels, and seek feedback on the policies and procedures – what is going well and what can be improved?
• Review the compliance deviations.
• Conduct a root cause analysis for the deviations.
• Create a list of improvements and gain approval.
• Create a plan for minimizing noncompliance in the future.
  • Improve/increase education and awareness.
  • Clarify/modify policies and procedures.
  • Add resources, tools, and people (as necessary and as allowed).

Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices

Identify and evaluate what external VMIs are doing.

The VMI’s world is constantly shifting and evolving. Some changes will take place slowly, while others will occur quickly. Think about how quickly the cloud environment has changed over the past five years versus the 15 years before that; or think about issues that have popped up and instantly altered the landscape (we’re looking at you COVID-19 and ransomware). As a result, the VMI needs to keep pace, and one of the best ways to do that is to incorporate leading practices.

At a high level, a leading practice is a way of doing something that is better at producing a particular outcome or result or performing a task or activity than other ways of proceeding. The leading practice can be based on methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, and other items. Leading practices change periodically due to innovation, new ways of thinking, research, and other factors. Consequently, a leading practice is to identify and evaluate leading practices each year.

Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices (cont.)

Update your VMI based on your research.

• A simple approach for incorporating leading practices into your regular review process is set out below:
• Research:
  • What other VMIs in your industry are doing.
  • What other VMIs outside your industry are doing.
  • Vendor management in general.
• Based on your results, list specific leading practices others are doing that would improve your VMI (be specific – e.g. other VMIs are incorporating risk into their classification process).
• Evaluate your list to determine which of these potential changes fit or could be modified to fit your culture and environment.
• Recommend the proposed changes to leadership (with a short business case or explanation/justification, as needed) and gain approval.

Remember: Leading practices or best practices may not be what is best for you. In some instances, you will have to modify them to fit your culture and environment; in other instances, you will elect not to implement them at all (in any form).

Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned

Tap into the collective wisdom and experience of your team members.

There are many ways to keep your VMI running smoothly, and creating a lessons learned library is a great complement to the other ways covered in this Phase 4: Review. By tapping into the collective wisdom of the team and creating a safe feedback loop, the VMI gains the following benefits:

• Documented institutional wisdom and knowledge normally found only in the team members’ brains.
• The ability for one team member to gain insights and avoid mistakes without having to duplicate the events leading to the insights or mistakes.
• Improved methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, skills, and relationships.

Many of the processes raised in this Phase can be performed annually, but a lessons learned library works best when the information is “deposited” in a timely manner. How you choose to set up your lessons learned process will depend on the tools you select and your culture. You may want to have regular “input” meetings to share the lessons as they are being deposited, or you may require team members to deposit lessons learned on a regular basis (within a week after they happen, monthly, or quarterly). Waiting too long can lead to vague or lost memories and specifics – timeliness of the deposits is a crucial element.

Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned (cont.)

Create a library to share valuable information across the team.

Lessons learned are not confined to identifying mistakes or dissecting bad outcomes. You want to reinforce good outcomes as well. When an opportunity for a lessons-learned deposit arises, identify the following basic elements:

• A brief description of the situation and outcome.
• What went well (if anything) and why did it go well?
• What didn't go well (if anything) and why didn't it go well?
• What would/could you do differently next time?
• A synopsis of the lesson(s) learned.

Info-Tech Insights

The lessons learned library needs to be maintained. Irrelevant material needs to be culled periodically, and older or duplicate material may need to be archived.

The lessons learned process should be blameless. The goal is to share insightful information … not to reward or punish people based on outcomes or results.

Step 4.4: Maintain internal alignment

Review the plans of other internal areas to stay in sync.

Maintaining internal alignment is essential for the ongoing success of the VMI. Over time, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the VMI does not operate in a vacuum; it is an integral component of a larger organization whose parts must work well together to function optimally. Focusing annually on the VMI’s alignment within the enterprise helps reduce any breakdowns that could derail the organization.

To ensure internal alignment:

• Review the key components of the applicable materials from Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build with the appropriate members of the leadership team (e.g. executives, sponsors, and stakeholders). Not every item from those Phases and Steps needs to be reviewed, but err on the side of caution for the first set of alignment discussions, and be prepared to review each item. You can gauge the audience’s interest on each topic and move quickly when necessary or dive deeper when needed. Identify potential changes required to maintain alignment.
• Review the strategic plans (e.g. 1-, 3-, and 5- year plans) for various portions of the organization if you have access to them or gather insights if you don’t have access.
  • If the VMI is under the IT umbrella, review the strategic plans for IT and its departments.
  • Review the strategic plans for the areas the VMI works with (e.g. Procurement, Business Units).
  • The organization itself.
• Create and vet a list of modifications to the VMI and obtain approval.
• Develop a plan for making the necessary changes.

Step 4.5: Update governances

Revise your protocols and return to the beginning of cyclical processes.

You’re at the final Step and ready to update governances. This is comprised of two sequential paths.

• First, use the information from Steps 4.1-4.4 to make any required modifications to the items in Phase 1: Plan, Phase 2: Build, and Phase 3: Run. For example, you may need to update your policies and procedures (Step 2.8) based on your findings in Step 4.1; or you may need to update the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2) to ensure internal alignment issues identified in Step 4.4. are accounted for.
• Second, return to Phase 3: Run to perform the activities below; they tend to be performed annually, but use your discretion and perform them on an as-needed basis:
  • Reclassify vendors.
  • Complete a new maturity assessment.
  • Run reorientation sessions for vendors.
  • Conduct a kickoff meeting to update internal personnel.

Other activities and tasks (e.g. scorecards and BAMs) may be impacted by the modifications made above, but the nature of their performance follows a shorter cadence. As a result, they are not specifically called out here in this Step 4.5 since they are performed on an ongoing basis. However, don’t overlook them as part of your update.

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

Vendor management is a broad, often overwhelming, comprehensive spectrum that encompasses many disciplines. By now, you should have a great idea of what vendor management can or will look like in your organization. Focus on the basics first: Why does the VMI exist and what does it hope to achieve? What is its scope? What are the strengths you can leverage, and what obstacles must you manage? How will the VMI work with others? From there, the spectrum of vendor management will begin to clarify and narrow.

Leverage the tools and templates from this blueprint and adapt them to your needs. They will help you concentrate your energies in the right areas and on the right vendors to maximize the return on your organization’s investment in the VMI of time, money, personnel, and other resources. You may have to lead by example internally and with your vendors at first, but they will eventually join you on your path if you stay true to your course.

At the heart of a good VMI is the relationship component. Don’t overlook its value in helping you achieve your vendor management goals. The VMI does not operate in a vacuum, and relationships (internal and external) will be critical.

Lastly, seek continual improvement from the VMI and from your vendors. Both parties should be held accountable, and both parties should work together to get better. Be proactive in your efforts, and you, the VMI, and the organization will be rewarded.

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

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Guth, Stephen. “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More).” Citizens, 26 Feb. 2015. Web.

Guth, Stephen. The Vendor Management Office: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Sourcing. Lulu.com, 2007. Print.

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“Why Do We Perform Better When Someone Has High Expectations of Us?” The Decision Lab, 9 Sept. 2020. Accessed 31 January 2022.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

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

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

Common Obstacles

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

Info-Tech’s Approach

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

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

Info-Tech Insight

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

*– McKinsey & Company, 2020; 2 – CIO From IDG, 2021

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

Why should organizations care about diversity?

1. The war for talent is real. Every CIO needs a plan of attack. Unemployment rates are dropping and 54% of CIOs report that the skills shortage is holding them up from meeting their strategic objectives.

Source: Harvey Nash and KPMG, 2020

2. Diversity has clear ROI – both in terms of recruitment and retention. Eighty percent of technology managers experienced increased turnover in 2021. Not only are employee tenures decreasing, the competition for talent is fierce and the average cost of turnover is 150% of an IT worker’s salary.

Source: Robert Half, 2021

3. Inability to recruit and retain talent will reduce business satisfaction. Organizations who are continuously losing talent will be unable to meet corporate objectives due to lost productivity, keeping them in firefighting mode. An engaged workforce is a requirement for driving innovation and project success.

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

Key findings from ISACA’s 2020 Tech Workforce survey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To see ISACA’s full report click here.

Image: Statista, 2021, CC BY-ND 4.0

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

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

(Statista, 2021)

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

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

(HRD America, 2021)

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

Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

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

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

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

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

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

• Organizational culture
• Employee empowerment
• Manager relationships

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

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

Source: Bureau of Labour Statistics; Info-Tech Research Group/McLean & Company Analysis

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

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

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

How we can help

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

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

RECRUIT Top Women in IT

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

Key metrics to track:

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

RETAIN Top Women in IT

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

Key metrics to track:

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

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

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

1. Tactics to Recruit More Women in IT

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

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

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

2. Tactics to Retain More Women in IT

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

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

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

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.

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

Phase 1

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

Phase 1

• 1.1 Sell
• 1.2 Search
• 1.3 Secure

Phase 2

• 2.1 Engagement
• 2.2 Employee Experience
• 2.3 Stay Interviews

Consider key factors within the recruitment process

Key Talent Pipeline Opportunities:

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

1. Sell

How do you position the value of working for your organization and roles in a meaningful way?

2. Search

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

3. Secure

How can you reduce bias in your interview process and create positive candidate experiences?

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

Follow these steps to increase your pool of female candidates.

1. Sell Tactics:

1. Develop an employee value proposition that will attract female candidates.

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

2. Search Tactics:

3. Identify opportunities to expand your role analysis for job requisitions.

4. Increase your candidate pool by expanding sourcing programs.

3. Secure Tactics:

5. Identify tactics to improve women’s interview experience.

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

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

Understand where leaks exist in your talent pipeline

Start your recruitment enhancement here.

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

Enhance your recruitment strategies

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

Sell the organization

What is an employee value proposition?

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

How is an employee value proposition used?

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

Why tailor this to multiple audiences?

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

Develop a strong employee value proposition

Three key steps

1. Build and Assess the EVP

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

2. Test the EVP

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

3. Adopt the EVP

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

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

What is an employee value proposition?

And what are the key components?

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

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

Collect relevant information

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

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

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

Step 1.1

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

Activities

1.1.1 Gather feedback on unique benefits

1.1.2 Build key messages

1.1.3 Test your EVP

1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

1.1.5 Review job postings for gender bias

1.1.1 Gather feedback

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

Download the EVP Interview Guide

1.1.2 Build key messages

1. Collect all of the information from the various focus groups and begin to build out the employee value proposition statements.
2. Identify the key elements that staff felt were unique and highly valued by employees and group these into common themes.
3. Identify categories that related to one of the five key drivers* of women’s retention in IT and highlight any key elements related to these:

• Culture: The degree to which an employee identifies with the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the organization.
• Company Potential: An employee’s understanding, commitment, and excitement about the organization’s mission and future.
• Employee Empowerment: The degree to which employees have accountability and control over their work within a supported environment.
• Learning and Development: A cooperative and continuous effort to enhance an employee’s skill set and expertise and meet an employee’s career objectives.
• Manager Relationships: The professional and personal relationship an employee has with their manager, including trust, support, and development.

• Examples of great EVPs: L’Oreal, Home Depot

*See Engagement Driver Handout slides for more details on these five drivers.

Quality test your revised EVP

Use Info-Tech’s EVP Scorecard.

Internally and Externally

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

Internal Criteria:

• Accuracy
• Alignment
• Aspirational
• Differentiation

External Criteria:

• Clear
• Compelling
• Concise
• Differentiation

Ensure your EVP resonates with employees and prospects

Test your EVP with internal and external audiences.

1.1.3 Test your EVP

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

1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

Identify your target audience and marketing channels.

1. Identify the internal and external individuals who you want to gather feedback from about the EVP.

• The target audience for your employee value proposition
• Internal and/or external
• Local, national, international
• Experience
• Applicant pool (e.g. new graduates, professionals, internship)

• Internal: Town hall meetings, fireside chats
• External: Social media, advertising, job postings
• Global: Professional affiliations, head hunters

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Restaurant

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

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

Challenge

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

Solution

• McDonald’s revaluated its employer brand by creating an EVP focused on the three F’s.

1. Future – career growth and development opportunities
2. Flexibility – flexible working hours and job variety
3. Family & Friends – a people-centric work culture

Results

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

Make your job descriptions more attractive to female applicants

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

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

For the full article please click here.

1.1.5 Review job postings

To understand potential gender bias

1. Select a job posting that you are looking to fill, review the descriptions, and identify if any of the following apply:

• Are the titles gender neutral? This doesn’t mean you can’t be creative in your naming, but consider if the name really represents the role you are looking to fill.
• Do you use pronouns? If there are instances where the posting says “he” OR “she” change this to “they” or “you.”
• Are you overusing superlatives? Review the posting and ensure that when words like “expert” or “world class” are used that you genuinely need someone who is at that level.
• Are all of the tasks/responsibilities listed the ones that are absolutely essential to the job? Women are less likely to apply if they don’t have direct experience with 100% of the criteria – if it’s a non-essential, consider whether it’s needed in the posting.
• Is there any organization-specific jargon used? Where possible, avoid using organization-specific jargon in order to create an inclusive posting. Avoid using terms/acronyms that are only known to your organization.

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Social Media

SOURCE: Buffer Open blog

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

Challenge

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

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

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

Solution

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

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

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

Results

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

Step 1.2

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

Activities

1.2.1 Complete role analysis

1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

Enhance your recruitment strategies

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

Expand your search

What is a candidate sourcing program?

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

What is a sourcing role analysis?

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

How will this enable you to attract female candidates?

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

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

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

1.2.1 Role analysis

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

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

	Required Entry Criteria	Preferred Entry Criteria
Education	University Degree – Bachelors	University Degree – Masters
Experience	5+) years design, or related, experience Experience leading a team	External consulting experience Healthcare industry experience
Designations/Certifications		ITIL Foundations

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

Competency	Level of Proficiency	Behavioral Descriptions
Business Analysis	Level 2: Capable	Demonstrates a basic understanding of business roles, processes, planning, and requirements in the organization. Demonstrates a basic understanding of how technologies assist in business processes. Develop basic business cases using internal environment analysis for the business unit level.

4. Hold a meeting with your HR team or recruiter to highlight the types of experience and competencies you are looking for in a hire to expand the search criteria.

Target diverse talent pools through different sources

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

SOURCING APPROACH

INTERNAL MOBILITY PROGRAM

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

SOCIAL MEDIA PROGRAM

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

EMPLOYEE REFERRAL PROGRAM

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

ALUMNI PROGRAM

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

CAMPUS RECRUITING PROGRAM

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

EVENTS & ASSOCIATION PROGRAM

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

1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

Increase the number of female applicants.

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

	# of Candidates From Approach	% of Female Candidates From Approach	Target # of Female Candidates
Internal Talent Mobility
Social Media Program
Employee Referral Program
Alumni Program
Campus Recruiting Program
Events & Non-Profit Affiliations
Other (job databases, corporate website, etc.)

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

Different talent sources

Benefits and success factors of using different talent sources

Enhance your recruitment strategies

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

Secure top candidates

Why does the candidate experience matter?

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

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

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

Take a data-driven approach

Understand opportunities to enhance the talent selection process.

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

SIMPLIFIED CANDIDATE SELECTION PROCESS STEPS

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

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

Step 1.3

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

Activities

1.3.1 Identify selection challenges

1.3.1 Identify your selection challenges

Review your candidate data.

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

Selection Process Step	Total # of Candidates	Male Candidates		Female Candidates		% Difference Male & Female
	#	#	% of total	#	% of total
Applicants for Posted Position	150	115	76.7%	35	23.3%	70% fewer females
Selected for Interview
(Selected for Second Interview)
(Selected for Final Interview)
Offer Extended
Offer Rejected
Employees Retained for One Year

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

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

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

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

Brainstorming/Process of Elimination

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

The Five Whys

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

Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram

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

Process of elimination

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

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

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

Example

Problem: Women candidates are rejecting job offers more consistently

Potential Causes

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

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

The five whys

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques

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

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

Example

Ishikawa/fishbone diagram

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

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

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

Info-Tech Best Practice

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

Leverage behavioral interviews

Use Info-Tech’s Behavioral Interview Questions Library.

Reduce bias in your interviews.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Broaden the notion of fit:

• Hire for skill fit: you might still hire certain types for a specific job (e.g. analytical types for analysis positions), but these candidates can still be diverse.
• Hire for fit with your organization’s DEI values, regardless of whether the candidate is from a diverse background or not.
• It can be tempting for hiring managers to hire individuals who are similar to themselves. However, doing so limits the amount of diversity entering your organization, and as a result, limits your organization’s ability to innovate.

Leverage a third-party tool

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

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

Use this diagnostic to get vital feedback on:

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

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

Phase 2

Enhance Your Retention Strategies

Phase 1

• 1.1 Sell
• 1.2 Search
• 1.3 Secure

Phase 2

• 2.1 Engagement
• 2.2 Employee Experience
• 2.3 Stay Interviews

Actively engage female staff to retain them

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

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

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

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

Culture:

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

Employee Empowerment:

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

Manager Relationships:

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

Working Environment:

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

Enhance your retention strategies

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

Improve employee engagement

What differentiates an engaged employee?

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

Why measure engagement when looking at retention?

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

Why should IT leadership be responsible for their staff engagement?

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

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

Step 2.1

Improve employee engagement

Activities

2.1.1 Review employee engagement results and trends

2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

Take a data-driven approach

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

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

Engagement survey

For a detailed breakdown of staff overall engagement priorities.

Overall Engagement Results

• A clear breakdown of employee engagement results by demographic, gender, and team.
• Detailed engagement breakdown and benchmarking.

Priority Matrix and Driver Scores

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

EXM dashboard

Reporting to track engagement in real time.

EXM Dashboard

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

Time Series Trends

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

Start your diagnostic now

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

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

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

Start Now

2.1.1 Review employee engagement results

Identify trends

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

2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

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

1. Review the handout slides on the following pages to get a better understanding of the definition of each of the top five drivers impacting women’s retention. Depending on your team’s size, pick one to three drivers to focus on for your first focus group.
2. Divide the participants into teams and on flip chart paper or using sticky notes have the teams brainstorm what you can stop/start/continue doing to help you improve on your assigned driver.

• Continue: actions that work for the team related to this driver and should proceed.
• Start: actions/initiatives that the team would like to begin.
• Stop: actions/initiatives that the team would like to stop.

Culture

Engagement driver handout

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

Questions:

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

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #1
• Men in IT: #2

Company Potential

Engagement driver handout

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

Questions:

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

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #2
• Men in IT: #1

Employee Empowerment

Engagement driver handout

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

Questions:

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

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #3
• Men in IT: #6

Learning and Development

Engagement driver handout

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

Questions:

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

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #4
• Men in IT: #5

Manager Relationships

Engagement driver handout

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

Questions:

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

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #5
• Men in IT: #11

Step 2.2

Examine employee experience

Activities

2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

Understand why and when employees plan to depart

Leverage “psychology of quitting” expertise.

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

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

*Source: The Career Café, 2017

Examine employee experience (EX)

Look beyond engagement drivers to drive retention.

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

Drive a positive employee experience

Identify moments that matter.

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

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

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

Info-Tech Insight

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

2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

1. Review your Employee Experience Monitor weekly trends by logging into your dashboard and clicking on “Time Series Trends.”
2. With your management team, identify any weekly trends where your Employee Experience Score has seen changes in the number of detractor, passive, or promoter responses.
3. For each significant change identify:

• Increase in promoters or decrease in detractors:
• What can we do to duplicate positive moments that occurred this week?
• What did I do as a leader to create positive employee experiences?
• What happened in the organization that created a positive employee experience?
• Increase in detractors or decrease in promoters:
• What difficult change was delivered this week?
• What about this change was negatively perceived?
• During the difficult situation how did we as a leadership team support our staff?
• Who did we engage and recognize during the difficult situation?
• Was this situation a one-off issue or is this likely to occur again?

• How did you promote a positive culture and friendly atmosphere?
• How did you empower female staff to leverage their talents?
• How did you interact with staff?
• How did you promote a positive work environment? Where did you see bias in decisions?

Measured benefits of positive employee experience

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

Retention

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

The bottom line

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

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Post-Secondary Education

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

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

Challenge

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

Solution

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

Results

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

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

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

Enhance your retention strategies

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

Conduct stay interviews

What is a stay interview?

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

When should you do stay interviews?

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

Step 2.3

Conduct stay interviews and learn why employees stay

Activities

2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

Conduct regular “stay” or “retention” interviews

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

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

Stay interview best practices:

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

Source: Talent Management & HT, 2013

Leverage stay interviews

Use Info-Tech’s Stay Interview Guide.

Proactively identify opportunities to drive retention.

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

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

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

2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

1. If you are using the Employee Experience Monitor, prepare for your stay interviews by reviewing your results and identifying if there have been any changes in the results over the previous six weeks. Identify which demographics have the highest and lowest engagement levels – and identify any changes in experience between different demographics.
2. Identify a meeting schedule and cadence that seems appropriate for your stay interviews. For example, you likely will not do all staff at the same time and it may be beneficial to space out your meetings throughout the year. Select a candidate for your first stay interview and invite them for a one-on-one meeting. If it’s unusual for you to meet with this employee, we recommend providing some light context around the rationale, such as that you are looking for opportunities to strengthen the organizational culture and better understand how you can improve retention and engagement at the organization.
3. Download the Stay Interview Template, review all of the questions beforehand, and identify the key questions that you want to ask in the meeting.

• TIP: Even though this is called a “stay interview,” really it should be more of a conversation, and certainly not an interrogation. Know the questions you want to ask, and ask your staff member if it’s ok if you jot down some notes. It may even be beneficial to have the meeting outside of the office, over lunch, or out for coffee.

Download the Stay Interview Guide

Ten tips for best managing stay interviews

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

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

Related Info-Tech Research

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

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

Recruit Top IT Talent

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

Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing

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

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Improve Email Security

Follow the latest best practices for email security to mitigate evolving threats.

Analyst Perspective

Protecting your organization’s digital assets begins with securing your email communication.

As organizations increasingly rely on email communication for day-to-day business operations, threat actors are exploiting the increased traction to develop and implement more sophisticated email-based attacks. Furthermore, the lack of investment in measures, tools, and technologies for an organization’s email security exacerbates the vulnerabilities at hand.

Effective use of security procedures and techniques can mitigate and minimize email-based threats have been shown to reduce the ability of these attacks to infiltrate the email inbox. These guidelines and best practices will help your organization conduct due diligence to protect the contents of the email, its transit, and its arrival to the authorized recipient.

Ahmad Jowhar
Research Specialist, Security & Privacy
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight
Email has changed. Your email security must evolve to ensure the safety of your organization’s communication.

Your Challenge

As a security leader, you need to modernize your email security services so you can protect business communications and prevent security incidents.

• Various factors must be considered when deciding how best to safeguard your organization’s communication chain. This includes the frequency of email traffic and the contents of emails.
• The increased number of email-based cyberattacks reveals the sophistication of threat actors in leveraging an organization’s lack of email security to infiltrate their business.
• As organizations continue to rely heavily on email communication, email-based threats will become increasingly prevalent.

75% of organizations have experienced an increase in email-based threats.

97% of security breaches are due to phishing attacks.

82% of companies reported a higher volume of email in 2022.

Source: Mimecast, 2023.

Modern email security controls framework for security leaders

Email has changed. Your email security must evolve to ensure the safety of your organization’s communication.

Understand the best practices in securing your organization’s emails

Email encryption

Deploy an added layer of defense by preventing the contents of your email from being intercepted.

• Protecting your organization’s emails begins by ensuring only the appropriate recipients can receive and read the email’s contents.
• This process includes encrypting the email’s contents to protect sensitive information from being read by unauthorized recipients.
• This protects the contents even if the email is intercepted by anyone besides the intended recipient.
• Other benefits of email encryption include:
• Reducing any risks associated with regulatory violations.
• Enabling business to confidently communicate sensitive information via email.
• Ensuring protective measures taken to prevent data loss and corporate policy violations.

Along with the increased use of emails, organizations are seeing an increase in the number of attacks orchestrating from emails. This has resulted in 74% of organizations seeing an increase in email-based threats.

Source: Mimecast, 2023.

Info-Tech Insight
Encrypting your email communication will provide an additional layer of protection which only allows authorized users to read the email.

Implementing email encryption

Leverage these protocols and tools to help encrypt your email.

• The most common email encryption protocols and tools include:
• Transport Layer Security (TLS): A cryptographic protocol designed to securely deliver data via the internet, which prevents third parties from intercepting and accessing the data.
• Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (S/MIME): A protocol for sending digitally signed and encrypted messages by leveraging public key encryption to provide at-rest and in-transit data protection.
• Secure Email Gateway: An email security solution that inspects emails for malicious content prior to it reaching the corporate system. The solution is positioned between the public internet and corporate email servers. An email gateway solution would be provided by a third-party vendor and can be implemented on-premises, through the cloud, or hybrid.
• Email encryption policies can also be implemented to ensure processes are in place when sending sensitive information through emails.
• Email encryption ensures end-to-end privacy for your email and is especially important when the email requires strict content privacy.

Email authentication

Three authentication controls your organization should leverage to stay secure.

• Along with content encryption, it’s important to authenticate both the sender and recipient of an email to ensure that only legitimate users are able to send and receive it.
• Implementing email authentication techniques prevents unsolicited email (e.g. spam) from entering your mailbox.
• This also prevents unauthorized users from sending email on your organization’s behalf.
• Having these standards in place would safeguard your organization from spam, spoofing, and phishing attacks.
• The three authentication controls include:
• Sender Policy Framework (SPF): Email validation control that verifies that the incoming email is from an authorized list of IP addresses provided by the sender’s domain administrator.
• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Enables recipients to verify that an email from a specific domain was authorized by the domain’s owner. This is conducted through cryptographic authentication by adding a digital signature to the message headers of outbound emails.
• Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC): Provides domain-level protection of email channel by publishing DMARC records in the organization’s domain name system (DNS) and creates policies which prompts actions to take if an email fails authentication.

Although these authentication controls are available for organizations to leverage, the adoption rate remains low. 73% of survey respondents indicated they didn’t deploy email authentication controls within their organization.

Source: Mimecast, 2023.

Email authentication controls

All three authentication controls should be implemented to effectively secure your organization’s email. They ensure the emails you send and receive are securely authorized and legitimate.

For more information:

• Microsoft 365
• Google Workspace

Data classification

Ensure sensitive data is securely processed, analyzed, and stored.

• Besides authenticating the legitimacy of an email and its traffic to the recipient, it’s important to have procedures in place to protect the contents of an email.
• Data classification is found not only in databases and spreadsheets, but also in the email messages being communicated. Examples of data most commonly included in emails:
• Personal identifiable information (PII): social security number, financial account number, passcodes/passwords
• Applying data classification to your email can help identify the sensitivity of the information it contains. This ensures any critical data within an email message is securely processed and protected against unauthorized use, theft, and loss.
• Emails can be classified based on various sensitivity levels. such as:
• Top secret, public, confidential, internal

Discover and Classify Your Data

Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for guidelines on implementing a data classification program for your organization.

Info-Tech Insight
Having tools and technologies in place to ensure that data is classified and backed up will enable better storage, analysis, and processing of the email.

Data loss prevention (DLP)

Protect your data from being lost/stolen.

• Protecting an email’s contents through data classification is only one approach for improving email security. Having a data loss prevention solution would further increase security by minimizing the threat of sensitive information leaving your organization’s email network.
• Examples of tools embedded in DLP solutions that help monitor an organization's email communication:
• Monitoring data sent and received from emails: This ensures the data within an email communication is protected with the necessary encryption based on its sensitivity.
• Detecting suspicious email activity: This includes analyzing users’ email behavior regarding email attachments and identifying irregular behaviors.
• Flagging or blocking email activities which may lead to data loss: This prevents highly sensitive data from being communicated via email and reduces the risk of information being intercepted.
• The types of DLP technologies that can be leveraged include:
• Rule-based: Data that has been tagged by admins as sensitive can be blocklisted, which would flag and/or block data from being sent via email.
• Machine learning: Data on users’ email behavior is collected, processed, and trained to understand the employee’s normal email behavior and detect/flag suspicious activities.
• Implementing DLP solutions would complement your data classification techniques by ensuring proper measures are in place to secure your organization’s assets through policies, technology, and tools.

48% of employees have accidently attached the wrong file to an email.

39% of respondents have accidently sent emails that contained security information such as passwords and passcodes.

Source: Tessian, 2021.

User awareness & training

A strong security awareness & training program is an important element of strengthening your email security.

• Having all these tools and techniques in place to improve your email security will not be effective unless you also improve your employees’ awareness.
• Employees should participate in email security training, especially since the majority utilize this channel of communication for day-to-day operations.
• User awareness and training should go beyond phishing campaigns and should highlight the various types of email-based threats, the characteristics of these threats, and what procedures they can follow to minimize these threats.
• 95% of data breaches are caused by human error. It can take nine months to discover and contain them, and they are expected to cost $8 trillion this year (Mimecast, 2023).
• Investments in employee awareness and training would mitigate these risks by ensuring employees recognize and report suspicious emails, remain mindful of what type of data to share via email, and improve their overall understanding of the importance of email security.

Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users

Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on creating various user training materials and empower your employees to become a main line of defense for your organization.

64% of organizations conduct formal training sessions (in-person or computer-based).

74% of organizations only focus on providing phishing-based training.

Source: Proofpoint, 2021.

Examples of email-based threats

Phishing
Email sent by threat actors designed to manipulate end user into providing sensitive information by posing as a trustworthy source

Business Email Compromise
Attackers trick a user into sending money or providing confidential information

Spam
Users receive unsolicited email, usually in bulk, some of which contains malware

Spear Phishing
A type of phishing attack where the email is sent to specific and targeted emails within the organization

Whaling
A type of phishing attack similar to spear phishing, but targeting senior executives within the organization

Password/Email Exposure
Employees use organizational email accounts and passwords to sign up for social media, leaving them susceptible to email and/or password exposure in a social media breach

Email policies

Having policies in place will enable these controls to be implemented.

Developing security policies that are reasonable, auditable, enforceable, and measurable ensures proper procedures are followed and necessary measures are implemented to protect the organization. Policies relating to email security can be categorized into two groups:

• User policy: Policies employees must adhere to when using their corporate email. Examples:
• User acceptance of technology: Acknowledgment of legitimate and restrictive actions when using corporate email
• Security awareness and training: Acknowledging completion of email security training
• Administrator-set policy: Policies that are implemented by IT and/or security admins. Examples:
• Email backup: Policy on how long emails should be archived and processes for disposing of them
• Log retention: Policy on how to retain, process, and analyze logs created from email servers
• Throttling: Policies that limit the number of emails sent by a sender and the number of recipients per email and per day depending on the employee’s grouping

Develop and Deploy Security Policies

Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on developing and deploying actionable policies and creating an overall policy management lifecycle to keep your policies current, effective, and compliant.

Info-Tech Insight
Policies ensure acceptable standards are in place to protect the organization’s assets, including the creation, attachment, sending, and receiving of emails.

Email security technologies & tools (SoftwareReviews)

SoftwareReviews, a division of Info-Tech Research Group, provides enterprise software reviews to help organizations make more efficient decisions during the software selection process. Reviews are provided by authenticated IT professionals who have leveraged the software and provide unbiased insights on different vendors and their products.

Learn from the collective knowledge of real IT professionals.

• Know the products and features available.
• Explore modules and detailed feature-level data.
• Quickly understand the market.

Evaluate market leaders through vendor rankings and awards.

• Convince stakeholders with professional reports.
• Avoid pitfalls with unfiltered data from real users.
• Choose software with confidence.

Cut through misleading marketing material.

• Negotiate contracts based on data.
• Know what to expect before you sign.
• Effectively manage the vendor.

Email security technologies & tools

Leverage these tools for an enhanced email security solution.

• SoftwareReviews provides vendor and software reviews of various email security solutions. View the details below on the different email security solutions and the top vendors for each solution.
• Cloud Email Security
• Avanan, Perception Point, SpamTitan
• Email Backup
• Dropsuite Email Backup, Mimecast Sync & Recover, BackupAssist
• Secure Email Gateway – Enterprise Software
• Forcepoint Email Security, FortiMail, Cisco Secure Email
• Secure Email Gateway – Midmarket Software
• Avanan, SpamTitan, Spambrella

Email Security Checklist

Follow these guidelines to ensure you are implementing best practices for securing your organization’s emails.

• The Email Security Checklist is a tool to assess the current and future state of your organization’s email security and provides a holistic understanding on monitoring your progress within each category and associated controls.
• The status column allows you to select the feature’s current implementation status, which includes the following options:
• Enabled: The feature is deployed within the organization’s network.
• Implemented: The feature is implemented within the organization’s network, but not yet deployed.
• Not implemented: The feature has not been enabled or implemented.
• Comments can be added for each feature to provide details such as indicating the progress on enabling/implementing a feature and why certain features are not yet implemented.

Download the Email Security Checklist tool

Related Info-Tech Research

Discover and Classify Your Data
Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for guidelines on implementing a data classification program for your organization.

Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users
Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on creating various user training materials and empower your employees to become a main line of defense for your organization.

Develop and Deploy Security Policies
Leverage this Info-Tech blueprint for assistance on developing and deploying actionable policies and creating an overall policy management lifecycle to keep your policies current, effective, and compliant.

Bibliography

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“2021 State of the Phish.” Proofpoint, 2021. Web.

Ahmad, Summra. “11 Email Security Best Practices You Shouldn't Miss (2023).” Mailmunch, 9 Mar. 2023. Web.

“Blumira's State of Detection and Response.” Blumira, 18 Jan. 2023. Web.

Clay, Jon. “Email Security Best Practices for Phishing Prevention.” Trend Micro, 17 Nov. 2022. Web.

Crane, Casey. “6 Email Security Best Practices to Keep Your Business Safe in 2019.” Hashed Out by The SSL Store™, 7 Aug. 2019. Web.

Hateb, Seif. “Basic Email Security Guide.” Twilio Blog, Twilio, 5 Dec. 2022. Web.

“How DMARC Advances Email Security.” CIS, 9 July 2021. Web.

Pal, Suryanarayan. “10 Email Security Best Practices You Should Know in 2023.” Mailmodo, 9 Feb. 2023. Web.

Pitchkites, Max. “Email Security: A Guide to Keeping Your Inbox Safe in 2023.” Cloudwards, 9 Dec. 2022. Web.

Rudra, Ahona. “Corporate Email Security Checklist.” PowerDMARC, 4 July 2022. Web.

“Sender Policy Framework.” Mimecast, n.d. Web.

Shea, Sharon, and Peter Loshin. “Top 15 Email Security Best Practices for 2023: TechTarget.” TechTarget, 14 Dec. 2022. Web.

“The Email Security Checklist: Upguard.” UpGuard, 16 Feb. 2022. Web.

“The State of Email Security 2023.” Mimecast, 2023. Web.

Wetherald, Harry. “New Product - Stop Employees Emailing the Wrong Attachments.” Tessian, 16 Sept. 2021. Web.

“What Is DMARC? - Record, Verification & More: Proofpoint Us.” Proofpoint, 9 Mar. 2023. Web.

“What Is Email Security? - Defining Security of Email: Proofpoint Us.” Proofpoint, 3 Mar.2023. Web.

Wilton, Laird. “How to Secure Email in Your Business with an Email Security Policy.” Carbide, 31 Jan. 2022. Web.

Master Organizational Change Management Practices

PMOs, if you don't know who is responsible for org change, it's you.

Analyst Perspective

Don’t leave change up to chance.

"Organizational change management has been a huge weakness for IT departments and business units, putting projects and programs at risk – especially large, complex, transformational projects.

During workshops with clients, I find that the root of this problem is twofold: project planning tends to fixate on technology and neglects the behavioral and cultural factors that inhibit user adoption; further, accountabilities for managing change and helping to realize the intended business outcomes post-project are not properly defined.

It makes sense for the PMO to be the org-change leader. In project ecosystems where no one seems willing to seize this opportunity, the PMO can take action and realize the benefits and accolades that will come from coordinating and consistently driving successful project outcomes."

Matt Burton,

Senior Manager, Project Portfolio Management

Info-Tech Research Group

Our understanding of the problem

This Research is Designed For:

• PMO Directors who need to improve user adoption rates and maximize benefits on project and program activity.
• CIOs who are accountable for IT’s project spend and need to ensure an appropriate ROI on project investments.

This Research Will Help You:

• Define change management roles and accountabilities among project stakeholders.
• Prepare end users for change impacts in order to improve adoption rates.
• Ensure that the intended business outcomes of projects are more effectively realized.
• Develop an organizational change management toolkit and best practices playbook.

This Research Will Also Assist:

• Project managers and change managers who need to plan and execute changes affecting people and processes.
• Project sponsors who want to improve benefits attainment.
• Business analysts who need to analyze the impact of change.

This Research Will Help Them:

• Develop communications and training plans tailored to specific audiences.
  • Identify strategies to manage cultural and behavioral change.
• Maximize project benefits by ensuring changes are adopted.
• Capitalize upon opportunities and mitigate risks.

Drive organizational change from the PMO

Situation

• As project management office (PMO) leader, you oversee a portfolio of projects that depend heavily on users and stakeholders adopting new tools, complying with new policies, following new processes, and learning new skills.
• You need to facilitate the organizational change resulting from these projects, ensuring that the intended business outcomes are realized.

Complication

• While IT takes accountability to deliver the change, accountability for the business outcomes is opaque with little or no allocated resourcing.
• Project management practices focus more on the timely implementation of projects than on the achievement of the desired outcomes thereafter or on the behavioral and cultural factors that inhibit change from taking hold in the long term.

Resolution

• Plan for human nature. To ensure project success and maximize benefits, plan and facilitate the non-technical aspects of organizational change by addressing the emotional, behavioral, and cultural factors that foster stakeholder resistance and inhibit user adoption.
• Make change management as ubiquitous as change itself. Foster a project culture that is proactive about OCM. Create a process where OCM considerations are factored in as early as project ideation and change is actively managed throughout the project lifecycle, including after the project has closed.
• Equip project leaders with the right tools to foster adoption. Effective OCM requires an actionable toolkit that will help plant the seeds for organizational change. With the right tools and templates, the PMO can function as a hub for change, helping business units and project teams to consistently achieve project and post-project success.

Info-Tech Insight

Make your PMO the change leader it’s already expected to be. Unless accountabilities for organizational change management (OCM) have been otherwise explicitly defined, you should accept that, to the rest of the organization – including its chief officers – the PMO is already assumed to be the change leader.

Don’t shy away from or neglect this role. It’s not just the business outcomes of the organization’s projects that will benefit; the long-term sustainability of the PMO itself will be significantly strengthened by making OCM a core competency.

Completed projects aren’t necessarily successful projects

The constraints that drive project management (time, scope, and budget) are insufficient for driving the overall success of project efforts.

For instance, a project may come in on time, on budget, and in scope, but…

• …if users and stakeholders fail to adopt…
• …and the intended benefits are not achieved…

…then that “successful project” represents a massive waste of the organization’s time and resources.

A supplement to project management is needed to ensure that the intended value is realized.

Mission (Not) Accomplished

50% Fifty percent of respondents in a KPMG survey indicated that projects fail to achieve what they originally intended. (Source: NZ Project management survey)

56% Only fifty-six percent of strategic projects meet their original business goals. (Source: PMI)

70% Lack of user adoption is the main cause for seventy percent of failed projects. (Source: Collins, 2013)

Improve project outcomes with organizational change management

Make “completed” synonymous with “successfully completed” by implementing an organizational change management strategy through the PMO.

Organizational change management is the practice through which the PMO can improve user adoption rates and maximize project benefits.

Why OCM effectiveness correlates to project success:

• IT projects are justified because they will make money, save money, or make people happier.
• Project benefits can only be realized when changes are successfully adopted or accommodated by the organization.

Without OCM, IT might finish the project but fail to realize the intended outcomes.

In the long term, a lack of OCM could erode IT’s ability to work with the business.

What is organizational change management?

OCM is a framework for managing the introduction of new business processes and technologies to ensure stakeholder adoption.

OCM involves tools, templates, and processes that are intended to help project leaders analyze the impacts of a change during the planning phase, engage stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle, as well as train and transition users towards the new technologies and processes being implemented.

OCM is a separate body of knowledge, but as a practice it is inseparable from both project management or business analysis.

WHEN IS OCM NEEDED?

Anytime you are starting a project or program that will depend on users and stakeholders to give up their old way of doing things, change will force people to become novices again, leading to lost productivity and added stress.

CM can help improve project outcomes on any project where you need people to adopt new tools and procedures, comply with new policies, learn new skills and behaviors, or understand and support new processes.

"What is the goal of change management? Getting people to adopt a new way of doing business." – BA, Natural Resources Company

The benefits of OCM range from more effective project execution to improved benefits attainment

82% of CEOs identify organizational change management as a priority. (D&B Consulting) But Only 18% of organizations characterize themselves as “Highly Effective” at OCM. (PMI)

On average, 95% percent of projects with excellent OCM meet or exceed their objectives. (Prosci) VS For projects with poor OCM, the number of projects that meet objectives drops to 15%. (Prosci)

82% of projects with excellent OCM practices are completed on budget. (Prosci) VS For projects with poor OCM, the number of projects that stay on budget drops to 51%. (Prosci)

71% of projects with excellent OCM practices stay on schedule. (Prosci) VS For projects with poor OCM practices, only 16% stay on schedule. (Prosci)

While critical to project success, OCM remains one of IT’s biggest weaknesses and process improvement gaps

IT Processes Ranked by Effectiveness:

27. Risk Management
28. Knowledge Management
29. Release Management
30. Innovation
31. IT Governance
32. Enterprise Architecture
33. Quality Management
34. Data Architecture
35. Application Development Quality
36. Data Quality
37. Portfolio Management
38. Configuration Management
39. Application Portfolio Management
40. Business Process Controls Internal Audit
41. Organizational Change Management
42. Application Development Throughput
43. Business Intelligence Reporting
44. Performance Measurement
45. Manage Service Catalog

IT Processes Ranked by Importance:

27. Enterprise Application Selection & Implementation
28. Organizational Change Management
29. Data Architecture
30. Quality Management
31. Enterprise Architecture
32. Business Intelligence Reporting
33. Release Management
34. Portfolio Management
35. Application Maintenance
36. Asset Management
37. Vendor Management
38. Application Portfolio Management
39. Innovation
40. Business Process Controls Internal Audit
41. Configuration Management
42. Performance Measurement
43. Application Development Quality
44. Application Development Throughput
45. Manage Service Catalog

Based on 3,884 responses to Info-Tech’s Management and Governance Diagnostic, June 2016

There’s no getting around it: change is hard

While the importance of change management is widely recognized across organizations, the statistics around change remain dismal.

Indeed, it’s an understatement to say that change is difficult.

People are generally – in the near-term at least – resistant to change, especially large, transformational changes that will impact the day-to-day way of doing things, or that involve changing personal values, social norms, and other deep-seated assumptions.

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." – Niccolo Machiavelli

70% - Change failure rates are extremely high. It is estimated that up to seventy percent of all change initiatives fail – a figure that has held steady since the 1990s. (McKinsey & Company)

25% - In a recent survey of 276 large and midsize organizations, only twenty-five percent of respondents felt that the gains from projects were sustained over time. (Towers Watson)

22% - While eighty-seven percent of survey respondents trained their managers to “manage change,” only 22% felt the training was truly effective. (Towers Watson)

While change is inherently difficult, the biggest obstacle to OCM success is a lack of accountability

Who is accountable for change success? …anyone?...

To its peril, OCM commonly falls into a grey area, somewhere in between project management and portfolio management, and somewhere in between being a concern of IT and a concern of the business.

While OCM is a separate discipline from project management, it is commonly thought that OCM is something that project managers and project teams do. While in some cases this might be true, it is far from a universal truth.

The end result: without a centralized approach, accountabilities for key OCM tasks are opaque at best – and the ball for these tasks is, more often than not, dropped altogether.

29% - Twenty-nine percent of change initiatives are launched without any formal OCM plan whatsoever.

"That’s 29 percent of leaders with blind faith in the power of prayer to Saint Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes." – Torben Rick

Bring accountability to org-change by facilitating the winds of change through the PMO

Lasting organizational change requires a leader. Make it the PMO.

#1 Organizational resistance to change is cited as the #1 challenge to project success that PMOs face. (Source: PM Solutions)

90% Companies with mature PMOs that effectively manage change meet expectations 90% of the time. (Source: Jacobs-Long)

Why the PMO?

A centralized approach to OCM is most effective, and the PMO is already a centralized project office and is already accountable for project outcomes.

What’s more, in organizations where accountabilities for OCM are not explicitly defined, the PMO will likely already be assumed to be the default change leader by the wider organization.

It makes sense for the PMO to accept this accountability – in the short term at least – and claim the benefits that will come from coordinating and consistently driving successful project outcomes.

In the long term, OCM leadership will help the PMO to become a strategic partner with the executive layer and the business side.

Short-term gains made by the PMO can be used to spark dialogues with those who authorize project spending and have the implicit fiduciary obligation to drive project benefits.

Ultimately, it’s their job to explicitly transfer that obligation, along with the commensurate resourcing and authority for OCM activities.

More than a value-added service, OCM competencies will soon determine the success of the PMO itself

Given the increasingly dynamic nature of market conditions, the need for PMOs to provide change leadership on projects large and small is becoming a necessity.

"With organizations demanding increasing value, PMOs will need to focus more and more on strategy, innovation, agility, and stakeholder engagement. And, in particular, developing expertise in organizational change management will be essential to their success." – PM Solutions, 2014

28% PMOs that are highly agile and able to respond quickly to changing conditions are 28% more likely to successfully complete strategic initiatives (69% vs. 41%). (PMI)

In other words, without heightened competencies around org-change, the PMO of tomorrow will surely sink like a stone in the face of increasingly unstable external factors and accelerated project demands.

Use Info-Tech’s road-tested OCM toolkit to transform your PMO into a hub of change management leadership

With the advice and tools in Info-Tech’s Drive Organizational Change from the PMO blueprint, the PMO can provide the right OCM expertise at each phase of a project.

Info-Tech’s approach to OCM is a practical/tactical adaptation of several successful models

Business strategy-oriented OCM models such as John Kotter’s 8-Step model assume the change agent is in a position of senior leadership, able to shape corporate vision, culture, and values.

• PMO leaders can work with business leaders, but ultimately can’t decide where to take the organization.
• Work with business leaders to ensure IT-enabled change helps reinforce the organization’s target vision and culture.

General-purpose OCM frameworks such as ACMP’s Standard for Change Management, CMI’s CMBoK, and Prosci’s ADKAR model are very comprehensive and need to be configured to PMO-specific initiatives.

• Tailoring a comprehensive, general-purpose framework to PMO-enabled change requires familiarity and experience.

References and Further Reading

• COBIT
• ADKAR (Prosci)
• Standard for Change Management (ACMP)
• CMBoK (CMI)
• Kotter’s 8 Principles
• Managing Transitions
• Kubler-Ross Curve
• The Classic Change Curve
• Switch and The Rider Elephant War

Info-Tech’s organizational change management model adapts the best practices from a wide range of proven models and distills it into a step-by-step process that can be applied to any IT-enabled project.

Info-Tech’s OCM research is COBIT aligned and a cornerstone in our IT Management & Governance Framework

COBIT 5 is the leading framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT.

Screenshot of Info-Tech’s IT Management & Governance Framework.

Consider Info-Tech’s additional key observations

Human behavior is largely a blind spot during the planning phase.

In IT especially, project planning tends to fixate on technology and underestimate the behavioral and cultural factors that inhibit user adoption. Whether change is project-specific or continuous, it’s more important to instill the desire to change than to apply specific tools and techniques. Accountability for instilling this desire should start with the project sponsor, with direct support from the PMO.

Don’t mistake change management for a “soft” skill.

Persuading people to change requires a “soft,” empathetic approach to keep them motivated and engaged. But don’t mistake “soft” for easy. Managing the people part of change is amongst the toughest work there is, and it requires a comfort and competency with uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict. If a change initiative is going to be successful (especially a large, transformational change), this tough work needs to be done – and the more impactful the change, the earlier it is done, the better.

In “continuous change” environments, change still needs to be managed.

Transformation and change are increasingly becoming the new normal. While this normality may help make people more open to change in general, specific changes still need to be planned, communicated, and managed. Agility and continuous improvement are good, but can degenerate into volatility if change isn’t managed properly. People will perceive change to be volatile and undesirable if their expectations aren’t managed through communications and engagement planning.

Info-Tech’s centralized approach to OCM is cost effective, with a palpable impact on project ROI

Info-Tech’s Drive Organizational Change from the PMO blueprint can be implemented quickly and can usually be done with the PMO’s own authority, without the need for additional or dedicated change resources.

Implementation Timeline

• Info-Tech’s easy-to-navigate OCM tools can be employed right away, when your project is already in progress.
• A full-scale implementation of a PMO-driven OCM program can be accomplished in 3–4 weeks.

Implementation Personnel

• Primary: the PMO director (should budget 10%–15% of her/his project capacity for OCM activities).
• Secondary: other PMO staff (e.g. project managers, business analysts, etc.).

OCM Implementation Costs

15% - The average costs for effective OCM are 10%–15% of the overall project budget. (AMR Research)

Average OCM Return-on-Investment

200% - Small projects with excellent OCM practices report a 200% return-on-investment. (Change First)

650% - Large projects with excellent OCM practices report a 650% return-on-investment. (Change First)

Company saves 2–4 weeks of time and $10,000 in ERP implementation through responsible OCM

CASE STUDY

Industry Manufacturing

Source Info-Tech Client

Situation

A medium-sized manufacturing company with offices all over the world was going through a consolidation of processes and data by implementing a corporate-wide ERP system to replace the fragmented systems that were previously in place. The goal was to have consistency in process, expectations, and quality, as well as improve efficiency in interdepartmental processes.

Up to this point, every subsidiary was using their own system to track data and sharing information was complicated and slow. It was causing key business opportunities to be compromised or even lost.

Complication

The organization was not very good in closing out projects. Initiatives went on for too long, and the original business benefits were usually not realized.

The primary culprit was recognized as mismanaged organizational change. People weren’t aware early enough, and were often left out of the feedback process.

Employees often felt like changes were being dictated to them, and they didn’t understand the wider benefits of the changes. This led to an unnecessary number of resistors, adding to the complexity of successfully completing a project.

Resolution

Implementing an ERP worldwide was something that the company couldn’t gamble on, so proper organizational change management was a focus.

A thorough stakeholder analysis was done, and champions were identified for each stakeholder group throughout the organization.

Involving these champions early gave them the time to work within their groups and to manage expectations. The result was savings of 2–4 weeks of implementation time and $10,000.

Follow Info-Tech’s blueprint to transform your PMO into a hub for organizational change management

Prepare the PMO for Change Leadership

• Assess the organization’s readiness for change.
  • Perform an OCM capabilities assessment.
  • Chart an OCM roadmap for the PMO.
  • Undergo a change management SWOT analysis.
  • Define success criteria.
  • Org. Change Capabilities Assessment
• Define the structure and scope of the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative.
  • Determine pilot OCM project.
  • Estimate OCM effort.
  • Document high-level project details.
  • Establish a timeline for org-change activities.
  • Assess available resources to support the PMO’s OCM initiative.
  • Project Level Assessment

Plant the Seeds for Change During Project Planning and Initiation

• Foster OCM considerations during the ideation phase.
  • Assess leadership support for change
  • Highlight the goals and benefits of the change
  • Refine your change story
  • Define success criteria
  • Develop a sponsorship action plan
  • Transition Team Communications Template
• Perform an organizational change impact assessment.
  • Perform change impact survey.
  • Assess the depth of impact for the stakeholder group.
  • Determine overall adoptability of the OCM effort.
  • Review risks and opportunities.
  • Org. Change Management Impact Analysis Tool

Facilitate Change Adoption Throughout the Organization

• Ensure stakeholders are engaged and ready for change.
  • Involve the right people in change and define roles.
  • Define methods for obtaining stakeholder input.
  • Perform a stakeholder analysis.
  • Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
• Develop and execute the transition plan.
  • Establish a communications strategy for stakeholder groups.
  • Define the feedback and evaluation process.
  • Assess the full range of support and resistance to change.
  • Develop an objections handling process.
  • Transition Plan Template
• Establish HR and training plans.
  • Assess training needs. Develop training plan.
  • Training Plan

Establish a Post-Project Benefits Attainment Process

• Determine accountabilities for benefits attainment.
  • Conduct a post-implementation review of the pilot OCM project.
  • Assign ownership for realizing benefits after the project is closed.
  • Define a post-project benefits tracking process.
  • Implement a tool to help monitor and track benefits over the long term.
  • Project Benefits Tracking Tool

Solidify the PMO’s Role as Change Leader

• Institute an OCM playbook.
  • Review lessons learned to improve OCM as a core discipline of the PMO.
  • Monitor organizational capacity for change.
  • Define roles and responsibilities for OCM oversight.
  • Formalize the Organizational Change Management Playbook.
  • Assess the value and success of your practices relative to OCM effort and project outcomes.
  • Organizational Change Management Playbook

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Drive Organizational Change from the PMO

Workshop overview

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

Phase 1

Prepare the PMO for Change Leadership

Phase 1 outline

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

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

Guided Implementation 1: Prepare the PMO for Change Leadership

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1 week

Step 1.1: Assess the organization’s readiness for change

Start with an analyst kick off call:

• Scoping call to discuss organizational change challenges and the PMO’s role in managing change.

Then complete these activities…

• Perform an assessment survey to define capability levels and chart an OCM roadmap.

With these tools & templates:

• Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment

Step 1.2: Define the structure and scope of the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative

Work with an analyst to:

• Determine the appropriate OCM initiative to pilot over this series of Guided Implementations from the PMO’s project list.

Then complete these activities…

• Rightsize your OCM planning efforts based on project size, timeline, and resource availability.

With these tools & templates:

• Project Level Assessment Tool

Step 1.1: Assess the organization’s readiness for change

Phase 1 - 1.1

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Perform an OCM capabilities assessment.
• Chart an OCM roadmap for the PMO.
• Undergo a change management SWOT analysis.
• Define success criteria.

This step involves the following participants:

• Required: PMO Director
• Recommended: PMO staff, project management staff, and other project stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

• An OCM roadmap for the PMO with specific recommendations.
• An assessment of strengths, weakness, challenges, and threats in terms of the PMO’s role as organizational change leader.
• Success metrics for the PMO’s OCM implementation.

Project leaders who successfully facilitate change are strategic assets in a world of increasing agility and uncertainty

As transformation and change become the new normal, it’s up to PMOs to provide stability and direction during times of transition and turbulence.

Continuous change and transition are increasingly common in organizations in 2016.

A state of constant change can make managing change more difficult in some ways, but easier in others.

• Inundation with communications and diversity of channels means the traditional “broadcast” approach to communicating change doesn’t work (i.e. you can’t expect every email to get everyone’s attention).
• People might be more open to change in general, but specific changes still need to be properly planned, communicated, and managed.

By managing organizational change more effectively, the PMO can build credibility to manage both business and IT projects.

"The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic." – Peter Drucker

In this phase, we will gauge your PMO’s abilities to effectively facilitate change based upon your change management capability levels and your wider organization’s responsiveness to change.

Evaluate your current capabilities for managing organizational change

Start off by ensuring that the PMO is sensitive to the particularities of the organization and that it manages change accordingly.

There are many moving parts involved in successfully realizing an organizational change.

For instance, even with an effective change toolkit and strong leadership support, you may still fail to achieve project benefits due to such factors as a staff environment resistant to change or poor process discipline.

Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment to assess your readiness for change across 7 categories:

• Cultural Readiness
• Leadership & Sponsorship
• Organizational Knowledge
• Change Management Skills
• Toolkit & Templates
• Process Discipline
• KPIs & Metrics

Download Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment.

• The survey can be completed quickly in 5 to 10 minutes; or, if being done as a group activity, it can take up to 60 minutes or more.
• Based upon your answers, you will get a report of your current change capabilities to help you prioritize your next steps.
• The tool also provides a customized list of Info-Tech recommendations across the seven categories.

Perform Info-Tech’s OCM capabilities questionnaire

1.1.1 Anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes (depending on number of participants)

• The questionnaire on Tab 2 of the Assessment consists of 21 questions across 7 categories.
• The survey can be completed individually, by the PMO director or manager, or – even more ideally – by a group of project and business stakeholders.
• While the questionnaire only takes a few minutes to complete, you may wish to survey a wider swath of business units, especially on such categories as “Cultural Readiness” and “Leadership Support.”

Use the drop downs to indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each of the statements in the survey.

Info-Tech Insight

Every organization has some change management capability.

Even if you find yourself in a fledgling or nascent PMO, with no formal change management tools or processes, you can still leverage other categories of change management effectiveness.

If you can, build upon people-related assets like “Organizational Knowledge” and “Cultural Readiness” as you start to hone your OCM toolkit and process.

Review your capability levels and chart an OCM roadmap for your PMO

Tab 3 of the Assessment tool shows your capabilities graph.

• The chart visualizes your capability levels across the seven categories of organization change covered in the questionnaire in order to show the areas that your organization is already strong in and the areas where you need to focus your efforts.

Focus on improving the first capability dimension (from left/front to right/back) that rates below 10.

Tab 4 of the Assessment tool reveals Info-Tech’s recommendations based upon your survey responses.

• Use these recommendations to structure your roadmap and bring concrete definitions to your next steps.

Use the red/yellow/green boxes to focus your efforts.

The content in the recommendations boxes is based around these categories and the advice therein is designed to help you to, in the near term, bring your capabilities up to the next level.

Use the steps in this blueprint to help build your capabilities

Each of Info-Tech’s seven OCM capabilities match up with different steps and phases in this blueprint.

We recommend that you consume this blueprint in a linear fashion, as each phase matches up to a different set of OCM activities to be executed at each phase of a project. However, you can use the legend below to locate how and where this blueprint will address each capability.

Info-Tech Insight

Organizational change must be planned in advance and managed through all phases of a project.

Organizational change management must be embedded as a key aspect throughout the project, not merely a set of tactics added to execution phases.

Perform a change management SWOT exercise

1.1.2 30 to 60 minutes

Now that you have a sense of your change management strengths and weaknesses, you can begin to formalize the organizational specifics of these.

Gather PMO and IT staff, as well as other key project and business stakeholders, and perform a SWOT analysis based on your Capabilities Assessment.

Follow these steps to complete the SWOT analysis:

1. Have participants discuss and identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
2. Spend roughly 60 minutes on this. Use a whiteboard, flip chart, or PowerPoint slide to document results of the discussion as points are made.
3. Make sure results are recorded and saved either using the template provided on the next slide or by taking a picture of the whiteboard or flip chart.

Use the SWOT Analysis Template on the next slide to document results.

Use the examples provided in the SWOT analysis to kick-start the discussion.

The purpose of the SWOT is to begin to define the goals of this implementation by assessing your change management capabilities and cultivating executive level, business unit, PMO, and IT alignment around the most critical opportunities and challenges.

Sample SWOT Analysis

Define the “how” and the “what” of change management success for your PMO

1.1.3 30 to 60 minutes

Before you move on to develop and implement your OCM processes, spend some time documenting how change management success will be defined for your organization and what conditions will be necessary for success to be achieved.

With the same group of individuals who participated in the SWOT exercise, discuss the below criteria. You can make this a sticky note or a whiteboard activity to help document discussion points.

OCM Measured Value Metrics Include:

• Estimate % of expected business benefits realized on the past 3–5 significant projects/programs.
  • Track business benefits (costs reduced, productivity increased, etc.).
• Estimate costs avoided/reduced (extensions, cancellations, delays, roll-backs, etc.).
  • Establish baseline by estimating average costs of projects extended to deal with change-related issues.

Document additional items that could impact an OCM implementation for your PMO

1.1.4 15 to 45 minutes

Use the table below to document any additional factors or uncertainties that could impact implementation success.

These could be external factors that may impact the PMO, or they could be logistical considerations pertaining to staffing or infrastructure that may be required to support additional change management processes and procedures.

"[A]ll bets are off when it comes to change. People scatter in all directions. Your past experiences may help in some way, but what you do today and how you do it are the new measures people will use to evaluate you." – Tres Roeder

Step 1.2: Define the structure and scope of the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative

Phase 1 - 1.2

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine pilot OCM project.
• Estimate OCM effort.
• Document high-level project details.
• Establish a timeline for org change activities.
• Assess available resources to support the PMO’s OCM initiative.

This step involves the following participants:

• Required: PMO Director
• Recommended: PMO staff, project management staff, and other project stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

• Project definition for the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative.
• A timeline that aligns the project schedule for key OCM activities.
• Definition of resource availability to support OCM activities through the PMO.

Organizational change discipline should align with project structure

Change management success is contingent on doing the right things at the right time.

In subsequent phases of this blueprint, we will help the PMO develop an OCM strategy that aligns with your organization’s project timelines.

In this step (1.2), we will do some pre-work for you by determining a change initiative to pilot during this process and defining some of the roles and responsibilities for the OCM activities that we’ll develop in this blueprint.

Get ready to develop and pilot your OCM competencies on a specific project

In keeping with the need to align organizational change management activities with the actual timeline of the project, the next three phases of this blueprint will move from discussing OCM in general to applying OCM considerations to a single project.

As you narrow your focus to the organizational change stemming from a specific initiative, review the below considerations to help inform the decisions that you make during the activities in this step.

Choose a pilot project that:

• Has an identifiable sponsor who will be willing and able to participate in the bulk of the activities during the workshop.
• Has an appropriate level of change associated with it in order to adequately develop a range of OCM capabilities.
• Has a reasonably well-defined scope and timeline – you don’t want the pilot initiative being dragged out unexpectedly.
• Has PMO/IT staff who will be assisting with OCM efforts and will be relatively familiar and comfortable with them in terms of technical requirements.

Select a specific project that involves significant organizational change

1.2.1 5 to 15 minutes

The need for OCM rigor will vary depending on project size and complexity.

While we recommend that every project has some aspect of change management to it, you can adjust OCM requirements accordingly, depending on the type of change being introduced.

Phases 2, 3, and 4 of this blueprint will guide you through the process of managing organizational change around a specific project. Select one now that is currently in your request or planning stages to pilot through the activities in this blueprint. We recommend choosing one that involves a large, transformational change.

Estimate the overall difficulty and effort required to manage organizational change

1.2.2 5 minutes

Use Info-Tech’s project levels to define the complexity of the project that you’ve chosen to pilot.

Defining your project level will help determine how much effort and detail is required to complete steps in this blueprint – and, beyond this, these levels can help you determine how much OCM rigor to apply across each of the projects in your portfolio.

For a more comprehensive assessment of project levels and degrees of risk, see Info-Tech’s Create Project Management Success blueprint – and in particular, our Project Level Assessment Tool.

Record the goals and scope of the pilot OCM initiative

1.2.3 15 to 30 minutes

Description

What is the project changing?

How will it work?

What are the implications of doing nothing?

What are the phases in execution?

Expected Benefits

What is the desired outcome?

What can be measured? How?

When should it be measured?

Goals

List the goals.

Align with business and IT goals.

Expected Costs

List the costs:

Software costs

Hardware costs

Implementation costs

Expected Risks

List the risks:

Business risks

Technology risks

Implementation risks

Know the “what” and “when” of org change activities

The key to change management success is ensuring that the right OCM activities are carried out at the right time. The below graphic serves as a quick view of what OCM activities entail and when they should be done.

Rough out a timeline for the org change activities associated with your pilot project’s timeline

1.2.4 20-30 minutes

With reference to the graphic on the previous slide, map out a high-level timeline for your pilot project’s milestones and the corresponding OCM activities.

• This is essentially a first draft of a timeline and will be refined as we develop your OCM discipline in the next phase of this blueprint.
• The purpose of roughing something out at this time is to help determine the scope of the implementation, the effort involved, and to help with resource planning.

Info-Tech Insight

Proactive change management is easier to execute and infinitely more effective than managing change reactively. A reactive approach to OCM is bound to fail. The better equipped the PMO is to plan OCM activities in advance of projects, the more effective those OCM efforts will be.