Develop an IT Strategy to Support Customer Service

E-commerce is accelerating, and with it, customer expectations for exceptional digital service.

Analyst Perspective

The future of Customer Service is digital. Your organization needs an IT strategy to meet this demand.

As the pandemic closed brick-and-mortar stores, the acceleration of ecommerce has cemented Customer Service’s digital future. However, the pandemic also revealed severe cracks in the IT strategy of organizations’ Customer Service – no matter the industry. These cracks may include low resolution and high wait times through the contact center, or a lack of analytics that fuel a reactive environment. Unfortunately, organizations have no time to waste in resolving these issues. Customer patience for poor digital service has only decreased since March 2020, leaving organizations with little to no runway for ramping up their IT strategy.

Organizations that quickly mature their digital Customer Service will come out the other side of COVID-19 more competitive and with a stronger reputation. This move necessitates a concrete IT strategy for coordinating what the organization’s future state should look like and agreeing on the technologies and software required to meet this state across the entire organization.

Thomas E. Randall, Ph.D.

Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

IT must proactively engage with the organization to define what good customer service should look like. This ensures IT has a fair say in what kinds of architectural solutions are feasible for any projected future state. In this proactive scenario, IT can help build the roadmap for implementing and maintaining customer service infrastructure and operations, reducing the time and resources spent on putting out preventable fires or trying to achieve an unworkable goal set by the organization.

Key insights

Develop an IT Strategy to Support Customer Service

This blueprint will achieve:

An IT strategy for customer service is imperative for a post-COVID world

COVID-19 has accelerated ecommerce, rapidly evolving customer expectations for remote, contactless service.

59% Of customers agree that the pandemic has raised their standards for service (Salesforce, 2020).

• With COVID-19, most customer demand and employment moved online and turned remote.
• Retailers had to rapidly respond, meeting customer demand through ecommerce. This not only entailed a complete shift in how customers could buy their goods but how retailers could provide a remote customer journey from discovery to post-purchase support.

Info-Tech Insight

The pandemic did not improve customer tolerance for bad service – instead, the demand for good service increased dramatically. Organizations need an IT strategy to meet customer support demands wherever the customer is located.

The technology to provide remote customer support is surging

IT needs to be at the forefront of learning about and suggesting new technologies, working with Customer Service to deliver a consistent, business-driven approach.

Executive Brief – Case Study

Self-service options improve quality of service and boost organization’s competitiveness in a digital marketspace.

INDUSTRY: Financial Services

SOURCE: TSB

IT can demonstrate its value to business by enhancing remote customer service

IT must engage with Customer Service – otherwise, IT risks being perennially reactive and dictated to as remote customer service needs increase.

Info-Tech Insight

Change to how Customer Service will operate is inevitable. This is an opportunity for IT to establish their value to the business and improve their autonomy in how new technologies should be onboarded and utilized.

Customer Service and IT need to work together to mitigate their pain points

IT and Customer Service have an opportunity to reinforce and build their organization’s customer base by working together to streamline operations.

IT often cannot spark a debate with Customer Service on whether a decision made without IT is misaligned with corporate direction. It’s almost always an uphill battle for IT.

Sahri Lava, Research Director, IDC

Develop an IT Strategy to Support Customer Service

Use Info-Tech’s method to produce an IT strategy for Customer Service:

Key deliverable and tools outline

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

Looking ahead: defining metrics for success

Phase 1 of this blueprint will help solidify how to measure this project’s success. Start looking ahead now.

For example, the metrics below show the potential business benefits for several stakeholders through building an IT strategy for Customer Service. These stakeholders include agents, customers, senior leadership, and IT. The benefits of this project are listed to the right.

As this project nears completion:

1. Customers will have more opportunities for self-service resolution.
2. Agents will experience higher satisfaction, improving attrition rates.
3. The organization will experience higher ROI from its digital Customer Service investments.
4. Customers can engage the contact center via a communication channel that suits them.

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical Guided Implementation on this topic look like?

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

A typical Guided Implementation is two to 12 calls over the course of four to six months.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Define Project and Future State

This phase will guide you through the following activities:

1.1a Create your project’s RACI chart to establish key roles throughout the timeline of the project.

1.1b Finalize your project charter that captures the key goals of the project, ready to communicate to stakeholders for approval.

1.2a Begin documenting business processes to establish potential future states.

1.2b Model future state business processes for looking beyond current constraints and building the ideal scenario.

1.3a Document your preliminary requirements for concretizing a future state and performing a gap analysis.

Participants required for Phase 1:

• Applications Director
• Customer Service Director
• IT and Customer Service Representatives

1.1 Identify process owners early for successful project execution

IT and Customer Service must work in tandem throughout the project. Both teams’ involvement ensures all stakeholders are heard and support the final decision.

Info-Tech Insight

While involving management is important for high-level strategic decisions, input from those who interact day-to-day with the systems is a crucial component to a well-planned strategy.

1.1 Define project roles and responsibilities to improve progress tracking

Assign responsibilities, accountabilities, and other project involvement roles using a RACI chart.

• IT should involve Customer Service from the beginning of project planning to implementation and execution. The project requires input and knowledge from both functions to succeed.
• Do not let the tasks be forgotten within inter-functional communication. Define roles and responsibilities for the project as early as possible.
• Each member of the project team should be given a RACI designation, which will vary for each task to ensure clear ownership, execution, and progress tracking.
• Assigning RACI early can:
  • Improve project quality by assigning the right people to the right tasks.
  • Improve chances of project task completion by assigning clear accountabilities.
  • Improve project buy-in by ensuring that stakeholders are kept informed of project progress, risks, and successes.

R – Responsibility

A – Accountability

C – Consulted

I – Informed

1.1 Use Info-Tech’s recommended process owners and roles for this blueprint

* The Applications Director is to compile a list of Customer Service systems; the Customer Service Director is responsible for vetting a list and mapping it to Customer Service functions.

** The Applications Director is responsible for technology-related decisions (e.g. SaaS or on-premise, integration issues); the Customer Service Director is responsible for functionality-related decisions.

1.1a Create your project’s RACI chart

1 hour

1. The Applications Director and Customer Service Head should identify key participants and stakeholders of the project.
2. Use Info-Tech’s Project RACI Chart to identify ownership of tasks.
3. Record roles in the Project RACI Chart.

Download the Project RACI Chart

1.1 Start developing the project charter

What is a project charter?

• The project charter defines the project and lays the foundation for all subsequent project planning.
• Once approved by the business, the charter gives the project lead formal authority to initiate the project.

Why create a project charter?

• The project charter allows all parties involved to reach an agreement and document major aspects of the project.
• It also supports the decision-making process and can be used as a communication tool.

Stakeholders must:

• Understand and agree on the objectives and important characteristics of the project charter before the project is initiated.
• Be given the opportunity to adjust the project charter to better address their needs and concerns.

1.1b Finalize the project charter

1-2 hours

1. Request relevant individuals and parties to complete sections of Info-Tech’s Project Charter Template.
2. Input the simplified RACI output from tab 3 in Info-Tech’s Project RACI Chart tool into the RACI section of the charter.
3. Send the completed template to the CIO and Customer Service Head for approval.
4. Communicate the document to stakeholders for changes and finalization.

Download the Project Charter Template

1.2 IT must play a role shaping Customer Service’s future vision

IT is only one or two degrees of separation from the end customer – their involvement can significantly impact the customer experience.

1.2 Establish a vision for Customer Service excellence

Info-Tech has identified three prominent Customer Service strategic patterns. Evaluate which fits best with your situation and organization.

1.2 Let profitability goals help reveal which strategy to pursue

Profitability goals are tied to the enabling of customer service strategies.

• If looking to drive cost decreases across the organization, pursue cost efficiency strategies such as customer volume diversion in order to lower cost channels and avoid costly escalations for customer complaints and inquiries.
• Ongoing Contribution Margin is positive only once customer acquisition costs (CAC) have been paid back. For every customer lost, another customer has to be acquired in order to experience no loss. In this way, customer retention strategies help decrease your overall costs.
• Once cost reduction and customer retention measures are in place, look to increase overall revenue through cross-selling and up-selling activities with your customers.

Info-Tech Insight

Purely driving efficiency is not the goal. Create a balance that does not compromise customer satisfaction.

Customer Service strategies: Case studies

1.2 Performing an environmental scan can help IT optimize Customer Service support

Though typically executed by Customer Service, IT can gain valuable insights for best supporting infrastructure, applications, and operations from an environmental scan.

An environmental scan seeks to understand your organization’s customers from multiple directions. It considers:

• Customers’ value-based segmentations.
• The interaction channels customers prefer to use.
• Customers’ likes and dislikes.
• The general sentiment of your customer service quality.
• What your competitors are doing in this space.

Info-Tech Insight

Business processes must directly relate to customer service. Failing to correlate customer experience with business performance outcomes overlooks the enormous cost of negative sentiment.

1.2 The environmental scan results should drive IT’s strategy and resource spend

Insights derived from this scan can help frame IT’s contributions to Customer Service’s future vision.

1.2 Have Customer Service examine feedback across channels for a holistic view

Your method of listening needs to evolve to include active listening on social and mobile channels.

1.2 Benchmark IT assets by examining your competitors’ Customer Service capabilities

The availability of the internet means almost complete transparency between your products and services, and those of your competitors.

Info-Tech Insight

Look to your competitors for comparative models but do not pursue to solely replicate what they currently have. Aim higher and attempt to surpass their capabilities and brand value.

1.2 Collaborate with Customer Service to understand customer value segments

Let segmentation help you gain intelligence on customers’ expectations.

Insights and implications from customer service

• Segment your customers based on their value relative to the cost to serve. The easiest way to do so is with channel preference categorization.
• If the cost for retention attempts are higher than the value that those customers provide, there is little business case to pursue retention action.

How IT can help

• Couple value-based segmentation with channel preference and satisfaction levels of your most-valued customers to effectively target IT investments in channels that maximize service customization and quality.
• Correlate the customers’ channel and technology usage with their business value to see which IT assets are delivering on their investments.

“If you're developing a Customer Service strategy, it has to start with who your clients are, what [they are] trying to do, and through what channels […] and then your decision around processes have to fall out of that. If IT is trying to lead the conversation, or bring people together to lead the conversation, then marketing and whoever does segmentation has to be at the table as a huge component of this.”

Lisa Woznica, Director of Client Experience, BMO Financial Group

1.2 Be mindful of trends in the consumer and technology landscape

Building a future vision of customer service requires knowing what upcoming technologies can aid the organization.

Phase 1 – Case Study

Omnichannel support delivers a financial services firm immediate customer service results.

INDUSTRY: Financial Services

SOURCE: Mattsen Kumar

1.2 Construct your future state using a business process management approach

Documenting and evaluating your business processes serves as a good starting point for defining the overall Customer Service strategy.

• Examining key Customer Service business processes can unlock clues around the following:
  • Driving operational effectiveness.
  • Identifying, implementing, and maintaining reusable enterprise systems.
  • Identifying gaps that can be addressed by acquisition of additional systems.
• Business process modeling facilitates the collaboration between business and IT, recording the sequence of events, tasks performed, by whom they are performed, and the levels of interaction with the various supporting applications.
• By identifying the events and decision points in the process, and overlaying the people that perform the functions and technologies that support them, organizations are better positioned to identify gaps that need to be bridged.
• Encourage the analysis by compiling the inventory of Customer Service business processes that are relevant to the organization.

Info-Tech Insight

A process-oriented approach helps organizations see the complete view of the system by linking strategic requirements to business requirements, and business requirements to system requirements.

1.2 Use the APQC Framework to define your Customer Service-related processes

• APQC’s Process Classification Framework (PCF) is a taxonomy of cross-functional business processes intended to allow the objective comparison of organizational performance within and among organizations.
• Section 5 of the PCF details various levels of Customer Service business processes, useful for mapping on to your own organization’s current state.
• The APQC Framework can be accessed through the following link: APQC’s Process Classification Framework.

The APQC Framework serves as a high-level, industry-neutral enterprise model that allows organizations to see activities from a cross-industry process perspective.

Source: (Ziemba and Eisenbardt 2015)

Info-Tech Caution

The APQC framework does not list all processes within a specific organization, nor are the processes which are listed in the framework present in every organization. It is designed as a framework and global standard to be customized for use in any organization.

1.2 Each APQC process has five levels that represent its logical components

The PCF provides L1 through 4 for the Customer Service Framework.

L5 processes are task- and industry-specific and need to be defined by the organization.

Source: (APQC 2020)

This Industry Process Classification Framework was jointly developed by APQC and IBM to facilitate improvement through process management and benchmarking. ©2018 APQC and IBM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

1.2a Begin documenting business processes

4 hours

1. Using Info-Tech’s Customer Service Business Process Shortlisting Tool, list the Customer Service goals and rank them by importance.
2. Score the APQC L4 processes by relevance to the defined goals and perceived satisfaction index.
3. Define the L5 processes for the top scoring L4 process.
4. Leave Tab 5, Columns G – I for now. These columns will be revisited in activities 1.2b and 2.1a.

Download the Customer Service Business Process Shortlisting Tool

1.2 Start designing the future state of key business processes

If Customer Service transformation is called for, start with your future-state vision. Don’t get stuck in current state and the “art of the possible” within its context.

“If you're fairly immature and looking for a paradigm shift or different approach [because] you recognize you're totally doing it wrong today, then starting with documenting current state doesn't do a lot except make you sad. You don't want to get stuck in [the mindset of] ‘Here's the current state, and here’s the art of the possible.’”

Trevor Timbeck, Executive Coach, Parachute Executive Coaching

1.2 Start modeling future-state processes

Build buy-in and accountability in process owners through workshops and whiteboarding – either in-person or remotely.

Getting consensus on the process definition (who does what, when, where, why, and how) is one of the hardest parts of BPM.

Gathering process owners for a process-defining workshop isn’t easy. Getting them to cooperate can be even harder. To help manage these difficulties during the workshop, make sure to:

• Keep the scope contained to the processes being defined in order to make best use of everyone’s time, as taking time away from employees is a cost too.
• Prior to the workshop, gather information about the processes with interviews, questionnaires, and/or system data gathering and analysis.
• Use the information gathered to have real-life examples of the processes in question so that time isn’t wasted.

Info-Tech Insight

Keep meetings short and on task as tangents are inevitable. Set ground rules at the beginning of any brainstorming or whiteboarding session to ensure that all participants are aligned.

1.2 Use the five W’s to help map out your future-state processes

Define the “who, what, why, where, when, and how” of the process to gain a better understanding of individual activities.

Info-Tech Insight

It’s not just about your internal processes. To achieve higher customer retention and satisfaction, it’s also useful to map the customer service process from the customer perspective to identify customer pain points and disconnects.

1.2 Use existing in-house software as a simplistic entry point to process modeling

A diagramming tool like Visio enables you to plot process participants and actions using dedicated symbols and connectors that indicate causality.

• Models can use a stick-figure format, a cross-functional workflow format, or BPMN notation.
• Plot the key activities and decision points in the process using standard flowcharting shapes. Identify the data that belongs to each step in a separate document or as call-outs on the diagram.
• Document the flow control between steps, i.e., what causes one step to finish and another to start?

Info-Tech Best Practice

Diagramming tools can force the process designer into a specific layout: linear or cross-functional/swim lane.

• A linear format is recommended for single function and system processes.
• A swim lane format is recommended for cross-functional and cross-departmental processes.

1.2 Introduce low investment alternatives for process modeling for modeling disciplines

SaaS and low-cost modeling tools are emerging to help organizations with low to medium BPM maturity visualize their processes.

• Formal modeling tools allow a designer to model in any view and easily switch to other views to gain new perspectives on the process.
• Subscription-based, best-of-breed SaaS tools provide scalable and flexible process modeling capabilities.
• Open source and lower cost tools also exist to help distribute BPM modeling discipline and standards.
• BPMS suites incorporate advanced modeling tools with process execution engines for end-to-end business process management. Integrate process discovery with modeling, process simulation, and analysis. Deploy, monitor, and measure process models in process automation engines.

Explore SoftwareReviews’ Business Process Management market analysis by clicking here.

1.2b Model future state business processes

4 hours

1. Model the future state of the most critical business processes.
2. Use Tab 5, Columns G – H of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Business Process Shortlisting Tool to keep stock of what processes are targeted for modeling, and whether the models have been completed.

Download the Customer Service Business Process Shortlisting Tool

1.3 Start a preliminary inventory of your requirements

Use the future state business process models as a source for software requirements.

• Business process modeling deals with business requirements that can be used as the foundation for elicitation of system (functional and non-functional) requirements.
• Modeling creates an understanding of the various steps and transfers in each business process, as well as the inputs and outputs of the process.
• The future state models form an understanding of what information is needed and how it flows from one point to another in each process.
• Understand what technologies are (or can be) leveraged to facilitate the exchange of information and facilitate the process.

For each task or event in the process, ask the following questions:

• What is the input?
• What is the output?
• What are the underlying risks and how can they be mitigated?
• What conditions should be met to mitigate or eliminate each risk?
• What are the improvement opportunities?
• What conditions should be met to enable these opportunities?

Info-Tech Insight

Incorporate future considerations into the requirements. How will the system need to adapt over time to accommodate additional processes, process variations, introduction of additional channels and capabilities, etc. Do not overreach by identifying system capabilities that cannot possibly be met.

1.3 Understand the four different requirements to document

Have a holistic view for capturing the various requirements the organization has for a Customer Service strategy.

Business requirements

High-level requirements that management would typically understand.

User requirements

High-level requirements on how the tool should empower users’ lives.

Non-functional requirements

Criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a contact center. It defines how the system should perform for the organization.

Functional requirements

Outline the technical requirements for the desired contact center.

1.3 Extract requirements from the business process models

To see how, let us examine our earlier example for the Claims Process, extracting requirements from the “Record Claim” task.

1.3a Document your preliminary requirements

4 hours

1. The Applications Director and Customer Service Head are to identify participants based on the business processes that will be reviewed.
2. They are to conduct a workshop to gather all requirements that can be taken from the business process models.
3. Use Tab 4 of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool to document your preliminary requirements.

Download the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool

Phase 2

Evaluate Current State

This phase will guide you through the following activities:

2.1a Model current-state business processes for an inventory to compare against future-state models.

2.1b Compare future and current business states for a preliminary gap analysis.

2.1c Begin compiling an inventory of CS Systems by function for an overview of your current state map.

2.2a Rate your functional and integration quality to assess the performance of your application portfolio.

2.3a Compare states and propose action to bridge current business processes with viable future alternatives.

2.3b Document finalized requirements, ready to enact change.

Participants required for Phase 2:

• Applications Director
• Customer Service Director
• IT and Customer Service Representatives
• IT Managers

2.1 Document the current state of your key business processes

Doing so will solidify your understanding of the gaps, help identify any accidental omissions from the future state vision, and provide clues as to what can be salvaged.

• Analysis of the current state is important in the context of gap analysis. It aids in understanding the discrepancies between your baseline and the future-state vision, and ensuring that these gaps are recorded as part of the overall requirements.
• By analyzing the current state of key business processes, you may identify critical functions that are in place today that were not taken into consideration during the future-state business process visioning exercise.
• By overlaying the current state process models with the applications that support them, the current state models will indicate what systems and interfaces can be salvaged.
• The baseline feeds the business case, allowing the team to establish proposed benefits and improvements from implementing the future-state vision. Seek to understand the following:
  • The volumes of work
  • Major exceptions
  • Number of employees involved
  • Amount of time spent in each area of the process

2.1 Assess the current state to drive the gap analysis

Before you choose any solution, identify what needs to be done to your current state in order to achieve the vision you have defined.

• By beginning with the future state in mind, you have likely already envisioned some potential solutions.
• By reviewing your current situation in contrast with your desired future state, you can deliberate what needs to be done to bridge the gap. The differences between the models allow you to define a set of changes that must be enacted in sequence or in parallel. These represent the gaps.
• The gaps, once identified, translate themselves into additional requirements.

Assessment Example

Info-Tech Insight

It is important to allot time for the current-state analysis, confine it to the minimum effort required to understand the gaps, and identify any missing pieces from your future-state vision. Make sure the work expended is proportional to the benefit derived from this exercise.

2.1a Model current-state business processes

2 hours

1. Model the current state of the most critical business processes, using the work done in activities 1.2a and 1.2b to help identify these processes.
2. Use Tab 5, Column I of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Business Process Shortlisting Tool to keep stock of what models have been completed.
3. This tool is now complete.

Download the Customer Service Business Process Shortlisting Tool

2.1b Compare future and current business states

2 hours

1. Use Tab 9 of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool to record a summary of the future state, current state, and actions proposed in order to bridge the gaps.
   • Fill out the desired future state of the business processes and IT architecture.
   • Fill out the current state of the business processes and IT architecture.
   • Fill out the actions required to mitigate the gaps between the future and current state.

Download the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool

2.1 Assess whether Customer Service architecture can meet future-state vision

Approach your CS systems holistically to identify opportunities for system architecture optimization.

• Organizations often do not have a holistic view of their Customer Service systems. These systems are often cobbled together from disparate parts, such as:
  • Point solutions (both SaaS and on-premise).
  • Custom interfaces between applications and databases.
  • Spreadsheets and other manual workarounds.
• A high degree of interaction between multiple systems can cause distention in the application portfolio and databases, creating room for error and more work for CS and IT staff. Mapping your systems and architectural landscape can help you:
  • Identify the number of manual processes you currently employ.
  • Eliminate redundancies.
  • Allow for consolidation and/or integration.

Consider the following metrics when tracking your CS systems:

Time needed to perform core tasks (i.e., resolving a customer complaint)

Accuracy of basic information (customer history, customer product portfolio)

CSR time spent on manual process/workarounds

Info-Tech Insight

There is a two-step process to document the current state of your Customer Service systems:

1. Compile an inventory of systems by function
2. Identify points of integration across systems

2.1c Begin compiling an inventory of CS systems by function

2 hours

1. Using Tab 2 of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool, request that the CS managers fill in the application inventory template with all the CS systems that they use.
2. Questions to trigger exercise:
   • Which applications am I using?
   • Which CS function does the application support?
   • How many applications support the same function?
   • What spreadsheets or manual workarounds do I use to fill in system gaps?
3. Send the filled-in template to IT Managers to validate and fill in missing system information.

Download the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool

2.1 Use activity 2.1c for an overview of your current state map

Info-Tech Insight

A current-state map of CS systems can offer insight on:

• Coverage, i.e. whether all functional areas are supported by systems.
• Redundancies, i.e. functional areas with multiple systems. If a customer’s records are spread across multiple systems, it may be difficult to obtain a single source of truth.

2.2 Assess current state with user interface architecture diagrams

Understand a high-level overview of how your current state integrates together to rate its overall quality.

• If IT already has an architecture diagram, use this in conjunction with your application inventory for the basis of current state discussions.
• If your organization does not already have an architecture diagram for review and discussion, consider creating one in its most simplistic form using the following guidelines (see illustrative example on next slide):

Represent each of your systems as a labelled shape with a unique number (this number can be referenced in other artifacts that can provide more detail).

Color coding can also be applied to differentiate these objects, e.g., to indicate an internal system (where development is owned by your organization) vs. an external system (where development is outside of your organization’s control).

2.2 Example: Current state with user interface architecture diagrams

2.2 Evaluate application functionality and functional coverage

Use this documentation of the current state as an opportunity to spot areas for rationalizing your application portfolio.

If an application is well-received by the organization and is an overall good platform, consider acquiring more modules from the same vendor application.		If you have more than one application for a function, consider why that is and how you might consolidate into a single application.
Measure the effectiveness of applications under consideration. For example, consider the number of failures when an application attempts a function (by ticket numbers), and overall satisfaction/ease of use.		The above steps will reveal capability overlaps and application pain points and show how the overall portfolio could be made more efficient.

2.2 Determine the degree of integration between systems

Data and system integration are key components of an effective CS system portfolio.

Phase 2 – Case Study

Integrating customer relationship information streamlines customer service and increases ROI for the organization.

INDUSTRY: Retail and Wholesale

SOURCE: inContact

2.2a Rate your functional and integration quality

2 hours

1. Using Tab 5 of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool, evaluate the functionality of your applications.
2. Then, use Tab 6 of the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool to evaluate the integration of your applications.

Download the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool

2.3 Revisit and refine the future-state business processes and list of requirements

With a better understanding of the current state, determine whether the future-state models hold up. Ensure that the requirements are updated accordingly to reflect the full set of gaps identified.

• Future-state versus current-state modeling is an iterative process.
• By assessing the gaps between target state and current state, you may decide that:
  • The future state model was overly ambitious for what can reasonably be delivered in the near-term.
  • Core functions that exist today were accidentally omitted from the future state models and need to be incorporated.
  • There are systems or processes that your organization would like to salvage, and they must be worked into the future-state model.
• Once the future state vision is stabilized, ensure that all gaps have been translated into business requirements.
  • If possible, categorize all gaps by functional and non-functional requirements.

2.3a Compare states and propose action

3 hours

• Revisit Tab 9 of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool to more accurately compare your organization’s current- and future-state business processes.
• Ensure that gaps in the system architecture have been captured.

Download the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool

2.3 Prioritize and finalize the requirements

Prioritizing requirements will help to itemize initiatives and the timing with which they need to occur.

Stakeholders must ask themselves:

• What are the consequences to the business objectives if this requirement is omitted?
• Is there an existing system or manual process/workaround that could compensate for it?
• Why can’t this requirement be deferred to the next release?
• What business risk is being introduced if a particular requirement cannot be implemented right away?

2.3b Document finalized requirements

4 hours

1. Using Tab 4 of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool, evaluate your applications’ functionality, review, refine, prioritize, and finalize your requirements.
2. Review the proposed future state diagrams in activity 2.3a and distill from them the business, functional, and non-functional requirements.
3. The Applications Director and Customer Service Head are to identify participants based on the business processes that will be reviewed. They are to conduct a workshop to gather all the requirements that can be taken from the business process models.

Download the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool

Phase 3

Build Roadmap to Future State

This phase will guide you through the following activities:

3.1a Analyze future architectural posture to understand how applications within the organization ought to be arranged.

3.3a Develop a Customer Service IT Systems initiative roadmap to reach your future state.

Participants required for Phase 3:

• Applications Director
• CIO
• Customer Service Director
• Customer Service Head
• IT and Customer Service Representatives
• IT Applications Director

3.1a Analyze future architectural posture

1 hour

Review Tab 8 of the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool.

This tab plots each system that supports Customer Service on a 2x2 framework based on its functionality and integration scores. Where these systems plot on each 2x2 provides clues as to whether they should be considered for retention, functional enhancement (upgrade), increased system integration, or replacement.

• Integrate: The application is functionally rich, so integrate it with other modules by building or enhancing interfaces.
• Retain: The application satisfies both functionality and integration requirements, so it should be considered for retention.
• Replace: The application neither offers the functionality sought, nor is it integrated with other modules.
• Replace/Enhance: The module offers poor functionality but is well integrated with other modules. If enhancing for functionality is easy (e.g., through configuration or custom development), consider enhancement or replace it altogether.

Download the Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool

3.1 Interpret 3.1a’s results for next steps

Involving both sales and marketing in these discussions will provide a 360-degree view on what the modifications should accomplish.

3.1 Work through architectural considerations to narrow future states

Info-Tech Insight

Decommissioning and replacing entire applications can put well-functioning modules at risk. Make sure to drill down into the granular features to assess if the feature level performance prompts change. The goal is to make the architecture more efficient for Customer Service and easier to manage for IT. If integration has been chosen as a course of action, make sure that the spend on resources and effort is less than that on system replacement. Also make sure that the intended architecture streamlines usability for agents.

3.1 Considerations: Best-of-breeds vs. suite

If requirements extend beyond the capabilities of a best-of-breed solution, a suite of tools may be required.

3.1 Considerations: Integration and consolidation

Use Tab 7 of Info-Tech’s Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool to gauge the need for consolidation.

IT benefits

• Decreased spend on infrastructure, application acquisition, and development.
• Reduced complexity in vendor management.
• Less resources and effort spent on internal integration and functional customization.

Customer Service benefits

• Reduced user confusion and application usage efficiency.
• Increased operational visibility and ease process mapping.
• Improved data management and integrity.

Theoretical scenarios and recommendations

	Problem: Large Redundancy – multiple applications address the same function, but one application performs better than others. Recommendation: Consolidate the functions into Application 1 and consider decommissioning Applications 2 to 4.
	Problem: Large Redundancy – multiple applications address the same function, but none of them do it well. Recommendation: None of the applications perform well in functional support. Consider replacing with suite or leveraging the Application 3 vendor for functional module expansion, if feasible.

3.1 Considerations: Deployment

SaaS is typically recommended as it reduces IT support needs. However, customization limitations and higher long-term TCO values continue to be a challenge for SaaS.

3.1 Considerations: Public cloud deployment

Functionality is only one aspect of a broader range of issues to narrow down the viability of a cloud-based architecture.

3.2 Explore the customer service technology marketplace

Your requirements, gap analysis, and assessment of current applications architecture may have prompted the need for a new solutions purchase.

• Customer service technology has come a long way since PABX in 1960s call centers. Let Info-Tech give you a quick overview of the market and the major systems that revolve around Customer Service.

Info-Tech Insight

While Customer Relationships Management systems interlock several aspects of the customer journey, best-of-breed software for specific aspects of this journey could provide a better ROI if the organization’s coverage of these aspects are only “good enough” and need boosting.

3.2 The CRM software market will continue to grow at an aggressive rate

• In recent years, CRM suite solutions have matured significantly in their customer support capabilities. Much of this can be attributed to their acquisitions of smaller best-of-breed Customer Service vendors.
• Many of the larger CRM solutions (like those offered by Salesforce) have now added social media engagement, knowledge bases, and multi-channel capabilities into their foundational offering.
• CRM systems are capable of huge sophistication and integration with the core ERP, but they also have heavy license and implementation costs, and therefore may not be for everyone.
• In some cases, customers are looking to augment upon very specific capabilities that are lacking from their customer service foundation. In these cases, best-of-breed solutions ought to be integrated with a CRM, ERP, or with one another through API integration.

3.2 Utilize SoftwareReviews to focus on which CS area needs enhancing

3.2 SoftwareReviews’ data accelerates and improves the software selection process

SoftwareReviews collects and analyzes detailed reviews on enterprise software from real users to give you an unprecedented view into the product and vendor before you buy.

With SoftwareReviews:

• Access premium reports to understand the marketspace of 193 software categories.
• Compare vendors with SoftwareReviews’ Data Quadrant Reports.
• Discover which vendors have better customer relations management with SoftwareReviews’ Emotional Footprint Reports.
• Explore the Product Scorecards of single vendors for a detailed analysis of their software offerings.

3.2 Speak with category experts to dive deeper into the vendor landscape

Fact-based reviews of business software from IT professionals.

Product and category reports with state-of-the-art data visualization.

Top-tier data quality backed by a rigorous quality assurance process.

User-experience insight that reveals the intangibles of working with a vendor.

CLICK HERE to access SoftwareReviews

Comprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisions.

We collect and analyze the most detailed reviews on enterprise software from real users to give you an unprecedented view into the product and vendor before you buy.

SoftwareReviews is powered by Info-Tech.

Technology coverage is a priority for Info-Tech, and SoftwareReviews provides the most comprehensive unbiased data on today’s technology. The insights of our expert analysts provide unparalleled support to our members at every step of their buying journey.

3.2 Leverage Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework

Improve your key software selection metrics for best-of-breed customer service software.

A simple measurement of the number of days from intake to decision.	Use our Project Satisfaction Tool to measure stakeholder project satisfaction.	Use our Application Portfolio Assessment Tool annually to measure application satisfaction.	Use our Contract Review Service to benchmark and optimize your technology spending.

Learn more about Info-Tech’s The Rapid Application Selection Framework

The Rapid Application Selection Framework (RASF) is best geared toward commodity and mid-tier enterprise applications

Not all software selection projects are created equal – some are very small, some span the entire enterprise. To ensure that IT is using the right framework, understand the cost and complexity profile of the application you’re looking to select. The RASF approach is best for commodity and mid-tier enterprise applications; selecting complex applications is better handled by the methodology described in Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process.

3.3 Translate gathered requirements and gaps into project-based initiatives

Identify initiatives that can address multiple requirements simultaneously.

The Process

• You now have a list of requirements from assessing business processes and the current Customer Service IT systems architecture.
• With a viable architecture and application posture, you can now begin scoring and plotting key initiatives along a roadmap.
• Group similar requirements into categories of need and formulate logical initiatives to fulfill the requirements.
• Ensure that all requirements are related to business needs, measurable, sufficiently detailed, and prioritized, and identify initiatives that meet the requirements.

Consider this case:

Paul’s organization, a midsize consumer packaged goods retailer, needs to monitor social media for sentiment, use social analytics to gain intelligence, and receive and respond to inquiries made over Twitter.

The initiative:

Implement a social media management platform (SMMP): A SMMP is able to deliver on all of the above requirements. SMMPs are highly capable platforms that have social listening modules and allow costumer service representatives to post to and monitor social media.

3.3 Prioritize your initiatives and plan the order of rollout

Initiatives should not and cannot be tackled all at once. There are three key factors that dictate the prioritization of initiatives.

1. Value
   • What is the monetary value/perceived business value?
   • Are there regulatory or security related impacts if the initiative is not undertaken?
   • What is the time to market and is it an easily achievable goal?
   • How well does it align with the strategic direction?
2. Risk
   • How technically complex is it?
   • Does it impact existing business processes?
   • Are there ample resources and right skillsets to support it?
3. Dependencies
   • What initiatives must be undertaken first?
   • Which subsequent initiatives will it support?

Example scenario using Info-Tech’s Initiative Scoring and Roadmap Tool

An electronics distributor wants to implement social media monitoring and response. Its existing CRM does not have robust channel management functions. The organization plans to replace its CRM in the future, but because of project size and impact and budgetary constraints, the replacement project has been scheduled to occur two years from now.

• The SMMP solution proposed for implementation has a high perceived value and is low risk.
• The CRM replacement has higher value, but also carries significantly more risk.
• Option 1: Complete the CRM replacement first, and overlay the social media monitoring component afterward (as the SMMP must be integrated with the CRM).
• Option 2: Seize the easily achievable nature of the SMMP initiative. Implement it now and plan to re-work the CRM integration later.

3.3a Develop a Customer Service IT Systems initiative roadmap

1 hour

• Complete the tool as a team during a one-hour meeting to collaborate and agree on criteria and weighting.
  1. Input initiative information.
  2. Determine value and risk evaluation criteria.
  3. Evaluate each initiative to determine its priority.
  4. Create a roadmap of prioritized initiatives.

Download the Customer Service Initiative Scoring and Roadmap Tool

Document and communicate the strategy

Leverage the artifacts of this blueprint to summarize your findings and communicate the outcomes of the strategy project to the necessary stakeholders.

Document Section	Proposed Content	Leverage the Following Artifacts
Executive Summary	Introduction The opportunity The scope The stakeholders Project success measures	Project Charter section: 1.1 Project Overview 1.2 Project Objectives 1.3 Project Benefits 2.0 Scope Project RACI Chart Tool: Tab 3. Simplified Output
Background	The project approach Current situation overview Results of the environmental scan	Blueprint slides: Info-Tech’s methodology to develop your IT Strategy for CS Systems
Future-State Vision	Customer service goals Future-state modeling findings	Customer Service Business Process Shortlisting Tool: Tab 2. Customer Service Goals Tab 5. Level 5 Process Inventory Future State Business Process Models
Current Situation	Current-state modeling findings Current-state architecture findings Gap assessment Requirements	Customer Service Systems Strategy Tool: Tab 2. Inventory of Applications Tab 7. Systems Health Heat Map Tab 8. Systems Health Dashboard Tab 9. Future vs. Current State Tab 4. Requirements Collection
Summary of Recommendations	Optimization opportunities New capabilities	N/A
IT Strategy Implementation Plan	Implementation plan Business case	Customer Service Initiative Scoring and Roadmap Tool: Tab 2. CS Initiative Definition Tab 4. CS Technology Roadmap

Summary of Accomplishment

Develop an IT Strategy to Support Customer Service

With ecommerce accelerating and customer expectations rising with it, organizations must have an IT strategy to support Customer Service.

The deliverable you have produced from this blueprint provides a solution to this problem: a roadmap to a desired future state for how IT can ground an effective customer service engagement. From omnichannel to self-service, IT will be critical to enabling the tools required to digitally meet customer needs.

Begin implementing your roadmap!

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

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com

1-888-670-8889

Related Info-Tech Research

Deliver a Customer Service Training Program to Your IT Department

• One training session is not enough to make a change. Leaders must embed the habits, create a culture of engagement and positivity, provide continual coaching and development, regularly gather customer feedback, and seek ways to improve.

Build a Chatbot Proof of Concept

• When implemented effectively, chatbots can help save costs, generate new revenue, and ultimately increase customer satisfaction for both external- and internal-facing customers.

The Rapid Application Selection Framework

• Application selection is a critical activity for IT departments. Implement a repeatable, data-driven approach that accelerates application selection efforts.

Bibliography (1/2)

• Callzilla. "Software Maker Compares Call Center Companies, Switches to Callzilla After 6 Months of Results." Callzilla. N.d. Accessed: 4 Jul. 2022.
• Cisco. “Transforming Customer Service.” Cisco. 2018. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.
• Gottlieb, Giorgina. “The Importance of Data for Superior Customer Experience and Business Success.” Medium. 23 May 2019. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.
• Grand View Research. “Customer Relationship Management Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Solution, By Deployment, By Enterprise Size, By End Use, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020 – 2027.” Grand View Research. April 2020. Accessed: 17 Feb. 2021.
• inContact. “Hall Automotive Accelerates Customer Relations with inContact.” inContact. N.d. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.
• Kulbyte, Toma. “37 Customer Experience Statistics to Know in 2021.” Super Office. 4 Jan. 2021. Accessed: 5 Feb. 2021.
• Kuligowski, Kiely. "11 Benefits of CRM Systems." Business News Daily. 29 Jun. 2022. Accessed: 4 Jul. 2022.
• Mattsen Kumar. “Ominchannel Support Transforms Customer Experience for Leading Fintech Player in India.” Mattsen Kumar. 4 Apr. 2020. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.
• Microsoft. “State of Global Customer Service Report.” Microsoft. Mar. 2019. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.
• Ringshall, Ben. “Contact Center Trends 2020: A New Age for the Contact Center.” Fonolo. 20 Oct. 2020. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
• Salesforce. “State of Service.” Salesforce. 4th ed. 2020. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.
• Sopadjieva, Emma, Utpal M. Dholakia, and Beth Benjamin. “A Study of 46,000 Shoppers Shows That Omnichannel Retailing Works.” Harvard Business Review. 3 Jan. 2017. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.

Bibliography (2/2)

• Tech Pro Research. “Digital Transformation Research Report 2018: Strategy, Returns on Investment, and Challenges.” Tech Pro Research. 29 Jul. 2018. Accessed: 5 Feb. 2021.
• TSB. “TSB Bank Self-Serve Banking Increases 9% with Adobe Sign.” TSB. N.d. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.
• VoiceSage. “VoiceSage Helps Home Retail Group Transform Customer Experience.” VoiceSage. 4 May 2018. Accessed: 8 Feb. 2021.

Improve IT Team Effectiveness

Implement the four critical factors required for all high-performing teams.

Analyst Perspective

All teams need to operate effectively; however, IT teams experience unique challenges.

IT often struggles to move from an effective to a high-performing team due to the very nature of their work. They work across multiple disciplines and with multiple stakeholders.

When operating across many disciplines it can become more difficult to identify the connections or points of interactions that define effective teams and separate them from being a working group or focus on their individual performance.

IT employees also work in close partnership with multiple teams outside their IT domain, which can create confusion as to what team are they a primary member of. The tendency is to advocate for or on behalf of the team they primarily work with instead of bringing the IT mindset and alignment to IT roadmap and goals to serve their stakeholders.

Amanda Mathieson
Research Director, People & Leadership Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

The Challenge

Organizations rely on team-based work arrangements to provide organizational benefits and better navigate the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) operating environment.

This is becoming more challenging in a hybrid environment as interactions now rely less on casual encounters and must become more intentional.

A high-performing team is more than productive. They are more resilient and able to recognize opportunities. They are proactive instead of reactive due to the trust and high level of communication and collaboration.

Common Obstacles

IT teams are more unique, which also provides unique challenges other teams don't experience:

• Multiple disciplines that tend to operate in parallel versus within a sequence of events
• Multiple incumbent roles where people operate in parallel versus needing to share information to produce an outcome
• Multiple stakeholders that create a tension with competing priorities

Info-Tech's Approach

Use Info-Tech's phased approach to diagnose your team and use the IDEA model to drive team effectiveness.

The IDEA model includes four factors to identify team challenges and focus on areas for improvement: identity, decision making, exchanges within the team, and atmosphere of team psychological safety.

Info-Tech Insight

IT teams often fail to reach their full potential because teamwork presents unique challenges and complexities due to the work they do across the organization and within their own group. Silos, not working together, and not sharing knowledge are all statements that indicate a problem. As a leader it's difficult to determine what to do first to navigate the different desires and personalities on a team.

How this blueprint will help

Assess, diagnose, and address issues to realize your team's full potential.

This research helps IT support:

• Work Teams: Operate under one organizational unit or function. Their membership is generally stable with well-defined roles.
• Project Teams: Typically, are time-limited teams formed to produce a particular output or project. Their membership and expertise tend to vary over time.
• Management or Leadership Teams: Provide direction and guidance to the organization and are accountable for overall performance. Membership is structured by the hierarchy of the organization and includes a diverse set of skills, experience, and expertise.

Traditionally, organizations have tried to fix ineffective teams by focusing on these four issues: composition, leadership competencies, individual-level performance, and organizational barriers. While these factors are important, our research has shown it is beneficial to focus on the four factors of effective teams addressed in this blueprint first. Then, if additional improvement is needed, shift your focus to the traditional issue areas.

Common obstacles

These barriers make it difficult to address effectiveness for many IT teams:

• Teams do not use one standard set of processes because they may have a wide variety of assignments requiring different sets of processes.
  Source: Freshworks

• There are multiple disciplines within IT that require vastly different skill sets. Finding the connection points can be difficult when on the surface it seems like success doesn't require interconnectivity.
• IT has many people in the same roles that act independently based on the stakeholder or internal customer they are serving. This can lead to duplication of effort if information and solutions aren't shared.
• IT serves many parts of the organization that can bring competing priorities both across the groups they support and with the IT strategy and roadmap itself. Many IT leaders work directly in or for the business, which can see them associate with the internal client team more than their IT team – another layer of conflicting priorities.

IT also experience challenges with maturity and data silos

Current realities require teams to operate effectively

Teams struggle to realize their full potential

Poor Communication

To excel, teams must recognize and adapt to the unique communication styles and preferences of their members.

To find the "just right" amount of communication for your team, communication and collaboration expectations should be set upfront.

85% of tech workers don't feel comfortable speaking in meetings.
Source: Hypercontext, 2022

Decision Making

Decision making is a key component of team effectiveness. Teams are often responsible for decisions without having proper authority.

Establishing a team decision-making process becomes more complicated when appropriate decision-making processes vary according to the level of interdependency between team members and organizational culture.

20% of respondents say their organization excels at decision making.
Source: McKinsey, 2019

Resolving Conflicts

It is common for teams to avoid/ignore conflict – often out of fear. People fail to see how conflict can be healthy for teams if managed properly.

Leaders assume mature adults will resolve conflicts on their own. This is not always the case as people involved in conflicts can lack an objective perspective due to charged emotions.

56% of respondents prioritize restoring harmony in conflict and will push own needs aside.
Source: Niagara Institute, 2022

Teams with a shared purpose are more engaged and have higher performance

Increased Engagement

Effective and high-performing teams exchange information freely. They are clear on the purpose and goals of the organization, which enable empowerment.

Info-Tech Insight

Clear decision-making processes allow employees to focus on getting the work done versus navigating the system.

Case Study

Project Aristotle at Google – What makes a team effective at Google?

INDUSTRY: Technology
SOURCE: reWork

Challenge

Google wanted to clearly define what makes a team effective to drive a consistent meaning among its employees. The challenge was to determine more than quantitative measures, because more is not always better as it can just mean more mistakes to fix, and include the qualitative factors that bring some groups of people together better than others.

Solution

There was no pattern in the data it studied so Google stepped back and defined what a team is before embarking on defining effectiveness. There is a clear difference between a work group (a collection of people with little interdependence) and a team that is highly interdependent and relies on each other to share problems and learn from one another. Defining the different meanings took time and Google found that different levels of the organization were defining effectiveness differently.

Results

Google ended up with clear definitions that were co-created by all employees, which helped drive the meaning behind the behaviors. More importantly it was also able to define factors that had no bearing on effectiveness; one of which is very relevant in today's hybrid world – colocation.

It was discovered that teams need to trust, have clarity around goals, have structure, and know the impact their work has.

Overcoming barriers

Teams often lack the skills or knowledge to increase effectiveness and performance.

• Leaders struggle with team strife and ineffectiveness.
• A leader's ability to connect with and engage team members is vital for driving desired outcomes. However, many team leads struggle to deal with low-performing or conflict-ridden teams.
• Without adequate training on providing feedback, coaching, and managing difficult conversations, team leads often do not have the skills to positively affect team performance – and they do not appreciate the impact their actions have on desired outcomes.
• Team leads often find it difficult to invest time and resources in addressing challenges when the team is working toward deadlines.
• Team leads who are new to a management role within the organization often struggle to transition from independent contributor to leader – especially when they are tasked with managing team members who are former peers.
• Some team leads believe that soliciting help will be viewed as a personal failure, so they are reluctant to seek support for team performance management from more-senior leaders.

It's unrealistic to expect struggling teams to improve without outside help; if they were able to, they would have already done so.
To improve, teams require:

• A clearly defined team identity
• A clearly defined decision-making paradigm
• Consistently productive exchanges within the team
• An atmosphere of psychological safety

BUT these are the very things they are lacking when they're struggling.

Improving team effectiveness

Use the Info-Tech IDEA Model to assess and improve your team's effectiveness.

Begin by assessing, recognizing, and addressing challenges in:

• Identity – team goals, roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities
• Decision-making paradigms and processes within the team.
• Exchanges of information, motivation, and emotions between team members
• Atmosphere of team psychological safety

IDEA Model of Team Effectiveness

Effective Team

• Identity
• Decisions
• Exchanges
• Atmosphere

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

A typical GI is 6 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop Overview

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

Phase 1

Assess the team

Improving team effectiveness

Use the Info-Tech IDEA Model to assess and improve your team's effectiveness

Begin by assessing, recognizing, and addressing challenges in:

• Identity – team goals, roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.
• Decision-making paradigms and processes within the team.
• Exchanges of information, motivation, and emotions between team members.
• Atmosphere of team psychological safety.

Effective Team

• Identity
• Decisions
• Exchanges
• Atmosphere

Assess the shared understanding of team identity

In addition to having a clear understanding of the team's goals and objectives, team members must also:

• Understand their own and each other's roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.
• Recognize and appreciate the value of each team member.
• Realize how their actions impact each others' work and the overall goals and objectives.
• Understand that working in silos is considered a work group whereas a team coordinates activities, shares information, and supports each other to achieve their goals.

Clear goals enable employees to link their contributions to overall success of the team. Those who feel their contributions are important to the success of the department are two times more likely to feel they are part of a team working toward a shared goal compared to those who don't (McLean & Company, Employee Engagement Survey, IT respondents, 2023; N=4,551).

Goals matter in teamwork

The goals and objectives of the team are the underlying reason for forming the team in the first place. Without a clear and agreed-upon goal, it is difficult for teams to understand the purpose of their work.

Clear goals support creating clear roles and the contributions required for team success.

Assess the shared understanding of decision making

Decision making adds to the complexity of teamwork.
Individual team members hold different information and opinions that need to be shared to make good decisions.
Ambiguous decision-making processes can result in team members being unable to continue their work until they get clear direction.
The most appropriate decision-making process depends on the type of team:

• The higher the degree of interconnectivity in team members' work, the greater the need for a general consensus approach to decision making. However, if you opt for a general consensus approach, a backup decision-making method must be identified in the event consensus cannot be reached.
• High-pressure and high-stakes environments tend to centralize decision making to make important decisions quickly.
• Low-pressure and low-stakes environments are more likely to adopt consensus models.

Ensure team members understand how decisions are made within the team. Ask:

• Do team members recognize the importance of sharing information, opinions, and suggestions?
• Do team members feel their voices are heard?
• Must there be consensus between all team members?
• Is there a single decision maker?

Assess team exchanges by focusing on communication

Evaluate exchanges within your team using two categories:

These categories are related, but there is not always overlap. While some conflicts involve failures to successfully exchange information, conflict can also occur even when everyone is communicating successfully.

Successful exchange behaviors

• Shared understanding of how to motivate one another and how team members respond emotionally.
• Team moving beyond conflict to united action.
• Formalized processes used for resolving conflicts.
• Platforms provided for expressing diverse or conflicting perspectives and opinions – and used in a constructive manner.
• Use of agendas at meetings as well as clearly defined action items that reflect meeting outcomes.
• Avoidance of language that is exclusive, such as jargon and inside jokes.

Exchanges of information, emotion, and motivation

When selecting a method of communication (for example, in-person versus email), consider how that method will impact the exchange of all three aspects – not just information.

Downplaying the importance of emotional and motivational exchanges and focusing solely on information is very risky since emotional and motivational exchanges can impact human relationships and team psychological safety.

• Information: data or opinions.
• Emotions: feelings and evaluations about the data or opinions.
• Motivations: what we feel like doing in response to the data or opinions.

Communication affects the whole team

Effects are not limited to the team members communicating directly:

• How team members interact one on one transmits information and causes emotional and motivational responses in other group members not directly involved.
• How the larger group receives information, emotions, and motivations will also impact how individuals relate to each other in group settings.

Remember to watch the reactions and behavior of participants and observers when assessing how the team behaves.

Managing conflict

Identify how conflict management is embedded into team practices.

• Resolving conflicts is difficult and uses up a lot of time and energy. This is especially true if the team needs to figure out what to do each and every time people disagree.
• Teams that take the time to define conflict resolution processes upfront:
  • Demonstrate their commitment to resolving conflict in a healthy way.
  • Signal that diverse perspectives and opinions are valued, even if they spur disagreement sometimes.
  • Are ready for conflict when it arises – prepared to face it and thrive.

Successfully communicating information, emotions, and motivations is not the same as managing conflict.

Teams that are communicating well are more likely to uncover conflicting perspectives and opinions than teams that are not.

Conflict is healthy and can be an important element of team success if it is managed.

The team should have processes in place to resolve conflicts and move to united action.

Assess the atmosphere

Team psychological safety

A team atmosphere that exists when all members feel confident that team members can do the following without suffering negative interpersonal consequences such as blame, shame, or exclusion:

• Admit mistakes
• Raise questions or concerns
• Express dissenting views

(Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999;
The New York Times, 2016)

What psychologically safe teams look like:

• Open and learning-focused approach to error.
• Effective conflict management within the team.
• Emotional and relational awareness between team members.
• Existence of work-appropriate interpersonal relationships between team members (i.e. beyond mere working relationships).

(Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999;
The New York Times, 2016)

What "team psychological safety" is not:

• A situation where all team members are friends.
  In some cases psychologically safe team atmospheres might be harder to create when team members are friends since they might be more reluctant to challenge or disagree with friends.
• Merely trust. Being able to rely on people to honor their commitments is not the same as feeling comfortable admitting mistakes in front of them or disagreeing with them.

"Psychological safety refers to an individual's perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk or a belief that a team is safe for risk taking in the face of being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive… They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea."

– re:Work

Psychological safety

The impact of psychological safety on team effectiveness

Why does an atmosphere of team psychological safety matter?

• Prevents groupthink.
  • People who do not feel safe to hold or express dissenting views gravitate to teams that think like they do, resulting in the well-known dangers of groupthink.
• Encourages contribution and co-operation.
  • One study found that if team psychological safety is present, even people who tend to avoid teamwork will be more likely to contribute in team settings, thereby increasing the diversity of perspectives that can be drawn on (Journal of Organizational Culture, 2016).

Creating psychological safety in a hybrid environment requires a deliberate approach to creating team connectedness.

In the Info-Tech State of Hybrid Work in IT report autonomy and team connectedness present an interesting challenge in that higher levels of autonomy drove higher perceptions of lack of connectedness to the respondent's team. In a hybrid world, this means leaders need to be intentional in creating a safe team dynamic.

47% of employees who experienced more control over their decisions related to where, when, and how they work than before the pandemic are feeling less connected to their teams.
Source: Info-Tech, State of Hybrid Work in IT, 2022

1.1 Prepare to launch the survey

1-2 hours

1. Review and record the objectives and outcomes that support your vision of a high-performing team:
   1. Why is this important to you?
   2. What reactions do you anticipate from the team?
2. In your team meeting, share your vision of what a high-performing team looks like. Engage the team in a discussion:
   1. Ask how they work. Ask them to describe their best working team environment from a previous experience or an aspirational one.
   2. Option: Instruct them to write on sticky notes, one idea per note, and share. This approach will allow for theming of ideas.
3. Introduce the survey as a way, together as a team, the current state can be assessed against the desired state discussed.
   1. Be clear that as the leader, you won't be completing the survey as you don't want to influence their perceptions of the team. As the leader, you hold authority, and therefore, experience the team differently. This is about them and their feedback.

Input

• Observations of team behavior
• Clearly articulated goals for team cohesion

Output

• Speaking notes for introducing survey
• Survey launch

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Sticky notes
• IDEA Assessment

Participants

• Leader
• Team Members

Download the IT Team Effectiveness Survey

1.2 Launch the survey

1-2 hours

1. Determine how the survey will be completed.
   1. Paper-based
      1. Email a copy of the Word document IT Team Effectiveness Survey for each person to complete individually.
      2. Identify one person to collect each survey and enter the results into the team effectiveness survey tool (tab 2. Data – Effectiveness Answers and tab 3. Data – Team Type Answers). This must be someone outside the team.
   2. Online direct input into Team Effectiveness Survey Tool
      1. Post the document in a shared folder.
      2. Instruct individuals to select one of the numbered columns and enter their information into tab 2. Data – Effectiveness Answers and tab 3. Data – Team Type Answers.
      3. To protect anonymity and keep results confidential, suggest each person opens document in "Cognito mode."
      4. Hide the Summary and Results tabs to avoid team members previewing them.

Download the IT Team Effectiveness Survey Results Tool

Paper-Based Cautions & Considerations

• Heavily dependent on a trusted third party for genuine results
• Can be time consuming to enter the results

Online Direct Cautions & Considerations

• Ensure that users keep to the same numbered column across both entry tabs
• Seeing other team members' responses may influence others
• Least amount of administration

Phase 2

Review Results and Action Plan

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Analyzing and debriefing the results to determine themes and patterns to come to a team consensus on what to focus on.
• Facilitated activities to drive awareness, build co-created definitions of what an effective team looks like, and identify solutions the team can undertake to be more effective.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Leader of the team
• All team members

Deliverables:

• A presentation that communicates the team assessment results
• A plan for effectively delivering the assessment results

Phase 2: Build a plan to review results and create an action plan

Reviewing assessment results and creating an improvement action plan is best accomplished through a team meeting.

Analyzing and preparing for the team meeting may be done by:

• The person charged with team effectiveness (i.e. team coach).
• For teams that are seriously struggling with team effectiveness, the coach should complete this step in its entirety.
• The team coach and the team lead.
• Truly effective teams are self-reliant. Begin upskilling team leads by involving team leads from the start.

1. Analyze team assessment results
2. Prepare to communicate results to the team
3. Select team activities that will guide the identification of action items and next steps
4. Facilitate the team meeting

2.1 Analyze results

Health Dials

1. Once the results are final, review the Health Dials for each of the areas.
   1. For each area of the team's effectiveness
      • Red indicates a threat – this will derail the team and you will require an external person to help facilitate conversations.
        It would be recommended to contact us for additional guidance if this is one of your results.
      • Yellow is a growth opportunity.
      • Green is a strength and pay attention to where the dial is – deep into strength or just past the line?
   2. Think about these questions and record your initial reactions.
      1. What surprises you – either positively or negatively?
      2. What areas are as expected?
      3. What behaviors are demonstrated that support the results?

Prioritize one to two factors for improvement by selecting those with:

• The lowest overall score.
• The highest variance in responses.
• If psychological safety is low, be sure to prioritize this factor; it is the foundation of any effective team.

2.2 Analyze results

Alignment of Responses

1. The alignment of responses area provides you with an overview of the range of responses from the team for each area.
   • The more variety in the bars indicates how differently each person is experiencing the team.
   • The more aligned the bars are the more shared the experiences.

The flatter the bars are across the top, the more agreement there was. Factors that show significant differences in opinion should be discussed to diagnose what is causing the misalignment within your team.

2. Recommendation is to look at high scores and the alignment and lower scores and the alignment to determine where you may want to focus.

The alignment chart below shows varied responses; however, there are two distinct patterns. This will be an important area to review.
Things to think about:

• Are there new team members?
• Has there been a leadership change?
• Has there been a change that has impacted the team?

2.3 Analyze results

Team Characteristics and Stakes

1. Team Characteristics. Use the Team Type Results tab in the IT Team Effectiveness Assessment Tool to identify how the team characterizes itself along the High-Low Scale. The closer the dark blue bar is to the right or left suggests to which degree the team views the characteristic.
   1. Interdependence highlights the team's view on how interconnected and dependent they are on each other to get work done. Think of examples where they should be sharing or collaborating, and they are not.
   2. Virtual describes the physicality of the team. This area has changed a lot since 2020; however, it's still important to note if the team shares the same understanding of work location. Are they thinking of team members in a different geography or referring to hybrid work?
   3. Decision making describes the scale of one decision maker or many. Where are most decisions made by on your team or who is making them?
   4. Stability refers to the degree to which the team stays the same – no membership change or turnover. It can be defined by length of time the group has been together. Looking at this will help understand alignment results. If alignment is varied, one might expect a less stable team.
2. Stakes and Pressure
   1. Pressure refers to the conditions in which the team must work. How urgent are requests?
   2. Stakes refers to the degree of impact the work has. Will outputs impact safety, health, or a service?
   3. This category can be reviewed against decision making – high pressure, high stakes environments usually have a high concentration of authority. Low pressure, low stakes decisions can also be made either by one person as there is relatively no impact or with many as you have time to get many perspectives.
   4. This area informs what your decision-making protocols should look like.

2.4 Prepare for meeting

1-2 hours

1. Select a facilitator
   • The right person to facilitate the meeting and present the results is dependent upon the results themselves, the team lead's comfort level, and the root and degree of team dysfunction.
   • Typically, the team lead will facilitate and present the results. However, it will be more appropriate to have a member of the HR team or an external third party facilitate.
2. Set the agenda (recommended sample to the right) that ensures:
   • Team members reflect on the results and discuss reaction to the results. (E.g. Are they surprised? Why/why not?)
   • Results are clearly understood and accepted by team members before moving on to activities.
   • The aim of the meeting is kept in mind. The purpose of the team meeting is to involve all team members in the creation of an effectiveness improvement plan.
3. Customize the Facilitation Guide and activities in the Improve IT Team Effectiveness Facilitation Guide. (Activities are aligned with the four factors in the IDEA model.)
   • Identify a clear objective for each activity given the team assessment results. (E.g. What are the areas of improvement? What is the desired outcome of the activity?)
   • Review and select the activities that will best achieve the objectives.
   • Customize and prepare for chosen activities appropriately.
   • Obtain all necessary materials.
   • Practice by anticipating and preparing for questions, objectives, and what you will say and do.

Facilitation Factors
Select a third-party facilitator if:

• The team lead is uncomfortable.
• The leadership or organization is implicated in the team's dysfunction, a third party can be sought in place of HR.
• Regardless of who facilitates, it is critical that the team lead understands the process and results and is comfortable answering any questions that arise.

Agenda

• Review the IDEA Model.
• Discuss the assessment results.
• Invite team members to reflect on the results and discuss reaction to the results.
• Ensure results are clearly understood and accepted.
• Examine team challenges and strengths through selected team activities.
• Create a team charter and effectiveness improvement plan.

Materials

• IT Team Effectiveness Activities Facilitation Guide
• IT Team Effectiveness Survey results

Participants

• Leader

2.5 Run the meeting

2-3 hours

Facilitate the team meeting and agree on the team effectiveness improvement plan.

Work with the team to brainstorm and agree on an action plan of continuous improvements.

By creating an action plan together with the team, there is greater buy-in and commitment to the activities identified within the action plan.

Don't forget to include timelines and task owners in the action plan – it isn't complete without them.

Document final decisions in Info-Tech's Improve IT Team Effectiveness Action Plan Tool.

Review activity Develop Team Charter in the Improve IT Team Effectiveness Facilitation Guide and conclude the team meeting by creating a team charter. With a team charter, teams can better understand:

• Team objectives
• Team membership and roles
• Team ground rules

Facilitation Factors

Encourage and support participation from everyone.

Be sure no one on the team dismisses anyone's thoughts or opinions – they present the opportunity for further discussion and deeper insight.

Watch out for anything said or done during the activities that should be discussed in the activity debrief.

Debrief after each activity, outlining any lessons learned, action items, and next steps.

Agenda

• Review the IDEA Model.
• Discuss the assessment results.
• Invite team members to reflect on the results and discuss reaction to the results.
• Ensure results are clearly understood and accepted.
• Examine team challenges and strengths through selected team activities.
• Create a team charter and effectiveness improvement plan.

Materials

• IT Team Effectiveness Activities Facilitation Guide
• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Sticky notes
• IT Team Effectiveness Survey results

Participants

• Leader
• Team Members
• Optional – External Facilitator

Phase 3

Document and measure

This phase will walk you through the following activities:
Building your team charter that will include:

• Team vision, mission, and goals
• Roles and responsibilities of each member
• Decision-making responsibilities and process
• How information will be shared and by whom
• Ways to build psychological safety on the team

This phase involves the following participants:

• Leader of the team
• All team members

Document and agree to regular check-ins to reassess.

As a team it will be important to drive your brainstormed solutions into an output that is co-created.

• Agree to what actions can be implemented.
• Capture agreed-to team goals, roles, responsibilities, and decision process into a team charter. Also include your communication protocol that articulates how information will be shared in future.

1. Review suggestions and actions
2. Capture in team charter
3. Assign metrics to measure success and determine when to review
4. Complete ongoing check-ins with team through team meeting and plan to reassess if agreed to

Team Charter

Never assume everyone "just knows."

Set clear expectations for the team's interactions and behaviors.

• Some teams call this a team agreement, team protocol, or ways of working. Determine the naming convention that works best for your team and culture.
• This type of document saw a renewed popularity during COVID-19 as face-to-face interactions were more difficult, and as teams, news ways to work needed to be discovered, shared, and documented.
• A co-created team charter is a critical component to onboarding new employees in the hybrid world.

Info-Tech Insight – State of Hybrid Work in IT

One contributor to the report shared the effort and intention around maintaining their culture during the pandemic. The team agreement created became a critical tool to enable conversations between leaders and their team – it was not a policy document.

Team effectiveness is driven through thoughtful planned conversations. And it's a continued conversation.

Download the IT Team Charter Template

Establish Baseline Metrics

Baseline metrics will be improved through:

Identify the impact that improved team effectiveness will have on the organization.
Determine your baseline metrics to assess the success of your team interventions and demonstrate the impact to the rest of the organization using pre-determined goals and metrics.
Share success stories through:

• Newsletters or email announcements
• Team meetings
• Presentations to business partners or the organization

Reassess team effectiveness

Reassess and identify trends after they have worked on key focus areas for improvement.

Track the team's progress by reassessing their effectiveness six to twelve months after the initial assessment.
Identify if:

• Team characteristics have changed.
• Areas of team strengths are still a source of strength.
• Areas for improvement have, in fact, improved.
• There are opportunities for further improvement.

As the team matures, priorities and areas of concern may shift; it is important to regularly reassess team effectiveness to ensure ongoing alignment and suitability.
Note: It is not always necessary to conduct a full formal assessment; once teams become more effective and self-sufficient, informal check-ins by team leads will be sufficient.

If you assess team effectiveness for multiple teams, you have the opportunity to identify trends:

• Are there common challenges within teams?
• If so, what are they?
• How comfortable are teams with intervention?
• How often is outside help required?

Identifying these trends, initiatives, training, or tactics may be used to improve team effectiveness across the department – or even the organization.

Teams are ultimately accountable for their own effectiveness.

As teams mature, the team lead should become less involved in action planning. However, enabling truly effective teams takes significant time and resources from the team lead.

Use the action plan created and agreed upon during the team meeting to hold teams accountable:

• Ensure teams follow through on action items.
• Ensure you are continuously assessing team effectiveness (formally or informally).

The team coach should have a plan to transition into a supportive role by:

• Providing teams with the knowledge, resources, and tools required to improve and sustain high effectiveness.
• Providing team members and leads with a safe, open, and honest environment.
• Stepping in as an objective third party when required.

If the team continues to face barriers

Other important information: If team effectiveness has not significantly improved, other interventions may be required that are beyond the scope of this project.

The four factors outlined in the IDEA Model of team effectiveness are very important, but they are not the only things that have a positive or negative impact on teams. If attempts to improve the four factors have not resulted in the desired level of team effectiveness, evaluate other barriers:

For organizational culture, ask if performance and reward programs do the following:

• Value teamwork alongside individual achievement and competition
• Provide incentives that promote a focus on individual performance over team performance
• Reward or promote those who sabotage their teams

For learning and development, ask:

• Is team effectiveness included in our manager or leadership training?
• Do we offer resources to employees seeking to improve their teamwork competencies?

If an individual team member's or leader's performance is not meeting expectations, potential remedies include a performance improvement plan, reassignment, and termination of employment.

These kinds of interventions are beyond the control of the team itself. In these cases, we recommend you consult with your HR department; HR professionals can be important advocates because they possess the knowledge, influence, and authority in the company to promote changes that support teamwork.

Related Info-Tech Research

Redesign Your IT Department

• You could have the best IT employees in the world, but if they aren't structured well your organization will still fail in reaching its vision.
• Increase the effectiveness of IT as a function.
• Provide employees with clarity in their roles and responsibilities.

Build an IT Employee Engagement Program

• With the growing IT job market, turnover is a serious threat to IT's ability to deliver seamless value and continuously drive innovation.
• Engagement initiatives are often seen as being HR's responsibility; however, IT leadership needs to take accountability for the retention and productivity of their employees in order to drive business value.

Info-Tech Leadership Programs

• Development of the leadership mind should never stop. This program will help IT leaders continue to craft their leadership competencies to navigate the ever-changing world in which we operate.
• Actively delegate responsibilities and opportunities that engage and develop team members to build on current skills and prepare for the future.

Research Contributors and Experts

Carlene McCubbin
Practice Lead
Info-Tech Research Group

Nick Kozlo
Senior Research Analyst
Info-Tech Research Group

Heather Leier-Murray
Senior Research Analyst
Info-Tech Research Group

Stephen O'Conner
Executive Counselor
Info-Tech Research Group

Jane Kouptsova
Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Dr. Julie D. Judd, Ed.D.
Chief Technology Officer
Ventura County Office of Education

Works Cited

Aminov, I., A. DeSmet, and G. Jost. "Decision making in the age of urgency." McKinsey. April 2019. Accessed January 2023.
Duhigg, Charles. "What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team." The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2016. Accessed January 2023.
Edmondson, Amy. "Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams." Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2, June 1999, pp. 350-383.
Gardner, Kate. "Julie Judd – Ventura County Office of Education." Toggle, 12 Sept. 2022. Accessed January 2023.
Google People Operations. "Guide: Understand Team Effectiveness." reWork, n.d. Accessed February 2023.
Harkins, Phil. "10 Leadership Techniques for Building High-Performing Teams." Linkage Inc., 2014. Accessed 10 April 2017.
Heath, C. and D. Heath. Decision: How to make better choices in life and work. Random House, 2013, ISBN 9780307361141.
Hill, Jon. "What is an Information Silo and How Can You Avoid It." Bloomfire, 23 March 2022. Accessed January 2023.
"IT Team Management Software for Enhanced Productivity." Freshworks, n.d. Accessed January 2023.
Jackson, Brian. "2022 Tech Trends." Info-Tech Research Group, 2022. Accessed December 2022.
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2011.
Kouptsova, J., and A. Mathieson. "State of Hybrid Work in IT." Info-Tech Research Group, 2023. Accessed January 2023.
Mayfield, Clifton, et al. "Psychological Collectivism and Team Effectiveness: Moderating Effects of Trust and Psychological Safety." Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, vol. 20, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 78-94.
Rock, David. "SCARF: A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating With and Influencing Others." NeuroLeadership Journal, 2008. Web.
"The State of High Performing Teams in Tech Hypercontext." Hypercontext. 2022. Accessed November 2022.
Weick, Carl, and Kathleen Sutcliff. Managing the unexpected. John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
"Workplace Conflict Statistics: How we approach conflict at work." The Niagara Institute, August 2022. Accessed December 2022.

Map Your Business Architecture to Define Your Strategy

Plan your organization’s capabilities for best impact and value.

Info-Tech Research Group

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

Analyst perspective

Know your organization’s capabilities to build a digital and customer-driven culture.

Business architecture provides a holistic and unified view of:

• All the organization’s activities that provide value to their clients (value streams).
• The resources that make them possible and effective (capabilities, i.e. its employees, software, processes, information).
• How they inter-relate, i.e. depend on and impact each other to help deliver value.

Without a business architecture it is difficult to see the connections between the business’s activities for the customer and the IT resources supporting them – to demonstrate that what we do in IT is customer-driven.

As a map of your business, the business architecture is an essential input to the digital strategy:

• Develop a plan to transform the business by investing in the most important capabilities.
• Ensure project initiatives are aligned with business goals as they evolve.
• Respond more quickly to customer requirements and to disruptions in the industry by streamlining operations and information sharing across the enterprise.

Crystal Singh
Research Director, Data and Analytics
Info-Tech Research Group

Andrea Malick
Research Director, Data and Analytics
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Info-Tech Insight
Business architecture is the set of strategic planning techniques that connects organization strategy to execution in a manner that is accurate and traceable and promotes the efficient use of organizational resources.

Blueprint activities summary

Info-Tech’s workshop methodology

Key concepts for this blueprint

Info-Tech’s approach

Business architecture is a planning function that connects strategy to execution

Business architecture provides a framework that connects business strategy and IT strategy to project execution through a set of models that provide clarity and actionable insights. How well do you know your business?

Business architecture is:

• Inter-disciplinary: Business architecture is a core planning activity that supports all important decisions in the organization, for example, organizational resources planning. It’s not just about IT.
• Foundational: The best way to answer the question, “Where do we start?” or “Where is our investment best directed?”, comes from knowing your organization, what its core functions and capabilities are (i.e. what’s important to us as an organization), and where there is work to do.
• Connecting: Digital transformation and modernization cannot work with siloes. Connecting siloes means first knowing the organization and its functions and recognizing where the siloes are not communicating.

Business architecture must be branded as a front-end planning function to be appropriately embedded in the organization’s planning process.

Brand business architecture as an early planning pre-requisite on the basis of maintaining clarity of communication and spreading an accurate awareness of how strategic decisions are being made.

As an organization moves from strategy toward execution, it is often unclear as to exactly how decisions pertaining to execution are being made, why priority is given to certain areas, and how the planning function operates.

The business architect’s primary role is to model this process and document it.

In doing so, the business architect creates a unified view as to how strategy connects to execution so it is clearly understood by all levels of the organization.

Business architecture is part of the enterprise architecture framework

Business architecture is a set of shared and practical views of the enterprise

The key characteristic of the business architecture is that it represents real-world aspects of a business, along with how they interact.

Many different views of an organization are typically developed. Each view is a diagram that illustrates a way of understanding the enterprise by highlighting specific information about it:

• Business strategy view captures the tactical and strategic goals that drive an organization forward.
• Business capabilities view describes the primary business functions of an enterprise and the pieces of the organization that perform those functions.
• Value stream view defines the end-to-end set of activities that deliver value to external and internal stakeholders.
• Business knowledge view establishes the shared semantics (e.g. customer, order, and supplier) within an organization and relationships between those semantics (e.g. customer name, order date, supplier name) – an information map.
• Organizational view captures the relationships among roles, capabilities, and business units, the decomposition of those business units into subunits, and the internal or external management of those units.

Business architect connects all the pieces

The business owns the strategy and operating model; the business architect connects all the pieces together.

Choose a key business challenge to address with business architecture

Picking the right project is critical to setting the tone for business architecture work in the organization.

Best practices for business architecture success

Consider these best practices to maintain a high level of engagement from key stakeholders throughout the process of establishing or applying business architecture.

Balance short-term cost savings with long-term benefits

Participate in project governance to facilitate compliance

Create a center of excellence to foster dialogue

Value streams: Understand how you deliver value today

It is important to understand the different value-generating activities that deliver an outcome for and from your customers.

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

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

An organization can have more than one set of streams.
For example, an enterprise can provide both retail shopping and financial services, such as credit cards.

Define the organization’s value streams

• Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the market place by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment an organization operates within. Value streams can extend beyond the organization into the supporting ecosystem, whereas business processes are contained within and the organization has complete control over them.
• There are two types of value streams: core value streams and support value streams. Core value streams are mostly externally facing: they deliver value to either an external or internal customer and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map. Support value streams are internally facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.
• An effective method for ensuring all value streams have been considered is to understand that there can be different end-value receivers. Info-Tech recommends identifying and organizing the value streams with customers and partners as end-value receivers.

Example: Value stream descriptions for the retail industry

Value streams describe your core business

Value streams – the activities we do to provide value to customers – require business capabilities.

Value streams are broken down further into value stages, for example, the Sell Product value stream has value stages Evaluate Options, Place Order, and Make Payment.

Think of value streams as the core operations: the reason for your organization’s being. A professional consulting organization may have a legal team but it does not brand itself as a law firm. A core value stream is providing research products and services; a business capability that supports it is legal counsel.

Decompose the value stream into stages

The stages of a value stream are usually action-oriented statements or verbs that make up the individual steps involved throughout the scope of the value stream, e.g. Place Order or Make Payment.

Each value stream should have a trigger or starting point and an end result for a client or receiver.

There should be measurable value or benefits at each stage. These are key performance indicators (KPIs). Spot problem areas in the stream.

Value streams usually fall into one of these categories:

1. Fulfillment of products and services
2. Manufacturing
3. Software products
4. Supporting value streams (procurement of supplies, product planning)

Value streams need capabilities

• Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the market place by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.
• There are two types of value streams: core value streams and support value streams. Core value streams are mostly externally facing: they deliver value to either an external or internal customer and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map. Support value streams are internally facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.
• There can be different end-value receivers. Info-Tech recommends identifying and organizing the value streams with customers and partners as end-value receivers.

Value streams need business capabilities

Business capabilities are built up to allow the business to perform the activities that bring value to customers. Map capabilities to the value-add activities in the value stream. Business capabilities lie at the top layer of the business architecture:

• They are the most stable reference for planning organizations.
• They make strategy more tangible.
• If properly defined, they can help overcome organizational silos.

Example business capability map – Higher Education

A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organization’s business capabilities and represents a view of what your data program must support.

Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

Example business capability map for: Higher Education

Example business capability map – Local Government

Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organization’s business capabilities and represents a view of what your data program must support.

Example business capability map for: Local Government

Value streams need business capabilities

Value streams – the activities we do to provide value to customers – require business capabilities. Value streams are broken down further into value stages.

Business capabilities are built up to allow the business to perform the activities that bring value to customers. Map capabilities to the activities in the value stage to spot opportunities and problems in delivering services and value.

Business processes fulfill capabilities. They are a step-by-step description of who is performing what to achieve a goal. Capabilities consist of networks of processes and the resources – people, technology, materials – to execute them.

Capability = Processes + Software, Infrastructure + People

Prioritize a value stream and identify its supporting capabilities

Prioritize your improvement objectives and business goals and identify a value stream to transform.

Align the business objectives of your organization to your value streams (the critical actions that take place within your organization to add value to a customer).

Prioritize a value stream to transform based on the number of priorities aligned to a value stream, and/or the business value (e.g. revenue, EBITDA earnings, competitive differentiation, or cost efficiency).

Decompose the selected value stream into value stages.

Align capabilities level 1 and 2 to value stages. One capability may support several value stages in the stream.

Build a business architecture for the prioritized value stream with a map of business capabilities up to level 2.

NOTE: We can’t map all capabilities all at once: business architecture is an ongoing practice; select key mapping initiatives each year based on business goals.

Map business capabilities to Level 2

Map capabilities to value stage

Business value realization

Business value defines the success criteria of an organization as manifested through organizational goals and outcomes, and it is interpreted from four perspectives:

• Profit generation: The revenue generated from a business capability with a product that is enabled with modern technologies.
• Cost reduction: The cost reduction when performing business capabilities with a product that is enabled with modern technologies.
• Service enablement: The productivity and efficiency gains of internal business operations from products and capabilities enhanced with modern technologies.
• Customer and market reach: The improved reach and insights of the business in existing or new markets.

Value, goals, and outcomes cannot be achieved without business capabilities

Break down your business goals into strategic and achievable initiatives focused on specific value streams and business capabilities.

Accelerate the process with an industry business architecture

It’s never a good idea to start with a blank page.

The business capability map available from Info-Tech and with industry standard models can be used as an accelerator. Assemble the relevant stakeholders – business unit leads and product/service owners – and modify the business capability map to suit your organization’s context.

Acceleration path: Customize generic capability maps with the assistance of our industry analysts.

Identify goals and drivers

Consider organizational goals and industry forces when planning.

Use inputs from business goals and strategies to understand priorities.

It is not necessary to have a comprehensive business strategy document to start – with key stakeholders, the business architect should be able to gather a one-page business value canvas or customer journey.

Determine how the organization creates value

Begin the process by identifying and locating the business mission and vision statements.

What is business context?

“The business context encompasses an understanding of the factors impacting the business from various perspectives, including how decisions are made and what the business is ultimately trying to achieve. The business context is used by IT to identify key implications for the execution of its strategic initiatives.”

Source: Businesswire, 2018

Identify the key stakeholders who can help you promote the value of business architecture

First, as the CIO, you must engage executive stakeholders and secure their support.
Focus on key players who have high power and high interest in business architecture.

Engage the stakeholders who are impacted the most and have the power to impede the success of business architecture.

For example, if the CFO – who has the power to block funding – is disengaged, business architecture will be put at risk.

Use Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Power Map Template to help prioritize time spent with stakeholders.

Identify the key stakeholders concerned with the business architecture project

A business architecture project may involve the following stakeholders:

You must identify who the stakeholders are for your business architecture work.

Think about:

• Who are the decision makers and key influencers?
• Who will impact the business architecture work? Who will the work impact?
• Who has vested interest in the success or failure of the practice?
• Who has the skills and competencies necessary to help us be successful?

Avoid these common mistakes:

• Don’t focus on the organizational structure and hierarchy. Often stakeholder groups don’t fit the traditional structure.
• Don’t ignore subject-matter experts on either the business or IT side. You will need to consider both.

1.1 Identify and assemble key stakeholders

1-3 hours

Build an accurate depiction of the business.

1. It is important to make sure the right stakeholders participate in this exercise. The exercise of identifying capabilities for an organization is very introspective and requires deep analysis.
2. Consider:
1. Who are the decision makers and key influencers?
2. Who will impact the business capability work? Who has a vested interest in the success or failure of the outcome?
3. Who has the skills and competencies necessary to help you be successful?
3. Avoid:
1. Don’t focus on the organizational structure and hierarchy. Often stakeholder groups don’t fit the traditional structure.
2. Don’t ignore subject matter experts on either the business or IT side. You will need to consider both.

Conduct interviews with the business to gather intelligence for strategy

Talking to key stakeholders will allow you to get a holistic view of the business strategy.

Build a strategy on a page through executive interviews and document reviews

Understanding the business mandate and priorities ensures alignment across the enterprise.

A business strategy must articulate the long-term destination the business is moving into. This illustration shapes all the strategies and activities in every other part of the business, including what IT capabilities and resources are required to support business goals. Ultimately, the benefits of a well-defined business strategy increase as the organization scales and as business units or functions are better equipped to align the strategic planning process in a manner that reflects the complexity of the organization.

Using the Business Strategy on a Page canvas, consider the questions in each bucket to elicit the overall strategic context of the organization and uncover the right information to build your digital strategy. Interview key executives including your CEO, CIO, CMO, COO, CFO, and CRO, and review documents from your board or overall organizational strategy to uncover insights.

Info-Tech Insight
A well-articulated and clear business strategy helps different functional and business units work together and ensures that individual decisions support the overall direction of the business.

Focus on business value and establish a common goal

Business architecture is a strategic planning function and the focus must be on delivering business value.

Examples business objectives:

• Digitally transform the business, redefining its customer interactions.
• Identify the root cause for escalating customer complaints and eroding satisfaction.
• Identify reuse opportunities to increase operational efficiency.
• Identify capabilities to efficiently leverage suppliers to handle demand fluctuations.

Info-Tech Insight
CIOs are ideally positioned to be the sponsors of business architecture given that their current top priorities are digital transformation, innovation catalyzation, and business alignment.

1.2 Collect and understand business objectives

1-3 hours

Having a clear understanding of the business is crucial to executing on the strategic IT initiatives.

1. Discover the strategic CIO initiatives your organization will pursue:

• Schedule interviews.
• Use the CIO Business Vision diagnostic or Business Context Discovery Tool.

CIO Business Vision Diagnostic

CEO

Interview the following executives for each business goal area.

Craft a strategy to increase stakeholder support and participation

The BA practice’s supporters are potential champions who will help you market the value of BA; engage with them first to create positive momentum. Map out the concerns of each group of stakeholders so you can develop marketing tactics and communications vehicles to address them.

Example Communication Strategy

1.3 Craft a strategy to increase stakeholder support and participation

1-2 hours

Now that you have organized and categorized your stakeholders based on their power, influence, interest, and knowledge of business architecture, it is time to brainstorm how you are going to gain their support and participation.

Think about the following:

• What are your stakeholders’ concerns?
• How can you address them?
• How will you deliver the message?
• How often will you deliver the message?

Avoid these common mistakes:

• Your communication strategy development should be an iterative process. Do not assume to know the absolute best way to get through to every resistor right away. Instead, engage with your supporters for their input on how to communicate to resistors and repeat the process for indifferent stakeholders as well.

Download the Stakeholder Engagement Strategy Template for this project.

Engaging the right stakeholders

CASE STUDY

Source
Anonymous

1.4 Develop a plan to engage key stakeholders

1 hour

Using your stakeholder power map as a starting point, focus on the three most important quadrants: those that contain stakeholders you must keep informed, those to keep satisfied, and the key players.

Plot the stakeholders from those quadrants on a stakeholder engagement map.

Think about the following:

• Who are your resistors? These individuals will actively detract from project’s success if you don’t address their concerns.
• Who is indifferent? These individuals need to be educated more on the benefits of business architecture to have an opinion either way.
• Who are your supporters? These individuals will support you and spread your message if you equip them to do so.

Avoid these common mistakes:

• Do not jump to addressing resistor concerns first. Instead, equip your supporters with the info they need to help your cause and gain positive momentum before approaching resistors.

Download the Stakeholder Engagement Strategy Template for this project.

1.5 Craft a strategy to increase stakeholder support and participation

1-2 hours

Now that you have organized and categorized your stakeholders based on their power, influence, interest, and knowledge of business architecture, it is time to brainstorm how you are going to gain their support and participation.

Think about the following:

• What are your stakeholders’ concerns?
• How can you address them?
• How will you deliver the message?
• How often will you deliver the message?

Avoid these common mistakes:

• Your communication strategy development should be an iterative process. Do not assume to know the absolute best way to get through to every resistor right away. Instead, engage with your supporters for their input on how to communicate to resistors and repeat the process for indifferent stakeholders as well.

Download the Stakeholder Engagement Strategy Template for this project.

Define value streams

Identify the core activities your organization does to provide value to your customers.

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Note: It is recommended that you gather and leverage relevant industry standard business architecture models you may have available to you. Example: Info-Tech Industry Business Architecture, BIZBOK, APQC.
• Defining or updating the organization’s value streams.
• Selecting priority value streams for deeper analysis.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Business Architect, Enterprise Architect
• Relevant Business Stakeholder(s): Business Unit Leads, Departmental Executives, Senior Mangers, Business Analysts

Define the organization’s value streams

• Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the marketplace by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment an organization operates within. Value streams can extend beyond the organization into the supporting ecosystem, whereas business processes are contained within and the organization has complete control over them.
• There are two types of value streams: core value streams and support value streams. Core value streams are mostly externally facing: they deliver value to either an external or internal customer and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map. Support value streams are internally facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.
• An effective method for ensuring all value streams have been considered is to understand that there can be different end-value receivers. Info-Tech recommends identifying and organizing the value streams with customers and partners as end-value receivers.

Connect business goals to value streams

Identifying value streams

Value streams connect business goals to organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the market place by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

There are several key questions to ask when endeavoring to identify value streams.

Example: Value stream descriptions for the retail industry

Value streams describe your core business

Value streams – the activities we do to provide value to customers – require business capabilities.

Value streams are broken down further into value stages, for example, Sell Product value stream has value stages Evaluate Options, Place Order, and Make Payment.

Think of value streams as the core operations, the reason for our organization’s being. A professional consulting organization may have a legal team but it does not brand itself as a law firm. A core value stream is providing research products and services – a business capability that supports it is legal counsel.

2.1 Define value streams

1-3 hours

Unify the organization’s perspective on how it creates value.

1. Write a short description of the value stream that includes a statement about the value provided and a clear start and end for the value stream. Validate the accuracy of the descriptions with your key stakeholders.
2. Consider:
1. How does the organization deliver those benefits?
2. How does the customer receive the benefits?
3. What is the scope of your value stream? What will trigger the stream to start and what will the final value be?
3. Avoid: Don’t start with a blank page. Use Info-Tech’s business architecture models for sample value streams.

See your Info-Tech Account Representative for access to the Reference Architecture Template

Decompose the value stream into stages

The stages of a value stream are usually action-oriented statements or verbs that make up the individual steps involved throughout the scope of the value stream, e.g. Place Order or Make Payment.

Each value stream should have a trigger or starting point and an end result for a client or receiver.

There should be measurable value or benefits at each stage.
These are key performance indicators (KPIs).
Spot problem areas in the stream.

Value streams usually fall into one of these categories:

1. Fulfillment of products and services
2. Manufacturing
3. Software products
4. Supporting value streams (procurement of supplies, product planning)

Value stream and value stages examples

Customer Acquisitions
Identify Prospects > Contact Prospects > Verify Interests

Sell Product
Identify Options > Evaluate Options > Negotiate Price and Delivery Date > Place Order > Get Invoice > Make Payment

Product Delivery
Confirm Order > Plan Load > Receive Warehouse > Fill Order > Ship Order > Deliver Order > Invoice Customer

Product Financing
Initiate Loan Application > Decide on Application > Submit Documents > Review & Satisfy T&C > Finalize Documents > Conduct Funding > Conduct Funding Audits

Product Release
Ideate > Design > Build > Release

Sell Product is a value stream, made up of value stages Identify options, Evaluate options, and so on.

2.2 Decompose selected value streams

1-3 hours

Once we have a good understanding of our value streams, we need to decide which ones to focus on for deeper analysis and modeling, e.g. extend the business architecture to more detailed level 2 capabilities.

Organization has goals and delivers products or services.

1. Identify which value propositions are most important, e.g. be more productive or manage money more simply.
2. Identify the value stream(s) that create the value proposition.
3. Break the selected value stream into value stages.
4. Analyze value stages for opportunities.

Build your value stream one layer at a time to ensure clarity and comprehensiveness

The first step of creating a value stream is defining it.

• In this step, you create the parameters around the value stream and document them in a list format.
• This allows you to know where each value stream starts and ends and the unique value it provides.

The second step is the value stream mapping.

• The majority of the mapping is done here where you break down your value stream into each of its component stages.
• Analysis of these stages allows for a deeper understanding of the value stream.
• The mapping layer connects the value stream to organizational capabilities.

Define the value streams that are tied to your strategic goals and document them in a list

Title

• Create a title for your value stream that indicates the value it achieves.
• Ensure your title is clear and will be understood the same way across the organization.
• The common naming convention for value streams is to use nouns, e.g. product purchase.

Scope

• Determine the scope of your value stream by defining the trigger to start the value stream and final value delivered to end the value stream.
• Be precise with your trigger to ensure you do not mistakenly include actions that would not trigger your value stream.
• A useful tip is creating a decision tree and outlining the path that results in your trigger.

Objectives

• Determine the objectives of the value stream by highlighting the outcome it delivers.
• Identify the desired outcomes of the value stream from the perspective of your organization.

Example Value Streams List

Create a value stream map

Decompose the value stream into its value stages

The first step in creating a value stream map is breaking it up into its component stages.

The stages of a value stream are usually action-oriented statements or verbs that make up the individual steps involved throughout the scope of the value stream.

The Benefit
Segmenting your value stream into individual stages will give you a better understanding of the steps involved in creating value.

Connect the stages of the value stream to a specific customer perspective

The Benefit
Adding the customer’s perspective will inform you of their priorities at each stage of the value stream.

Connect the stages of the value stream to a desired outcome

The Benefit
Understanding the organization’s desired outcome at each stage of the value stream will help set objectives and establish metrics.

Define the entry and exit criteria of each stage

The Benefit
Establishing the entry and exit criteria for each stage will help you understand how the customer experience flows from one end of the stream to the other.

Outline the key metric(s) for each stage

The Benefit
Setting metrics for each stage will facilitate the tracking of success and inform the business architecture practitioner of where investments should be made.

Example value stream map: Sell Product

Assess the stages of your value stream map to determine which capabilities to examine further

To determine which specific business capabilities you should seek to assess and potentially refine, you must review performance toward target metrics at each stage of the value stream.

Stages that are not performing to their targets should be examined further by assessing the capabilities that enable them.

Determine the business capabilities that support the value stage corresponding with the failing metric

Sell Product

Identify Options > Evaluate Options > Negotiate Price and Delivery Date > Place Order > Get Invoice > Make Payment

The value stage(s) that doesn’t meet its objective metrics should be examined further.

• This is done through business capability mapping and assessment.
• Starting at the highest level (level 0) view of a business, the business architecture practitioner must drill down into the lower level capabilities that support the specific value stage to diagnose/improve an issue.

Info-Tech Insight
In the absence of tangible metrics, you will have to make a qualitative judgement about which stage(s) of the value stream warrant further examination for problems and opportunities.

Build business capability map

Align supporting capabilities to priority activities.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine which business capabilities support value streams
• Accelerate the process with an industry reference architecture
• Validate the business capability map
• Establish level 2 capability

This step involves the following participants:

• Enterprise/Business Architect
• Business Analysts
• Business Unit Leads
• CIO
• Departmental Executives & Senior Managers

Outcomes of this step

Develop a business capability map – level 1

• Business architecture consists of a set of techniques to create multiple views of an organization; the primary view is known as a business capability map.
• A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation and achieve outcomes, rather than how. Business capabilities are business terms defined using descriptive nouns such as “Marketing” or “Research and Development.” They represent stable business functions, are unique and independent of each other, and typically will have a defined business outcome. Business capabilities should not be defined as organizational units and are typically longer lasting than organizational structures.
• A business capability mapping process should begin at the highest-level view of an organization, the level 1, which presents the entire business on a page.
• An effective method of organizing business capabilities is to split them into logical groupings or categories. At the highest level, capabilities are either “core” (customer-facing functions) or “enabling” (supporting functions).
• As a best practice, Info-Tech recommends dividing business capabilities into the categories illustrated to the right.

The Business Capability Map is the primary visual representation of the organization’s key abilities or services that are delivered to stakeholders. This model forms the basis of strategic planning discussions.

Example business capability map – Higher Education

A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organization’s business capabilities and represents a view of what your data program must support.

Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

Example business capability map for: Higher Education

Example business capability map – Local Government

A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organization’s business capabilities and represents a view of what your data program must support.

Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

Example business capability map for: Local Government

Map capabilities to value stage

Source: Lambert, “Practical Guide to Agile Strategy Execution”

3.1 Build level 1 business capability map

1-3 hours

1. Analyze the value streams to identify and describe the organization’s capabilities that support them. This stage requires a good understanding of the business and will be a critical foundation for the business capability map. Use the reference business architecture’s business capability map for your industry for examples of level 1 and 2 business capabilities and the capability map template to work in.
2. Avoid:
1. Don’t repeat capabilities. Capabilities are typically mutually exclusive activities.
2. Don’t include temporary initiatives. Capabilities should be stable over time. The people, processes, and technologies that support capabilities will change continuously.

Ensure you engage with the right stakeholders:

Don’t waste your efforts building an inaccurate depiction of the business: The exercise of identifying capabilities for an organization is very introspective and requires deep analysis.

It is challenging to develop a common language that everyone will understand and be able to apply. Invest in the time to ensure the right stakeholders are brought into the fold and bring their business area expertise and understanding to the table.

Prioritize one value stream and build a business architecture to level 2 capabilities

Prioritize your innovation objectives and business goals, and identify a value stream to transform.

Align the innovation goals and business objectives of your organization to your value streams (the critical actions that take place within your organization to add value to a customer).
Prioritize a value stream to transform based on the number of priorities aligned to a value stream and/or the business value (e.g. revenue, EBITDA earnings, competitive differentiation, or cost efficiency).
Working alongside a business or enterprise architect, build a reference architecture for the prioritized value stream up to level 2.

Info-Tech Insight
To produce maximum impact, focus on value streams that provide two-thirds of your enterprise value (EBITDA earnings).

From level 1 to level 2 business capabilities

3.2 Build level 2 business capability map

1-3 hours

It is only at level 2 and further that we can pinpoint the business capabilities – the exact resources, whether applications or data or processes – that we need to focus on to realize improvements in the organization’s performance and customer experience.

1. Gather industry reference models and any existing business capability maps.
2. For the selected value stream, further break down its level 1 business capabilities into level 2 capabilities.
3. You can often represent the business capabilities on a single page, providing a holistic visual for decision makers.
4. Use meaningful names for business capabilities so that planners, stakeholders, and subject matter experts can easily search the map.

Download: See your Account Representative for access to Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template

3.3 Heatmap business capability map

1-3 hours

Determine the organization’s key capabilities.

1. Determine cost advantage creators. If your organization has a cost advantage over competitors, the capabilities that enable it should be identified and prioritized. Highlight these capabilities and prioritize the programs that support them.
2. Determine competitive advantage creators. If your organization does not have a cost advantage over competitors, determine if it can deliver differentiated end-customer experiences. Once you have identified the competitive advantages, understand which capabilities enable them. These capabilities are critical to the success of the organization and should be highly supported.
3. Define key future state capabilities. In addition to the current and competitive advantage creators, the organization may have the intention to enhance new capabilities. Discuss and select the capabilities that will help drive the attainment of future goals.
4. Assess how well information, applications, and processes support capabilities.

Download: See your Account Representative for access to Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template

Business capability map: Education

Define key capabilities

Note: Illustrative Example

Business process review

Note: Illustrative Example

Information assessment

Note: Illustrative Example

Application assessment

Note: Illustrative Example

MoSCoW analysis for business capabilities

Note: Illustrative Example

Ranked list of IT implications

3.4 Roadmap business architecture initiatives

1-3 hours

Unify the organization’s perspective on how it creates value.

1. Write a short description of the value stream that includes a statement about the value provided and a clear start and end for the value stream. Validate the accuracy of the descriptions with your key stakeholders.
2. Consider:
1. How does the organization deliver those benefits?
2. How does the customer receive the benefits?
3. What is the scope of your value stream? What will trigger the stream to start and what will the final value be?
3. Don’t start with a blank page. Use Info-Tech’s business architecture models for sample value streams.

Download: See your Account Representative for access to Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template

Example: Business architecture deliverables

Tools and templates to compile and communicate your business architecture work

The Industry Business Reference Architecture Template for your industry is a place for you to collect all of the activity outputs and outcomes you’ve completed for use in next-steps.

Download the Industry Business Reference Architecture Template for your industry

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options

Research Contributors and Experts

Bibliography

Andriole, Steve. “Why No One Understands Enterprise Architecture & Why Technology Abstractions Always Fail.” Forbes, 18 September 2020. Web.

“APQC Process Classification Framework (PCF) – Retail.” American Productivity & Quality Center, 9 January 2019. Web.

Brose, Cari. “Who’s on First? Architecture Roles and Responsibilities in SAFe.” Business Architecture Guild, 9 March 2017. Web.

Burlton, Roger, Jim Ryne, and Daniel St. George. “Value Streams and Business Processes: The Business Architecture Perspective.” Business Architecture Guild, December 2019. Web.

“Business Architecture: An overview of the business architecture professional.” Capstera, 5 January 2022. Web.

Business Architecture Guild. “What is Business Architecture?” Business Analyst Mentor, 18 November 2022. Web.

“Business Architecture Overview.” The Business Architecture Working Group of the Object Management Group (OMG), n.d. Web.

“Delivering on your strategic vision.” The Business Architecture Guild, n.d. Web.

Ecker, Grant. “Deploying business architecture.” LinkedIn, 11 November 2021. (Presentation)

IRIS. “Retail Business Architecture Framework and Examples.” IRIS Business Architect, n.d. Web.

IRIS. “What Is Business Architecture?” IRIS Business Architect, 8 May 2014. Web.

IRIS. “Your Enterprise Architecture Practice Maturity 2021 Assessment.” IRIS Business Architect, 17 May 2021. Web.

Khuen, Whynde. “How Business Architecture Breaks Down and Bridges Silos.” Biz Arch Mastery, January 2020. Web.

Lambert, Daniel. “Practical Guide to Agile Strategy Execution.” 18 February 2020.

Lankhorst, Marc, and Bernd Ihnen. “Mapping the BIZBOK Metamodel to the ArchiMate Language.” Bizzdesign, 2 September 2021. Web.

Ramias, Alan, and Andrew Spanyi, “Demystifying the Relationship Between Processes and Capabilities: A Modest Proposal.” BPTrends, 2 February 2015. Web.

Newman, Daniel. “NRF 2022: 4 Key Trends From This Year’s Big Show.” Forbes, 20 January 2022. Web.

Research and Markets. “Define the Business Context Needed to Complete Strategic IT Initiatives: 2018 Blueprint.” Business Wire, 1 February 2018. Web.

Sabanoglu, Tugba. “Retail market worldwide - Statistics & Facts.” Statista, 21 April 2022. Web.

Spacey, John. “Capability vs Process.” Simplicable, 18 November 2016. Web.

“The Definitive Guide to Business Capabilities.” LeanIX, n.d. Web.

TOGAF 9. Version 9.1. The Open Group, 2011. Web.

“What is Business Architecture?” STA Group, 2017. PDF.

Whittie, Ralph. “The Business Architecture, Value Streams and Value Chains.” BA Institute, n.d. Web.

IBM i Migration Considerations

Don’t be overwhelmed by IBM i migration options.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

IBM i remains a vital platform and now many CIO, CTO, and IT leaders are faced with the same IBM i challenges regardless of industry focus; how do you evaluate the future viability of this platform, assess the future fit and purpose, develop strategies, and determine the future of this platform for your organization?

Common Obstacles

For organizations that are struggling with the iSeries/IBM i platform, resourcing challenges are typically the culprit. An aging population of RPG programmers and system administrators means organizations need to be more proactive in maintaining in-house expertise. Migrating off the iSeries/IBM i platform is a difficult option for most organizations due to complexity, switching costs in the short term, and a higher long-term TCO.

Info-Tech Approach

The most common tactic is for the organization to better understand its IBM i options and adopt some level of outsourcing for the non-commodity platform, retaining the application support/development in-house. To make the evident, obvious: the options here for the non-commodity are not as broad as with commodity server platforms. Options include co-location, onsite outsourcing, managed hosting, and public cloud services.

Info-Tech Insight

“For over twenty years, IBM was ‘king,’ dominating the large computer market. By the 1980s, the world had woken up to the fact that the IBM mainframe was expensive and difficult, taking a long time and a lot of work to get anything done. Eager for a new solution, tech professionals turned to the brave new concept of distributed systems for a more efficient alternative. On June 21, 1988, IBM announced the launch of the AS/400, their answer to distributed computing.” (Dale Perkins)

Review

We help IT leaders make the most of their IBM i environment.

Problem Statement:

The IBM i remains a vital platform for many businesses and continues to deliver exceptional reliability and performance and play a key role in the enterprise. With the limited resources at hand, CIOs and the like must continually review and understand their migration path with the same regard as any other distributed system roadmap.

This research is designed for:

• IT strategic direction decision makers
• IT managers responsible for an existing iSeries or IBM i platform
• Organizations evaluating platforms for mission-critical applications

This research will help you:

1. Evaluate the future viability of this platform.
2. Assess the fit, purpose, and price.
3. Develop strategies for overcoming potential challenges.
4. Determine the future of this platform for your organization.

The “fit for purpose” plot

Thought Model We will investigate the aspect of different IBM i scenarios as they impact business, what that means, and how that can guide the questions that you are asking as you move to an aligned IBM i IT strategy. Our model considers: Importance to Business Outcomes Important to strategic objectives Provides competitive advantage Non-commodity IT service or process Specialized in-house knowledge required Vendor’s Performance Advantage Talent or access to skills Economies of scale or lower cost at scale Access to technology Info-Tech Insights With multiple control points to be addressed, care must be taken in simplifying your options while addressing all concerns to ease operational load.

IBM i environments are challenging

Understand your options

Co-Location

Provider manages the data center hardware environment.

Onsite Sourcing

A provider will support the hardware/system environment at the client’s site.

Managed Hosting

Transition legacy application environment to an off-prem hosted multi-tenanted environment.

Public Cloud

Leverage “public cloud” alternatives with AWS, Google, or Microsoft AZURE.

Understand your vendors

Activity

Understand your vendor options

Activities:

1. Create your vendor profiles
2. Score vendor responses
3. Develop and manage your vendor agenda

This activity involves the following participants:

• IT strategic direction decision makers
• IT managers responsible for an existing iSeries or IBM i platform

Outcomes of this step:

• Vendor Profile Template
• Completed IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool

Info-Tech Insights

This check-point process creates transparency around agreement costs with the business and gives the business an opportunity to re-evaluate its requirements for a potentially leaner agreement.

1. Create your vendor profiles

Define what you are looking for:

2. Score your vendor responses

Use the IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool to manage vendor responses.

Use Info-Tech’s IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool to systematically score your vendor responses. The overall quality of the IBM i questions can help you understand what it might be like to work with the vendor. Consider the following questions: Is the vendor clear about what it’s able to offer? Is its response transparent? How much effort did the vendor put into answering the questions? Does the vendor seem like someone you would want to work with? Once you have the vendor responses, you will select two or three vendors to continue assessing in more depth leading to an eventual final selection.

Info-Tech Insights

Watch out for misleading scores that result from poorly designed criteria weightings.

3. Develop your vendor agenda

Related Info-Tech Research

Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services
Acquiring a service is like buying an experience. Don’t confuse the simplicity of buying hardware with buying an experience.

Outsource IT Infrastructure to Improve System Availability, Reliability, and Recovery
There are very few IT infrastructure components you should be housing internally – outsource everything else.

Build Your Infrastructure Roadmap
Move beyond alignment: Put yourself in the driver’s seat for true business value.

Define Your Cloud Vision
Make the most of cloud for your organization.

Document Your Cloud Strategy
Drive consensus by outlining how your organization will use the cloud.

Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan
Close the gap between your DR capabilities and service continuity requirements.

Create a Better RFP Process
Improve your RFPs to gain leverage and get better results.

Research Authors

Darin Stahl, Principal Research Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group Principal Research Advisor within the Infrastructure Practice and leveraging 38+ years of experience, his areas of focus include: IT Operations Management, Service Desk, Infrastructure Outsourcing, Managed Services, Cloud Infrastructure, DRP/BCP, Printer Management, Managed Print Services, Application Performance Monitoring (APM), Managed FTP, and non-commodity servers (zSeries, mainframe, IBM i, AIX, Power PC).

Troy Cheeseman, Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group Troy has over 24 years of experience and has championed large, enterprise-wide technology transformation programs, remote/home office collaboration and remote work strategies, BCP, IT DRP, IT Operations and expense management programs, international right placement initiatives, and large technology transformation initiatives (M&A). Additionally, he has deep experience working with IT solution providers and technology (cloud) start-ups.

Research Contributors

Dan Duffy, President & Owner, Mid-Range Dan Duffy is the President and Founder of Mid-Range Computer Group Inc., an IBM Platinum Business Partner. Dan and his team have been providing the Canadian and American IBM Power market with IBM infrastructure solutions including private cloud, hosting and disaster recovery, high availability and data center services since 1988. He has served on numerous boards and associations including the Toronto Users Group for Mid-Range Systems (TUG), the IBM Business Partners of the Americas Advisory Council, the Cornell Club of Toronto, and the Notre Dame Club of Toronto. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University.

George Goodall, Executive Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group George Goodall is an Executive Advisor in the Research Executive Services practice at Info-Tech Research Group. George has over 20 years of experience in IT consulting, enterprise software sales, project management, and workshop delivery. His primary focus is the unique challenges and opportunities in organizations with small and constrained IT operations. In his long tenure at Info-Tech, George has covered diverse topics including voice communications, storage, and strategy and governance.

Bibliography

“Companies using IBM i (formerly known as i5/OS).” Enlyft, 21 July 2021. Web.

Connor, Clare. “IBM i and Meeting the Challenges of Modernization.” Ensono, 22 Mar. 2022. Web.

Huntington, Tom. “60+ IBM i User Groups and Communities to Join?” HelpSystems, 16 Dec. 2021. Web.

Perkins, Dale. “The Road to Power Cloud: June 21st 1988 to now. The Journey Continues.” Mid-Range, 1 Nov. 2021. Web.

Prickett Morgan, Timothy. “How IBM STACKS UP POWER8 AGAINST XEON SERVERS.” The Next Platform, 13 Oct. 2015. Web.

“Why is AS/400 still used? Four reasons to stick with a classic.” NTT, 21 July 2016. Web.

Appendix

Public Cloud Provider Notes

Take a Realistic Approach to Disaster Recovery Testing

Reduce costly downtime with a right-sized testing program that improves IT resilience.

Analyst Perspective

Reduce costly downtime with a right-sized testing program that improves IT resilience.

Most businesses make significant investments in disaster recovery and technology resilience. Redundant sites and systems, monitoring, intrusion prevention, backups, training, documentation: it all costs time and money.

But does this investment deliver expected value? Specifically, can you deliver service continuity in a way that meets business requirements?

You can’t know the answer without regularly testing recovery processes and systems. And more than just validation, testing helps you deliver service continuity by finding and addressing gaps in your plans and training your staff on recovery procedures.

Use the insights, tools, and templates in this research to create a streamlined and effective resilience testing program that helps validate recovery capabilities and enhance service reliability, availability, and continuity.

Andrew Sharp

Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

If you treat testing as a pass/fail exercise, you aren’t meeting the end goal of improving organizational resilience. Focus on identifying gaps and risks so you can address them before a real disaster hits.

Process and Outputs

This research is accompanied by templates to help you achieve your goals faster.

1 - Establish the business rationale for DR testing.
2 - Review a range of options for testing.
3 - Prioritize tests that are most valuable to your business.
4 - Create a disaster recovery test plan.
5 - Establish a Test Program to support a regular testing cycle.

Outputs:

Orange activity slides like the one on the left provide directions to help you make key decisions.

Key Deliverable:

Disaster Recovery Test Plan Template

Build a plan for your first disaster recovery test.

This document provides a complete example you can use to quickly build your own plan, including goals, milestones, participants, the test-day schedule, and findings from the after-action review.

Why test?

Testing helps you avoid costly downtime

• In a disaster scenario, speed matters. Immediately after an outage, the impact on the organization is small, but impact increases rapidly the longer the outage continues.
• A quick and reliable response and recovery can protect the organization from significant losses.
• A DRP testing and maintenance program helps ensure you’re ready to recover when you need to, rather than figuring it out as you go.

“Routine testing is vital to survive a disaster… that’s when muscle memory sets in. If you don’t test your DR plan it falls [in importance], and you never see how routine changes impact it.”

– Jennifer Goshorn
Chief Administrative Officer
Gunderson Dettmer LLP

Info-Tech members estimated even one day of system downtime could lead to significant revenue losses.

Average estimated potential loss* in thousands of USD due to a 24-hour outage (N=41)

*Data aggregated from 41 business impact analyses (BIAs) conducted with Info-Tech advisory assistance. BIAs evaluate potential revenue loss due to a full day of system downtime, at the worst possible time.

Run tests to enhance disaster recovery plans

Testing improves organizational resilience

• Identify and address gaps in your plans before a real disaster strikes.
• Cross-train staff on systems recovery.
• Go beyond testing technology to test recovery processes.
• Establish a culture that centers resilience in everyday decision-making.

Testing keeps DR documentation ready for action

• Update documentation ahead of tests to prepare for the testing exercise.
• Update documentation after testing to incorporate any lessons learned.

Testing validates that investments in resilience deliver value

• Confirm your organization can meet defined recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs).
• Provide proof of testing for auditors, prospective customers, and insurance applications

Overcome testing challenges

Despite the value of effective recovery testing, most IT organizations struggle to test recovery plans

Common challenges

• Key resources don’t have time for testing exercises.
• You don’t have the technology to support live recovery testing.
• Tests are done ad hoc and lessons learned are lost.
• A lack of business support for test exercises as the value isn’t understood.
• Tests are always artificially simple because RTOs and RPOs must be met to satisfy customer or auditor inquiries

Overcome challenges with a realistic approach:

• Start small with tabletop and recovery tests for specific systems.
• Include recovery tests in operational tasks (e.g. restore systems when you have a maintenance window).
• Create testing plans for larger testing exercises.
• Build on successful tests to streamline testing exercises in the future.
• Don’t make testing a pass-fail exercise. Focus on identifying gaps and risks so you can address them before a real disaster hits.

Go beyond traditional testing

Different test techniques help validate recovery against different threats

• There are many threats to service continuity, including ransomware, severe weather events, geopolitical conflict, legacy systems, staff turnover, and day-to-day outages caused by human error, software updates, hardware failures, or network outages.
• At its core, disaster recovery planning is about recovery. A plan for service recovery will help you mitigate against many threats at once. The testing approaches on the right will help you validate different aspects of that recovery process.
• This research will provide an overview of the approaches outlined on the right and help you prioritize tests that are most valuable to your organization.

00 Identify a working group

30 minutes

Identify a group of participants who can fill the following roles and inform the discussions around testing in this research. A single person could fill multiple roles and some roles could be filled by multiple people. Many participants will be drawn from the larger DRP team.

Start by updating your disaster recovery plan (DRP)

Use Info-Tech’s Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan research to identify recovery objectives based on business impact and outline recovery processes. Both are tremendously valuable inputs to your test plans.

Overall Business Continuity Plan

01 Confirm: why test at all?

15-30 minutes

Identify the value recovery testing for your organization. Use language appropriate for a nontechnical audience. Start with the list below and add, modify, or delete bullet points to reflect your own organization.

Drivers for testing – Examples:

• Improve service continuity.
• Identify and address gaps in recovery plans before a real disaster strikes.
• Cross-train staff on systems recovery to minimize single points of failure.
• Identify how we coordinate across teams during a major systems outage.
• Exercise both recovery processes and technology.
• Support a culture that centers system resilience in everyday decision-making.
• Keep recovery documentation up-to-date and ready for action.
• Confirm that our stated recovery objectives can be met.
• Provide proof of testing for auditors, prospective customers, and insurance applications.
• We require proof of testing to pass audits and renew cybersecurity insurance.

Info-Tech Insight

Time-strapped technical staff will sometimes push back on planning and testing, objecting that the team will “figure it out” in a disaster. But the question isn’t whether recovery is possible – it’s whether the recovery aligns with business needs. If your plan is to “MacGyver” a solution on the fly, you can’t know if it’s the right solution for your organization.

Think about what and how you test

Find gaps and risks with tabletop testing

In a tabletop planning exercise, the team walks through a disaster scenario to outline the recovery workflow, and risks or gaps that could disrupt that workflow.

Tabletops are particularly effective because:

• It enables you to play out a wider range of scenarios than technology-based testing (e.g. full-scale, parallel) due to cost and complexity factors.
• It is non-intrusive, so it can be executed more easily than other testing methodologies.
• The exercise translates into recovery documentation: you create a workflow as you go.
• A major site or service recovery scenario will review all aspects of the recovery process and create the backbone of your recovery plan.

02 Run a tabletop exercise

2 hours

Tabletop testing is part of our core DRP methodology, Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan. This exercise can be run using cue cards, sticky notes, or on a whiteboard; many of our facilitators find building the workflow directly in flowchart software to be very effective.

Use our Recovery Workflow Template as a starting point.

Some tips for running your first tabletop exercise:

1. Ahead of the exercise, decide on a scenario, identify participants, and book a meeting time.
   • For your first walkthrough of a DR scenario, we often recommend a scenario that considers a site failure requiring failover to a DR site.
   • For the first exercise, focus on technical aspects of recovery before bringing in members of the business. The technical team may need space to discuss the appropriate steps in the recovery process before you bring in business liaisons to discuss user acceptance testing (UAT).
   • A complete failover considers all systems, the viability of your second site, and can help identify parts of the process that require additional exercises.
2. Review the scenario with participants. Then, discuss and document the recovery process, starting with initial notification of an event.
   • Record steps in the process on white cards or boxes.
   • On yellow and red cards, document gaps and risks in people process and technology requirements.
3. Once you’ve walked through the process, return to the start.
   • Record the time required to complete each step. Consider identifying who is responsible for key steps. Identify any additional gaps and risks.
4. Clean up and record the results of the workflow. Save a copy with your DRP documentation.