Assess Your Readiness to Implement UCaaS

Unified communication as a service (UCaaS) is already here. Find the right solution for your organization, whether it is Teams Phone or another solution.

Analyst Perspective

UCaaS is the solution to the hybrid and remote working world

Hybrid/remote work is a reality and there is little evidence to prove otherwise despite efforts to return employees to the office. A 2023 survey from Zippia says 74% of US companies are planning to or have implemented hybrid work policies. Given the reality of the new ways people work, there’s a genuine need for a UCaaS solution.

The days of on-premises private branch exchange (PBX) and legacy voice over internet protocol (VoIP) solutions are numbered, and organizations are examining alternative solutions to redundant desk phones. The stalwarts of voice solutions, Cisco and Avaya, have seen the writing on the wall for some time: the new norm must be a cloud-based solution that integrates via API with content resource management (CRM), email, chat, and collaboration tools.

Besides remaining agile when accommodating different work locations, it’s advantageous to be able to quickly scale and meet the needs of organizations and their employees. New technology is moving at such a pace that utilizing a UCaaS service is truly beneficial, especially given its AI, analytics, and mobile capabilities. Being held back by an on-premises solution that is capitalized over several years is not a wise option.

John Donovan
Principle Research Director, I&O Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Insight Summary

Improved integration and communication in a hybrid world
Unified communication as a service (UCaaS) integrates several tools into one platform to provide seamless voice, video, chat, collaboration, sharing and much more. The ability to work from anywhere and the ability to use application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate content resource management (CRM) and other productivity tools into a unified environment is a key component of employee productivity, whether at the office or remote, or even on mobile devices.

Simplify your maintenance, management, and support
Communication and voice using a cloud provisioner has many benefits and makes life easier for your IT staff. No more ongoing maintenance, upgrades, patching and managing servers or private branch exchanges (PBXs). UCaaS is easy to deploy, and due to its scalability and flexibility, users can easily be added or removed. Now businesses can retire their legacy technical debt of voice hardware and old desk phones that clutter the office.

Oversight on security
The utilization of a software as a service (SaaS) platform in UCaaS form does by design risk data breaches, phishing, and third-party malware. Fortunately, you can safeguard your organization’s security by ensuring the vendor you choose features SOC2 certification, taking care of encryption, firewalls, two-factor authentication and security incident handling, and disaster recovery. The big players in the UCaaS world have these features.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Determine your communication and collaboration needs. Evaluate your current use of voice, video, chat, collaboration, sharing, and mobility whether for the office or remote work. Evaluate your security and regulatory requirements and needs. Determine the integration requirements when evaluating top vendors.

The evolution of unified communication

How we moved from fax machines and desk phones to an integrated set of tools on one platform in the cloud

Business drivers for moving to UCaaS

What organizations look to gain or save by moving to UCaaS solutions

Flexibility and scalability
Ability to add/remove users and services as appropriate for changing business needs, allowing for quick adaptation to changing markets.

Productivity
Offering features like messaging, collaboration tools, and video conferencing enables users to be more effective regardless of location and device. May lead to quicker decision making and reduced communication delays.

Cost savings
Eliminating the need for on-premises hardware and software, reducing maintenance and support costs. Predictable monthly billing.

Business continuity
Reducing risks of disruption or disaster. Allowing users to work from anywhere when the physical office is unavailable. Additional features can include disaster recovery and backup services.

Enhanced security
UCaaS providers usually offer advanced security and compliance features including encryption, firewall, intrusion detection, and certifications like HIPAA and SOC 2.

KPIs to demonstrate success

What key metrics should businesses measure to demonstrate a successful UCaaS project?
What improvements are needed?
What can be optimized?

What are the surveys telling us?

Different organizations adopt UCaaS solutions for different reasons

95%

Collaboration: No Jitter’s study on team collaboration found that 95% of survey respondents think collaborative communication apps are a necessary component of a successful communications strategy.
Source: No Jitter, 2018.

95%

Security: When deploying remote communication solutions, 95% of businesses say they want to use VPN connections to keep data private.
Source: Mitel, 2018.

31%

Flexibility: While there are numerous advantages to cloud-based communications, 31% of companies intend to use UCaaS to eliminate technical debt from legacy systems and processes.
Source: Freshworks, 2019.

UCaaS adoption

While many organizations are widely adopting UCaaS, they still have data security concerns

UCaaS deployments are growing

UCaaS is growing at a rate that shows the market for UC is moving toward cloud-based voice and collaboration solutions at a rate of 29% year over year.

Source: Synergy Research Group, 2017.

Security is still a big concern

While it’s increasingly popular to adopt cloud-based unified communication solutions, 70% of those companies are still concerned about their data security.

Source: Masergy, 2022.

Concerns around security range from encrypting conversations to controlling who has access to what data in the organization’s network to how video is managed on emerging video communications platforms.

Info-Tech Insight

Ensure you maintain a robust security posture with your data regardless of where it is being stored. Security breaches can happen at any location.

UCaaS vs. on-premises UC

Main benefits of UCaaS

• Rapid deployment: Cloud hosting provides the ability to deploy quickly.
• Ease of management: It’s no longer necessary for companies to manage communications across multiple platforms and devices.
• Better connection: The communication flow across teams and with customers is faster and easier with phone, messaging, audio and video conferencing available in one place.
• Scalability: Since UCaaS is an on-demand service, companies can scale their communication needs to what’s immediately required at an affordable price.

Info-Tech Insight

There are five reasons you should migrate to UCaaS. They are advanced technology, easily scalable, cost efficiencies, highly available, and security. There are always outliers, but these five criteria are a reliable foundation when assessing a vendor/product.

UCaaS architecture

The 6 primary elements of UCaaS

Unified communications as a service (UCaaS) is a cloud-based subscription service primarily for communication tools such as voice, video, messaging, collaboration, content sharing, and other cloud services over the internet. It uses VoIP to process calls.

The popularity of UCaaS is increasing with the recent trend of users working remotely full or part-time and requiring collaboration tools for their work.

• The main benefit to businesses is the ability to remove on-premises hardware and reduce technical debt.
• Additionally, it removes the need for expensive up-front capital costs and reduces communications costs.
• From a productivity perspective, delivering these services under one platform/service increases effective collaboration and allows instant communication regardless of device or location.

Features available to UCaaS/UC

Must-haves vs. nice-to-haves

Info-Tech Insight

Decide what matters most to the organization when choosing the UC platform and applications. Divide criteria into must-have vs. nice-to-have categories.

Security and UCaaS

• Maintain company integrity
• Enhance data security
• Regulatory compliance
• Reduce risk of fraud
• Protect data for multiple devices

What are the concerns? What is at risk?

• DDoS attacks: Enterprise transactions are paralyzed by flooding of data across the network preventing access
• Phishing: Users are tricked into clicking a URL and sharing an organization’s sensitive data
• Ransomware: Malicious attack preventing the business from accessing data and demanding a ransom for access
• Third-party malware: Software infected with a virus, trojan horse, worms, spyware, or even ransomware with malicious intent

Security solutions in UCaaS

End-to-end encryption is critical

SRTP

• Secure real-time protocol is a cryptographic protocol used to secure voice & video calls over IP networks
• SRTP provides encryption, message authentication, and integrity protection for voice and data packets. Using advanced encryption standard (AES) reduces chance of DDoS attacks

TLS

• Transport layer security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that secures data in transit over the internet, protecting from interception and tampering

VPNs and firewalls

• Virtual private networks (VPNs) are used to secure and encrypt connections between remote devices and the network. UCaaS providers can use VPN to secure access from remote locations
• Firewalls are your primary line of defense against unauthorized traffic entering or leaving the network

SIP

• Session initiated protocol (SIP) over TLS is used to initiate and terminate video and voice calls over the internet. UCaaS providers often use SIP over TLS to encrypt and secure SIP messages

SSH

• Secure shell (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol used to secure remote access and communications over the network. SSH is often used by UCaaS providers to secure remote management and configuration of systems

Info-Tech Insight

Encryption is a must for securing data and voice packets across the internet. These packets can be vulnerable to eavesdropping techniques and local area network (LAN) breaches. This risk must be mitigated from end to end.

UCaaS

Seven vendors competing with Microsoft’s integrated suite of collaboration tools

Zoom

Best for large meetings and webinars

Key features:

• Virtual meetings up to 300 users, up to 1,000 with enterprise version
• Team chat
• Digital whiteboard
• Phone

RingCentral

Best for project management collaboration tools

Key features:

• Video conferencing up to 200 users
• Chat
• Voice calls
• Video polls and captioning
• Digital whiteboard

Nextiva

Best for CRM support, best-in-class functionality and features

Key features:

• Single dashboard
• Chat
• Cospace collaboration tool
• Templates
• Voice and call pop

GoTo Connect

Best for integration with other business apps

Key features:

• Video conferencing up to 250 participants
• Meeting transcripts
• Dial plan

Dialpad

Best for small companies under 15 users

Key features:

• Video meetings up to 15 participants
• AI transcripts with call summary
• Call controls share screen, switch between devices
• Channel conversations with calendar app

WebEx

Only vendor offering real-time translation & closed captioning

Key features:

• Video meetings up to 200 participants
• Calling features with noise removal, call recording, and transcripts
• Live polling and Q&A

Google Workspace

Best for whole team collaboration for docs and slides

Key features:

• Google meet video
• Collaboration on docs, sheets, and slides
• Google chat and spaces
• Calendars with sync updates with Gmail and auto-reminders

Avaya and Cisco

The major players in the VoIP on-premises PBX world have moved to a cloud experience to compete with Microsoft and other UCaaS players

Avaya offers the OneCloud UC platform. It is one of the last UC vendors to offer on-premises solutions. In a market which is moving to the cloud at a serious pace, Avaya retains a 14% share. It made a strategic partnership with RingCentral in 2019 and in February 2021 they formed a joint venture which is now called Avaya Cloud Office, a UCaaS solution that integrates Avaya’s communication and collaboration solution with the RingCentral cloud platform.

With around 33% of the UC market, Cisco also has a selection of UC products and services for on-premises deployment and the cloud, including WebEx Calling, Jabber, Unity Connections for voice messaging, and Single Number Reach for extensive telephony features.

Both vendors support on-premises and cloud-based solutions for UC.

Services provided by Avaya and Cisco in the UCaaS space

Avaya Cloud Office

• Voice calling: Cloud-based phone system over the internet with call forwarding, call transfer, voice mail, and more
• Video conferencing: Virtual meetings for real-time collaboration, screen sharing, virtual backgrounds, video layout, meeting recording, whiteboarding and annotation, and virtual waiting room
• Messaging: A feature that allows users to send and receive instant messages and SMS text messaging on the same platform
• Collaboration: Work together on documents and projects in real time. File sharing and task management
• Contact center: Manage customer interactions across voice, email, chat, and social media
• Mobile app: Allows users to access communication and collaboration features on smartphones and tablets

Cisco WebEx

• Voice calling: Cisco WebEx calling provides cloud-based phone system over the internet including call forwarding, transfer, and voice mail
• Video conferencing: Features include virtual meeting and real-time collaboration, screen sharing, and virtual backgrounds and layouts, highly scalable to large audiences
• Messaging: Features include chat and SMS
• Collaboration: Allows users to work together on docs and projects in real time, including file sharing and task management
• Contact center: Multiple contact center solutions offered for small, medium, and large enterprises
• Mobile app: Software clients for Jabber on cellphones
• Artificial intelligence: Business insights, automatic transcripts, notes, and highlights to capture the meeting

Service desk and contact center cloud options

INDUSTRY: All industries
SOURCE: Software reviews

What vendors offer and what they don’t

RingCentral integrates with some popular contact centers such as Five 9, Talkdesk and Sharpen. They also have a built-in contact center solution that can be integrated with their messaging and video conferencing tools.

GoToConnect integrates with several leading customer service providers including Zendesk and Salesforce Service Cloud They also offer a built-in contact center solution with advanced call routing and management features.

WebEx integrates with a variety of contact center and customer service platforms including Five9, Genesys, and ServiceNow.

Dialpad integrates with contact center platforms such as Talkdesk and ServiceNow as well as CRM tools such as Salesforce and HubSpot.

Google Workspace integrates with third-party contact center platforms through their Google Cloud Contact Center AI offering.

SoftwareReviews

UCaaS comparison table

* Some reported issues around sound and voice quality may be due to network
**Limited to certain plans

Differences between UCaaS and CPaaS

Microsoft Teams Phone

UCaaS for Microsoft 365

Consider your approach to the telephony question. Microsoft incorporates telephony functionality with their broader collaboration suite. Other providers do the opposite.

Microsoft’s voice solution

These options allow you to plan for an all-cloud solution, connect to your own carrier, or use a combination of all cloud with a third-party carrier. Caveat: Calling plans must be available in your country or region.

How do you connect with the public switched telephone network (PSTN)?

Microsoft has three options for connecting the phone system to the PSTN:

Calling Plan

• Uses Microsoft's phone system and adds a domestic and international calling plan, which enables worldwide calling but depends on your chosen license
• Since PSTN Calling Plan operates out of Microsoft 365, you are not required to deploy/maintain on-premises hardware
• Customers can connect a supported session border controller (SBC) via direct routing if it’s necessary to operate with third-party PBX analog devices or other voice solutions supported by the SBC
• You can assign your phone numbers directly in the Teams Admin Center

This plan will work for you if:

• There is a calling plan available in your region
• You don’t need to maintain your PSTN carrier
• You want to use Microsoft's managed PSTN
• No SBC is necessary in your organization
• Teams provides all the features your business needs

Operator Connect

• Leverage existing contracts or find a new operator from a selection of participating operators
• Operator-managed infrastructure, your operator manages PSTN calling services and SBC
• Faster, easier deployment, quickly connect to your operator and assign phone numbers directly from Teams Admin Center
• Enhanced support and reliability, operators provide technical support and shared service level agreements
• Customers can connect a supported SBC via Direct Routing for interoperability with third-party PBXs, analog devices, and other third-party voice solution equipment supported by SBC

This plan will work for you if:

• There is no calling plan available in your region
• Your preferred carrier participates in the Microsoft operator connect plan
• You are looking to get a new operator that enables calling in Teams

Direct Routing

• Connect your own supported SBC to Microsoft Phone System directly without needing additional on-premises software
• Use virtually any voice solution carrier with Microsoft Phone System
• Can be configured and managed by customers or by your carrier or partner (ask if your carrier or partner provides this option)
• Configure interoperability between your voice solution equipment (e.g., a third-party PBX and analog devices) and Microsoft Phone System
• Assign phone numbers directly from Teams Admin Center

This plan will work for you if:

• You want to use Teams with Phone System
• You need to retain your current PSTN carrier
• You want to mix routing – some calls are going via Calling Plans, some via your carrier
• You need to interoperate with third-party PBXs and/or equipment such as overhead pagers, analog devices
• Teams has all the features that your organization requires

For more information, go to Microsoft Teams call flows.

Teams phone architecture

Microsoft offers three options that can be deployed based on several factors and questions you must answer.

Microsoft Teams phone considerations when connecting to a PSTN

• Do you want to move on-premises users to the cloud?
• Is Microsoft's PSTN Calling Plan available in your region?
• Is your preferred operator a participant in the Microsoft Operator Connect Program?
• Do you want or need to keep your current voice carrier (e.g., does an existing contract require you to do so)?
• Do you have an existing on-premises legacy PBX that you want or need to keep?
• Does your current legacy PBX offer unique business-critical features?
• Do all/any of your users require features not currently offered in Phone System?

1. Phone System with Calling Plan

All in the cloud for Teams users

Infrastructure requirements:

*List of countries where calling plans are available: aka.ms/callingplans

2. Phone System with own carrier via operator connect

Phone system in the cloud; connectivity to on-premises voice network for Teams users

Infrastructure requirements:

*List of countries where Operator Connect is available: aka.ms/operatorconnect

3. Phone System with own carrier via Direct Routing

Phone system in the cloud; connectivity to on-premises voice network for Teams users

Infrastructure requirements:

*Unless deployed as an option to provide connection to third-party PBX, analog devices, or other voice equipment for users who are on Phone System with Calling Plans

A Metrigy study found that 70% of organizations adopting MS Teams are using direct routing to connect to the PSTN
Note: Complex organizations with varying needs can adopt all three options simultaneously.

Avoid overpurchasing Microsoft telephony

Microsoft telephony products on a page

Pros:

• The complete package: sole-sourcing your environment for simpler management
• Users familiar with Microsoft will only have one place to go for telephony
• You can bring your own provider and manage your own routing, giving you more choice
• This can keep costs down as you do not have to pay for calling plan services
• You can choose your own third-party solution while still taking advantage of the integrations that make Microsoft so attractive as a vendor

Cons:

• The most expensive option of the three
• Less control and limited features compared to other pure-play telephony vendors
• This service requires expertise in managing telephony infrastructure
• Avoiding the cloud may introduce technical debt in the long term
• You will have to manage integrations and deal with limited feature functionality (e.g. you may be able to receive inbound calls but not make outbound calls)

Why does it matter?

Phone System is Microsoft’s answer to the premises-based private branch exchange (PBX) functionality that has traditionally required a large capital expenditure. The cloud-based Phone System, offered with Microsoft’s highest tier of Microsoft/Office 365 licensing, allows Skype/Teams customers access to the following features (among others):

• PSTN telephony (inbound and outbound)
• Auto attendants (a menu system for callers to navigate your company directory)
• Call forwarding, voice mail, and transferring
• Caller ID
• Shared lines
• Common area phones

Phone System, especially the Teams version, is a fully-featured telephony solution that integrates natively with a popular productivity solution. Phone System is worth exploring because many organizations already have Teams licenses.

Key insights

1. Don’t pay twice for the same service (unless you must). If you already have M/O365 E5 customer, Teams telephony can be a great way to save money and streamline your environment.
2. Consider your approach to the telephony question. Microsoft incorporates telephony functionality into a broader collaboration suite. Other providers do the opposite. This reflects their relative strengths.
3. Teams is a platform. You can use it as a front end for other telephone services. This might make sense if you have a preferred cloud PBX provider.

Sources

“Plan your Teams voice solution,” Microsoft, 2022.

“Microsoft Calling Plans for Teams,” Microsoft, 2023.

“Plan Direct Routing,” Microsoft, 2023.

“Cisco vs. Microsoft Cloud Calling—Discussing the Options,” UC Today, 2022.

“Microsoft Teams Phone Systems: 5 Deployment Options in 2020,” AeroCom, 2020.

Contact Center and Teams integration

Three Teams integration options

If you want to use a certified and direct routing solution for Teams Phone, use the Connect model.

If you want to use Azure bots and the Microsoft Graph Communication APIs that enable solution providers to create the Teams app, use the Extend model.

If you want to use the SDK that enables solution providers to embed native Teams experiences in their App, use the Power model (under development).

Teams phone network assessment

Useful tools for Microsoft network testing and Microsoft Teams site assessment

Plan network basics

• Does your network infrastructure have enough capacity? Consider switch ports, wireless access points, and other coverage.
• If you use VLANs and DHCP, are your scopes sized accordingly?
• Evaluate and test network paths from where devices are deployed to Microsoft 365.
• Open the required firewall ports and URLs for Microsoft 365 as per guidance.
• Review and test E911 requirements and configuration for location accuracy and compliance.
• Avoid using a proxy server and optimize media paths for reliability and quality.

What internet speed do I need for Teams calls?

• Microsoft Teams uses about 1.2 Mbps for HD video calling (720p), 1.5 Mbps for 1080p, 500 kbps for standard quality video (360p). Group video requires about 1 Mbps, HD group video uses about 2 Mbps.

Key physical considerations

• Power: Do you have enough electrical outlets? If the device needs an external power source, how close can you position it to an outlet?
• Device placement: Where will your device be located? Review desk stands, wall mounts, and other accessories from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM).
• Security: Does your device need to be locked in certain spaces?
• Accessibility: Does the device meet the accessibility requirements of its primary user? Consider where it's placed, wire length, and handset or headset usability.

Prepare your organization's network for Microsoft Teams

• Network/Bandwidth requirements: You can probably put together something from these network requirements from Microsoft: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/prepare-network

Plan your Teams voice solution

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/cloud-voice-landing-page

Check your internet connection for Teams Phone System

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/business-voice/get-ready-internet
• Microsoft 365 network connectivity test (office.com)
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=103017

Teams Phone Mobile

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/operator-connect-mobile-plan

UCaaS Activity

Questions that must be addressed by your business and the vendor. Site surveys and questionnaires for your assessment

Activity: Questionnaire

Input: Evaluate your current state, Network readiness
Output: Decisions on readiness, Gaps in infrastructure readiness, Develop a project plan
Materials: UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire
Participants: Infrastructure Manager, Project Manager, Network Engineer, Voice Engineer

As a group, read through the questions on Tabs 1 and 2 of the UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire workbook. The answers to the questions will determine if you have gaps to fill when determining your readiness to move forward on a UCaaS solution.

You may produce additional questions during the session that pertain to your specific business and situation. Please add them to the questionnaire as needed.

Record your answers to determine next steps and readiness.

When assessing potential vendors, use Tab 3 to determine suitability for your organization and requirements. This section may be left to a later date when building a request for proposal (RFP).

Call #1: Review client advisory deck and next steps.

Call #2: Assess readiness from answers to the Tab 1 questions.

Download the UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire here

Critical Path – Teams with Phone System Deployment

Example Ltd.’s Communications Guide

[Insert Organization Name]’s Communications Guide

Related Info-Tech Research

Bibliography

“8 Security Considerations for UCaaS.” Tech Guidance, Feb. 2022. Accessed March 2023.

“2022 UCaaS & CCaaS market trends snapshot.” Masergy, 2022. Web.

“All-in-one cloud communications.” Avaya, 2023. Accessed April 2023. Web.

Carter, Rebekah. “UC Case Study in Focus: Microsoft Teams and GroupM.” UC Today, 9 May 2022. Accessed Feb. 2023.

“Cisco Unified Communications Manager Cloud (Cisco UCM Cloud) Data Sheet.” Cisco, 15 Sept. 2021. Accessed Jan. 2023.

“Cloud Adoption as Viewed by European Companies: Assessing the Impact on Public, Hybrid and Private Cloud Communications.” Mitel, 2018. Web.

De Guzman, Marianne. “Unified Communications Security: The Importance of UCaaS Encryption.” Fit Small Business, 13 Dec. 2022. Accessed March 2023.

“Evolution of Unified Communications.” TrueConf, n.d. Accessed March 2023. Web.

Froehlich, Andrew. “Choose between Microsoft Teams vs. Zoom for conference needs.” TechTarget, 7 May 2021. Accessed March 2023.

Gerwig, Kate. “UCaaS explained: Guide to unified communications as a service.” TechTarget, 29 March 2022. Accessed Jan. 2023.

Irei, Alissa. “Emerging UCaaS trends include workflow integrations and AI.” TechTarget, 21 Feb 2020. Accessed Feb. 2023.

Kuch, Mike. “What Is Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)?” Avaya, 27 Dec. 2022. Accessed Jan. 2023.

Lazar, Irwin. “UC vendors extend mobile telephony capabilities.” TechTarget, 10 Feb. 2023. Accessed Mar 2023.

McCain, Abby. "30 Essential Hybrid Work Statistics [2023]: The Future of Work." Zippia, 20 Feb. 2023. Accessed Mar 2023.

“Meet the modern CIO: What CEOs expect from their IT leaders.” Freshworks, 2019. Web.

“A New Era of Workplace Communications: Will You Lead or Be Left Behind.” No Jitter, 2018. Web.

Plumley, Mike, et al. “Microsoft Teams IT architecture and voice solutions posters.’” Microsoft Teams, Microsoft, 14 Feb. 2023. Accessed March 2023.

Rowe, Carolyn, et al. “Plan your Teams voice solution” Microsoft Learn, Microsoft, 1 Oct. 2022.

Rowe, Carolyn, et al. “Microsoft Calling Plans for Teams.” Microsoft Learn, Microsoft, 23 May 2023.

Rowe, Carolyn, et al. “Plan Direct Routing.” Microsoft Learn, Microsoft, 20 Feb. 2023.

Scott, Rob. “Cisco vs. Microsoft Cloud Calling—Discussing the Options,” UC Today, 21 April 2022.

Smith, Mike. “Microsoft Teams Phone Systems: 5 Deployment Options in 2020.” YouTube, uploaded by AeroCom Inc, 23 Oct. 2020.

“UCaaS - Getting Started With Unified Communications As A Service.” Cloudscape, 10 Nov. 2022. Accessed March 2023.

“UCaaS Market Accelerating 29% per year; RingCentral, 8x8, Mitel, BroadSoft and Vonage Lead.” Synergy Research Group, 16 Oct. 2017. Web.

“UCaaS Statistics – The Future of Remote Work.” UC Today, 21 April 2022. Accessed Feb. 2023.

“Workplace Collaboration: 2021-22.” Metrigy, 27 Jan. 2021. Web.

Build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan

Plan ahead with a step-by-step approach to ensure the tool delivers business value.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst perspective

Take control of the wheel or you might end up in a ditch.

An ITSM tool implementation is a complex project with direct impact on IT’s ability to support the business. With that level of risk, you need to take control early on.

Yes, your vendor will support or execute the technical implementation, but they depend on you to tell them how to configure ITSM parameters and workflows that affect user interface, the ability to manage incidents, and governance over assets and IT changes.

If you leave the configuration completely to the vendor, at best you might get the same setup as in your old tool (and not realize the benefits that leadership is expecting). At worst you end up with default values that don’t fit your process needs, i.e., confusion and not realizing expected benefits.

A successful implementation requires early planning from a wide range of resources including ITSM tool experts (supported by the vendor), process experts, and a project manager to methodically step through the hundreds of parameters you will need to define before implementation.

Frank Trovato
Research Director, Infrastructure and Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

As with any large project, a key step is tackling it one bite at a time – but also understanding the size of the whole meal. This is where organizations often fail with ITSM implementations: not understanding upfront the volume of work required for a successful implementation.

Your Challenge

Organizations implementing a new ITSM tool often face these pitfalls:

• Selecting the Wrong Resources: You need ITSM technology and process experts, because this is not just a technology project but also a process improvement opportunity. You will need to configure ITSM parameters and workflows in the new tool – which directly affects processes. Take advantage of that opportunity to fix pain points. For example, if your existing ticket categories are not effective, implement a better categorization scheme rather than just configure the same old, ineffective scheme.
• Over-Reliance on the Vendor to Optimize Your Tool: Yes, the vendor will typically install and set up the tool but they will not fix your processes for you. On installation day, if you are not prepared with the categories, ticket templates, and so on that you wish to configure, your vendor will just go with the default or migrate your old parameters from your old ITSM tool.
• Not Preparing for Data Migration: Data migration is complex. You need to determine what data to migrate, if any, and how that data will be mapped to the new environment. That takes planning and must be defined well before the vendor is ready to implement your tool.
• Insufficient IT and End-User Training: A link to the ITSM tool manual is not enough. Staff and users need training on how your processes will be executed in the new tool.

A survey of implementation challenges for ServiceNow’s customers

26% Resistance to change

43% Lacked a clear roadmap

38% Planning for resources

Source: Acorio, 2019

Info-Tech’s approach

Divide the implementation project into controllable phases for an effective implementation.

STOP: Use this blueprint after you have selected an ITSM solution

Leverage our SoftwareReviews service and related blueprints to assist with ITSM tool selection, and then use this blueprint to plan the implementation.

Info-Tech’s methodology to build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan

Insight summary

Blueprint deliverables

This blueprint includes tools and templates to help you accomplish your goals:

ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist Identify the most common decisions you will need to make and prepare for your implementation project.	ITSM Tool Project Charter Template Review and edit the template to suit your project requirements
	ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template Prioritize and prepare tool rollout plan
	ITSM Tool Training Schedule Use the checklist to create your new tool training roadmap

Blueprint benefits

Measured value from using this blueprint

Use this guide as an example to calculate your total cost savings from the ITSM tool implementation project.

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is between 6 to 8 calls over the course of 3 to 6 months.

Phase 1

Identify Stakeholders, Scope, and Preliminary Timeline

This phase will walk you through the following steps:

1. Define scope
2. Define roles and responsibilities
3. Identify preliminary timeline

Step 1.1

Define scope

Activities

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Define the scope of the implementation project
• Establish the future processes and functionalities the tool will support

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT Director/Manager
• Service Manager
• Project Manager and the project team

Outcomes of this step

• Specifying the implementation project
• Identifying the business units that are needed to support the project
• Defining the ongoing and future service management processes the tool will support

1.1.1 Use the Project Charter Template to capture scope, stakeholders, and timeline as outlined in Phase 1

Follow the instructions in Phase 1 (step 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3) to gather information needed to create a project charter to define project parameters.

Specific subsections are listed below and described in more detail in the remainder of this phase.

1. Project Overview: Includes deliverables, scope, milestones, and success metrics.
2. Governance and Management: Includes roles, responsibilities, and resource requirements.
3. Project Risks, Assumptions, and Constraints: Includes risks and mitigation strategies as well as any assumptions and constraints.
4. Project Sign-Off: Includes IT and executive sign-off (if required).

Download the ITSM Tool Implementation Project Charter Template

1.1.2 Leverage the Implementation Checklist to guide your preparation

The checklist tabs align to each phase of this blueprint.

• Phase 1 (Tab 1) – Identify Stakeholders, Scope, and Preliminary Timeline
• Phase 2 (Tab 2) – Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules
• Phase 3 (Tabs 3+4) – Prepare to Implement Additional ITSM Modules (e.g. Change Management)
• Phase 4 (deployment section in each tab) – Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

Download the ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist

1.1.3 Review goals that drove the ITSM tool purchase

Identify the triggers for the selection and implementation of your new ITSM tool.

Whether this is your first ITSM tool or a replacement for your old tool, the project was likely triggered by pain points that must be addressed by the new tool to improve your service desk. Having a clear understanding of these pain points throughout the implementation of your new tool will help to prevent them from reoccurring.

Common ITSM pain points include:

1. Poor communication with end users on ticket status.
2. Lack of SLA automation to escalate issues to the appropriate channels.
3. Poor self-service options for end users to perform simple requests on their own.
4. Undeveloped knowledgebase for users to find answers to common issues.
5. Lack of reporting or mistrust in reporting data.
6. Lack of automation, including ticket templates.
7. Overcomplicated ticket categories resulting in categories being misused.
8. Overconfiguration prevents future upgrades.
9. Lack of integration with other tools.

If you haven't already selected an ITSM tool, leverage the IT Service Management Selection Guide to select the right tool.

Download the IT Service Management Selection Guide

1.1.4 Plan to interview staff to support organizational change management

Identify challenges with the existing tool and processes as well as potential objections to the new tool.

Incorporate this feedback in the implementation to drive buy-in and a successful rollout.

Implementing a new ITSM tool will force changes in how IT staff do their work:

• At a minimum, it means learning a new interface.
• It could also mean leveraging features that improve IT operations but could change the process or tasks for the staff.
• Their input on the current tool and process challenges can be critical for the project.
• Solving at least some of their challenges can help bring them onboard to use this tool properly and follow associated process changes.

Info-Tech Insight

Keep management in the loop through every stage of the implementation process. They are the ones who are paying for the software, so they need to be informed throughout implementation and feel that their needs and feedback are being heard to prevent pushback further into the implementation.

1.1.5 Identify the modules and features you will plan to implement

Consider these factors when deciding what modules and features you want to implement:

• Specific ITSM modules based on the recommended order and any unique business requirements
• Key features that drove the tool purchase and address key issues
• High-level process changes needed to address challenges and realize expected benefits from the new ITSM tool (e.g. if a key goal was automated ticket routing based on categories, then the project needs to include developing a good categorization scheme)

Recommended order for implementation:

1. Incident Management and Service Request

This is the core of service management and typically has the highest impact on the organization. Include knowledgebase development as part of this implementation.

2. Change Management

A foundational component of service management, it allows organizations to minimize disruptions to IT services when making changes to services and critical systems.

3. Asset Management

A foundational component of service management, it allows organizations to track their assets’ locations, how they are used, and when changes are made to them.

1.1.6 Determine if data migration is required

If you are switching from a previous ITSM tool, carefully weigh the pros and cons as well as the necessity of migrating historical transactional data before deciding to import it into the new tool.

Importing your old transactional data will allow you to track metrics over time, which can be valuable for data analysis and reporting purposes.

However, ask yourself what the true value of your data is before you import it.

You will not get value out of migrating the old data if:

• You have incomplete or inaccurate data (a high percentage of incidents did not have tickets created in the old system).
• The categorization of your old tickets was not useful or was used inconsistently.
• You plan on changing the ticket categorization in the new system.

“Don’t debate whether you can import your old data until you’ve made sure that you should.”

– Barry Cousins, Practice Lead at Info-Tech Research Group

Info-Tech Insight

If you decide to migrate your data, keep in mind that it can be a complex process and proper time should be budgeted for planning, structuring the data, and importing and testing it.

Step 1.2

Define roles and responsibilities

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT Director/Manager
• Service Manager
• Project Manager and the project team

Outcomes of this step

• Decision on whether to hire professional services for the implementation
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for the project

1.2.1 Identify key internal roles and responsibilities

Review the tasks outlined in the Implementation Checklist to help you identify appropriate roles and specific staff that will be needed to execute this project.

RACI = Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed

Assign individuals to roles through each step of the implementation project in the governance and management chart in the Project Charter Template.

Download the Project Charter Template

1.2.2 Key external roles and responsibilities

Determine whether you will engage professional services for the implementation.

Step 1.3

Identify preliminary timeline

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT Director/Manager
• Service Manager
• Project Manager and the project team

Outcomes of this step

• Specifying the target dates for the implementation project

1.3.1 Identify preliminary internal target dates

Identify high-level start and end dates based on the following:

• Existing process maturity
• Process changes required (to address process issues or to realize targeted benefits from the new tool)
• Data migration requirements (if any)
• Information to prepare for the implementation (review the Checklist Tool)
• Vendor availability to support implementation
• Executive mandates that have established specific milestone dates

Create an initial project schedule:

• Review the remaining phases of this blueprint for more details on the implementation planning steps.
• Review and update the Checklist Tool to suit your implementation goals and requirements.
• Assign task owners and target dates in the Checklist Tool.

Note: This is a preliminary schedule. Monitor progress as well as requirement changes, and adjust the scope or schedule as needed.

Update the columns in the Checklist Tool to plan and keep track of your implementation project.

1.3.2 Identify target dates for vendor involvement

Plan when you'll be ready for the vendor and identify the key points for when the vendor will come in.

Are dates already scheduled for tool installation/configuration/customization?

If yes:

• Clarify vendor expectations for those target dates (i.e. what do you have to have prepared in advance?).
• Determine options to adjust dates if needed.

If no:

• Defer scheduling until you have reviewed and updated the Implementation Checklist. The checklist will help you determine your readiness for vendor involvement.

Consider if the vendor will implement the ITSM tool in one go or if they will help setup the tool in stages. Keep in mind that ITSM implementation projects typically take anywhere from 9 weeks to 16 months and plan accordingly depending on the maturity of your processes and the modules and features you plan to implement.

Use your internal target dates to estimate when you'll be ready for the vendor to set up the tool and implement the setting that you've defined.

Phase 2

Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules

This phase will walk you through the following steps:

• Review your existing solution and challenges
• Plan ticket management and workflow implementation
• Plan data migration, knowledgebase setup, and integrations
• Plan the module rollout

Additional Info-Tech Research

The Implementation Checklist Tool summarizes what you need to prepare for the implementation. If you need more assistance with developing the underlying ITSM processes, use the tools, templates, and guidance in these blueprints.

Standardize the Service Desk

Build core elements of service desk operations, including incident management and service request workflows, ticket categorization schemes, and ticket prioritization rules.

Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

Implement tools such as an improved knowledgebase and self-service portal to enable lower tier support staff and end users to resolve incidents or fulfill service requests.

Incident and Problem Management

Develop a critical incident management workflow and create standard operating procedures for problem management.

Step 2.1

Review your existing solution and challenges

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

2.1.1 Configure your tool, don’t customize it

Your tool may require at least some basic configurations to align with your processes, but in most cases customization of the tool is not recommended.

Case Study

Consider the consequences of over-customizing your solution.

INDUSTRY: Education

SOURCE: IT Director

2.1.2 Review your existing process to identify opportunities for improvement

Documenting your existing processes is an effective method for also reviewing those processes and identifying inefficiencies. Take advantage of this project to fix your process issues.

1. Document your existing workflows for incident management and service requests.
2. Review your workflows to identify opportunities to optimize through process refinement (e.g. clarifying escalation guidelines) or by leveraging features in your new ITSM tool (e.g. improved workflow automation).
3. Similarly, review the challenges identified through stakeholder interviews: is there an opportunity address those challenges through process changes or leveraging your new ITSM tool?
4. Address those challenge and issues as you execute the tasks outlined in the Implementation Checklist Tool. For example, if inconsistent ticket routing was identified as a challenge due to a vague categorization scheme, that’s a driver to review and update your scheme rather than just carry forward your existing scheme.

Regardless of your existing ITSM maturity, this is an opportunity to review and optimize existing processes. Even the most-mature organizations can typically find an area to improve.

Case Study

Reviewing and defining processes before the implementation can be a project in itself.

INDUSTRY: Defense

SOURCE: Anonymous

Step 2.2

Plan ticket management and workflow implementation

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

Outcomes of this step

Tool is designed and configured to support service desk processes and organization needs.

Checklist overview

The ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist will help you estimate resources required to support demand, based on your ticket volume.

TAB 2	TAB 3	TAB 4
Incident and Service Modules Checklist	Change Management Modules	Asset Management Modules

How to follow this section:

The following slides contain a table that explains why each task in the module matters and what needs to be considered. Complete the checklist modules referring to this section.

2.2.1 Define ticket classification values

Ticket classification improves reporting, workflow automation, and problem identification.

Review your existing ticket classification values to identify what to carry forward, drop, or change. For example, if your categorization scheme has become too complex, this is your opportunity to fix it; don’t perpetuate ineffective classification in the new tool.

2.2.2 Define ticket templates for common incident types and service requests

Ticket templates are the backbone of automation. A common complaint is that tickets take too much time. However, a little planning can reduce the time it takes to create a ticket to less than a minute.

2.2.3 Plan your ticket intake channels

Consider possible ticket intake channels and evaluate their relevance to your organization.

2.2.4 Design a self-service portal

Map your processes to the tool by defining your ticket input, categories, escalations, and workflows.

Don’t forget about the client-facing side of the solution. It is important to build a self-serve portal that has an easy-to-use interface where the user can easily find the category for the help they’re looking for. It is also necessary to educate the users on where to find the portal or how to access it.

2.2.5 Plan your knowledgebase (KB) implementation in the new tool

Evaluate how onerous KB migration will be for you. Is this an opportunity to improve how the KB is organized?

2.2.6 Design your ticket status notification processes and templates

2.2.7 Identify required user accounts, access levels, and skills/service groups

2.2.8 Review and update your workflows and escalation rules

2.2.9 Identify desired reporting and relevant metrics to track

Documentation of key metrics of service desk performance and end-user satisfaction that you wish to improve through the new solution is key to evaluate the success of your implementation.

Step 2.3

Plan data migration and integrations

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

Outcomes of this step

• Decisions made around data migration, integrations, automation, and reporting.
• ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist

2.3.1 Create a data migration and archiving plan

2.3.2 Identify and plan required integrations

Consider and plan for any necessary integrations with other systems.

A major component of the implementation that should be carefully considered throughout is if and how to integrate your ITSM tool with other applications in the environment.

Step 2.4

Plan the module rollout

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

Outcomes of this step

Identify and plan for additional modules and features to be implemented

2.4.1 Repeat the methodology for additional ITSM modules, using the Checklists as a guide

The preparation completed in Phase 1 and 2 to this point provide a foundation for additional ITSM modules.

This blueprint starts with the incident management and service request modules as those are typically implemented first since they are the most impactful to day-to-day IT service management.

In addition, the methodology outlined in Phase 1 and 2 to this point provides a model to follow for additional ITSM modules:

• If you did not already account for additional modules in Phase 1, then repeat the steps in Phase 1 to define scope, stakeholders, and timeline.
• The Implementation Checklist Tool provides tabs for Change Management and Asset Management to outline the specific details for those topic areas, but they follow the same high-level steps as Phase 2 (e.g. review existing processes, design relevant workflows).
• If you are planning to implement other modules (e.g. Problem Management), create additional tabs in the Implementation Checklist Tool as needed, using the existing tabs as a base.

2.4.2 Leverage these blueprints to help you implement change and asset management modules

The Implementation Checklist Tool summarizes what you need to prepare for the implementation. If you need more assistance with developing the underlying ITSM processes, use the tools, templates, and guidance in the blueprints below.

Optimize IT Change Management

Define change management workflows, key roles, and supporting elements such as request-for-change forms based on best practices.

Implement Hardware Asset Management

Create an SOP and associated process workflows to streamline and standardize hardware asset management.

Implement Software Asset Management

Build on a strong hardware asset management program to also properly track and manage software assets. This includes managing software licensing, finding opportunities to reduce costs, and improving your software audit readiness.

Phase 3

Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

This phase will walk you through the following steps:

1. Create a communication plan (for IT, users, and business leaders)
2. Create a training plan
3. Plan how you will deploy, monitor, and maintain the solution

ITSM Tool Training Schedule		ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template
Use the template to document and plan the communications and training needs prior to deployment of the new tool.		Use the deployment plan template to document the strategy and decisions made for making the transition to the new ITSM tool.
	Download the ITSM Tool Training Schedule		Download the ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template

Step 3.1

Create a communication plan (for IT, users, and business leaders)

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

1. CIO/IT Director
2. IT Manager
3. Service Manager

Outcomes of this step

Plan for communicating the change with business executives, service desk agents, and end users.

3.1.1 Ensure there is strong communication from management throughout the implementation and deployment

A common contributing factor for unsuccessful implementation is a lack of communication around training, transitioning, and deploying the new tool.

Common Pitfall:

Organizational communication and change management should have been ongoing and tightly monitored throughout the project. However, cut-over is a time in which critical communication regarding deployment and proper user training can be derailed when last-minute preparations take priority. Not only will general user frustration increase, but unintended process workarounds will emerge, eroding system effectiveness.

Mitigating Actions:

Deliver training for end users that will be engaged in testing. For all other users, deliver training prior to go-live to avoid the risk of training too early (where materials may not be ready or users are likely to forget what was learned). If possible, host quick refresher training a week or two prior to go-live.

Aim to communicate the upcoming go-live. The purpose of communication here is to reiterate expectations, complexities, and ramifications on business going forward. Alleviate performance anxiety by clearly stating that temporary drops in productivity are to be expected and that there will be appropriate assistance throughout the transition period.

Transition: Have the project/program manager remain on the project team for some time after deployment to oversee and assure smooth transition for the organization.

Complete training: Have a clear plan for training those users that were missed in the first round of training as well as a plan for ongoing training for those that require refresher training, for new joiners to your organization, and for any training requirements that result from subsequent upgrades.

3.1.2 Base your communications timeline on a classic change curve

It’s important to communicate the change ahead of the implementation, but also to reinforce that communication after implementation to recover from any resistance that occurs through the implementation itself.

Stages in a typical change curve:

1. Change is announced. Some people are skeptical and resistant, but others are enthusiastic. Most people are fence sitters; if they trust senior leadership, they will give the benefit of the doubt and expect change to be good.
2. Positive sentiment declines as implementation approaches. Training and other disruptions take people’s time and energy away from their work. Project setbacks and delays take credibility away from project leaders and seem to validate the efforts of saboteurs and skeptics.
3. Overall sentiment begins to improve as people adjust and see real progress made. Ideally, early successes or quick wins neutralize saboteurs and convert skeptics. At the very least, people will begin to accept and adapt to new realities.
4. If the project is successful and communication is reinforced after implementation, sentiment will peak and level out over time as people move on to other projects.

1. Honeymoon of “Uninformed Optimism”: Tentative support and enthusiasm for change before people have really felt or understood what it involves.
2. Backlash of “Informed Pessimism” (leading to “Valley of Despair”): People realize they’ve overestimated the benefits (or how soon they’ll be achieved) and underestimated the difficulty of change.
3. Valley of Despair and beginning of “Hopeful Realism”: Sentiment bottoms out and people begin to accept the difficulty (or inevitability) of change.
4. Bounce of “Informed Optimism”: More optimism and support when people begin to see bright spots and early successes.
5. Contentment of “Completion”: Change has been successfully adopted and benefits are being realized.

3.1.3 Communicate new processes

1. Communicate with business unit leaders and users:

• Focus on the benefits for end users to encourage buy-in for the change.
• Include preliminary instructions with a date for training sessions.

• Teach users how to contact the service desk and submit a ticket.
• Set expectations for IT’s response.
• Record all your training sessions so it can used for recursive training.

• IT must point users toward the new process, but ad hoc requests should still be expected at first. Deal with these politely but encourage all employees to use the new service desk ticketing process, if applicable.

• Continue to adjust communications if processes aren’t being followed to ensure SLAs can be met and improved.

“Communicate with your end users in phase 1 to let them know what will be changing, get feedback and buy-in, and inform them that training will be happening, then ensure you train them once the tool is installed. A lot of times we’ll get our tool set up but people don’t know how to use it."

– Director of ITSM Tools

Info-Tech Insight

If there is a new process for ticket input, consider using a reward system for users who submit a ticket through the proper channel ;(e.g. email or self-serve portal) instead of their old method (e.g. phone). However, if a significant cultural change is required, don’t expect it to happen right away.

Step 3.2

Create a training plan

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

• IT Director
• Project Manager
• Service Desk Manager

Outcomes of this step

• Training modules for different users of the tool.
• Assignment of training modules to users and schedule for completion.

3.2.1 Target training session(s) to the specific needs of your service desk and IT staff

Create targeted role-based training programs for your service desk analysts; they care about the portion of the solution they are responsible for, not the functionality that is irrelevant to their job.

Create and execute a role-based training program by conducting training sessions for targeted groups of users, training them on the functions they require to perform their jobs.

Use a table like this one to help identify which roles should be trained on which tasks within the ITSM tool.

The need for targeted training:

• IT personnel may challenge the need for training. They may feel they don’t require training on the use of tools or that they don’t have time to dedicate to training when there is so much work to be done.
• Providing targeted training focused on only the functions of the solution that each tier is responsible for can help to overcome that resistance.
• Targeted training may include basic training for level 1 technicians and more advanced in-depth training for administrators, power users, or level 2/3 technicians.

Info-Tech Insight:

Properly trained users promote adoption and improve results. Always keep training materials updated and available. New employees, new software integration, and internal promotions create opportunities for training employees to align the ITSM tool with their roles and responsibilities.

3.2.2 Provide training

Training must take place before deployment to ensure that both your service desk agents and end users will use the tool in the way it was intended and improve end-user satisfaction.

• Implementing a new ITSM tool will likely bring with it at least some degree of organizational and cultural change. It’s important to manage that change through proper training. Your training needs will vary depending on the maturity of the organization and the amount of cultural and process change being implemented.
• If this is your first ITSM solution with many new changes for staff to take on board, it will be important to dedicate training time not only before deployment but also several months after the initial installation, to allow staff to gain more experience with the new tool and processes and formulate questions they may not think to ask during implementation.
• A training plan should take into account not only training needs for the implementation project but also any ongoing training requirements that may be required. This may include:
  • Training for new personnel.
  • Training on any changes to the tool.
  • Training on any new processes the tool will support.
• Better agent training will lead to better performance and improved end-user satisfaction.

The blue graph line charts new-agent training hours against first contact resolution and the orange graph line charts the trendline for the dataset.

Source: MetricNet, 2012

3.2.3 Choose an appropriate training delivery method

Training should include use cases that focus on not only how the tool’s interface works but also how the tool should be used to support process activities.

1. Training through use cases highlights how the tool will support the user in role-based tasks.
2. If new processes are being introduced along with the tool, training should cover both in an integrated way.
3. Team leadership and management commitment ensures that all agents take their training seriously and are prepared for all use cases by the deployment date.

Info-Tech Insight:

Ensure that the training demonstrates not only how the tool should be used, but also the benefits it will provide your staff in terms of improved efficiency and productivity. Users who can clearly see the benefits the tool will provide for their daily work will accept the tool more readily and promote it across the organization.

Step 3.3

Plan how you will deploy, monitor, and maintain the solution

Activities

This step involves the following participants:

• IT Director
• Project Manager
• Service Desk Manager

Outcomes of this step

Deployment plan, including a plan for cut-over from the old tool (if applicable), release of the new tool, and post-deployment support and maintenance of the tool.

3.3.1 Plan the transition from your old tool to ensure continual functionality

If you will have a transitional period during which the current tool will be used alongside the new tool, develop a clear plan for the transition to ensure continued service for your end users.

• If there will be an interim period during which only some aspects of the new ITSM tool are functional, you will need to determine how the new system and old systems will work together for that period of time. This may require creating interfaces as well as providing user documentation and/or SOPs on how the business processes will operate during the interim period.
• Cut-over is the period during which the changeover to the new system occurs. Cut-over activities need to be tightly choreographed for a successful deployment. If improperly planned, chaos may erupt when unforeseen issues are encountered during deployment, the deployment may be jeopardized, and the organization may encounter costly interruptions to its daily operations.
• Many organizations may leave any open tickets in the old tool until they are closed, which requires that tool run alongside the new tool for a transitional period. In this case, it is necessary to create guidelines around how long the open tickets will remain in the old system and ensure there is clear communication around these processes.

Be prepared for the transition:

1. Create a robust cut-over plan that includes when the old tool will be decommissioned, what activities are necessary during the cut-over, and what the contingency plan is in case of unforeseen issues.
2. Plan for and perform mock cut-overs to establish the timeline and dependencies for all steps that need to be performed to successfully complete the changeover. Do this to avoid any surprises or delays during the true cut-over period.
3. Establish cut-over logistics: Create a schedule for resources to work in shifts to avoid burn-out during cut-over, which can lead to lapses in judgment and easily avoidable mistakes. Allocate dedicated workspaces for cut-over activities, e.g. “war rooms” for the triage of issues.

3.3.2 Choose a cut-over approach that works for you

Approaches and insights from three case studies

3.3.3 Deploy the solution and any new processes simultaneously to ease the transition

Follow a deployment plan for introducing new processes alongside the new tool to ensure changes to both process and technology are adopted simultaneously.

If you’re introducing new processes alongside the new tool, it’s important to maintain the link between process and tool. Typically, the processes and tool should be deployed simultaneously unless there is a strong reason not to do so.

Deployment can be done as a big-bang or phased approach. The decision to employ a phased deployment depends on the number and size of business units the tool will support, as well as the organization’s geography and infrastructure (deployment locations).

Before deployment, conduct readiness assessments to understand whether:

The people are ready to accept the new system (have received the proper training and communications and understand how their jobs will change when the switch is flipped).

The technology is ready (test results are favorable, workarounds and a plan for closure have been identified for any open defects, and the system is performing as expected).

The data is ready (data for final conversion has been cleansed, and all conversions have been rehearsed).

The post-deployment support model is ready (infrastructure and technical support is in place, sites are ready, knowledge transfer has been conducted with the support organization, and end users understand procedures for escalation of issues).

3.3.4 Have a post-deployment support plan in place

Ensure that strong internal support for the project and tool will continue after deployment.

The stabilization period after a new software deployment can last between three and nine months, during which there may be continued training needs and fine-tuning of processes. Internal support from project leaders within your organization will be critical to recover from any dip in operational efficiency and deliver the benefits of the tool.

Consider the following to prepare better for your support plan:

What are the roles and responsibilities for ongoing tool administration support?

What level of support will exist to assist service desk staff after deployment?

How much time will project team resources devote to tackling upcoming issues and assisting with ongoing support?

Who will be responsible for ongoing training needs and documentation?

If your organization is spread across multiple locations, what level of support/assistance will be available at each site?

How will new code releases or system upgrades be managed and communicated?

Info-Tech Insight:

Deployment is only the first step in the system lifecycle. Full benefit realization from the tool requires ongoing investment and learning to be sustained. Unless processes and training are updated on an ongoing basis, benefits gained will start to decrease over time. If your service desk efficiency stagnates at the level it was at prior to implementation, the tool has failed to serve its objective.

Establish ongoing tool maintenance, improvement structures, and processes

People, processes, and organizations change over time, and your ITSM tool will need to change to meet expectations.

Develop and execute a plan for the maintenance of the solution and its infrastructure components.

Assign responsibility for ongoing maintenance. Hold regular meetings for the following activities:

1. Inspect data and reports.
2. Assess whether you’re meeting SLAs.
3. Predict any upcoming changes that may impact ticket volume (e.g. a new operating system or security patch).
4. Create new ticket templates for recurring or upcoming issues.
5. Create new knowledgebase articles.
6. Determine whether ticket categories are being used correctly.
7. Ask team if there are any problems with the tool.

3.3.5 Monitor success metrics defined in Project Charter

Revisit your goals for the solution and assess if they are being met by evaluating current metrics. If your goals have not yet been met, re-evaluate how to ensure the tool will deliver value.

Sample High-Level Goals:

1. Improved service desk efficiency
2. Improved end-user satisfaction
3. Improved self-service options for end users
4. Improved data and reporting capabilities

Related Info-Tech Research

Optimize IT Change Management

Define change management workflows, key roles, and supporting elements such as request-for-change forms based on best practices.

Standardize the Service Desk

Build core elements of service desk operations, including incident management and service request workflows, ticket categorization schemes, and ticket prioritization rules.

Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

Implement tools such as an improved knowledgebase and self-service portal to enable lower tier support staff and end users to resolve incidents or fulfill service requests.

Incident and Problem Management

Develop a critical incident management workflow and create standard operating procedures for problem management.

IT Service Management Selection Guide

Identify the best-of-breed solution to make the most of your investment and engage the right stakeholders to define success.

Analyze Your Service Desk Ticket Data

Develop a framework to track metrics, clean data, and put your data to use for pre-defined timelines.

Bibliography

Adiga, Siddanth. “10 Reasons Why ITSM Implementations Fail.” Could Strategy, 6 May 2015. Web.

Hastie, Shane, and Stéphane Wojewoda. “Standish Group 2015 Chaos Report.” InfoQ, 4 October 2015. Web.

“How to Manage Change in the Implementation of an ITSM Software.” C2, 20 April 2015. Web.

Lockwood, Meghan. “First Look: Annual ServiceNow Insight and Vision Executive Summary [eBook].” Acorio, 31 October 2019. Web.

Mainville, David. “7 Steps to a Successful ITSM Tool Implementation.” Navvia, 2012. Web.

Rae, Barclay. “Preparing for ITSM Tool Implementation.” Joe the IT Guy, 24 June 2015. Web.

Rae, Barclay. “Successful ITSM Tool Implementation.” BrightTALK, 9 May 2013. Webcast.

Rumburg, Jeffrey. “Metric of the Month: Agent Training Hours.” MetricNet, 2012. Web.

Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

Blending soft skills with deep technical expertise is essential for building successful data & analytics teams.

Analyst Perspective

Blending soft skills with deep technical expertise is essential for building successful data & analytics teams.

In today's changing environment, data & analytics (D&A) teams have become an essential component, and it is critical for organizations to understand the skill and talent makeup of their D&A workforce. Chief data & analytics officers (CDAOs) or other equivalent data leaders can train current data employees or hire proven talent and quickly address skills gaps.

While developing technical skills is critical, soft skills are often left underdeveloped, yet lack of such skills is most likely why the data team would face difficulty moving beyond managing technology and into delivering business value.

Follow Info-Tech's methodology to identify and address skills gaps in today's data workplace. Align D&A skills with your organization's data strategy to ensure that you always have the right skills at the right time.

Ruyi Sun
Research Specialist,
Data & Analytics, and Enterprise Architecture
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

The rapid technological evolution in platforms, processes, and applications is leading to gaps in the skills needed to manage and use data. Some critical challenges organizations with skills deficiencies might face include:

• Time loss due to delayed progress and reworking of initiatives
• Poor implementation quality and low productivity
• Reduced credibility of data leader and data initiatives

Common Obstacles

Some common obstacles that could prevent you from identifying and building the data and analytics (D&A) skills your organization needs are:

• Lack of resources and knowledge to secure professionals with the right mixed D&A skills and the right experience/skill level
• Lack of well-formulated and robust data strategy
• Neglecting the value of soft skills and placing all your attention on technical skills

Info-Tech's Approach

Follow Info-Tech's guidance on the roles and skills required to support your D&A strategic growth objectives and how to execute an actionable plan:

• Define skills required for each essential data and analytics role
• Identify roles and skills gap in alignment with your current data strategy
• Establish action plan to close the gaps and reduce risks

Info-Tech Insight

Skills gaps are a frequently named obstacle to realizing corporate goals for D&A. Soft skills and technical skills are complementary, and a D&A team needs both to perform effectively. Identify the essential skills and the gap with current skills required by your organization's data strategy to ensure the right skill is available at the right time and to minimize applicable risks.

The rapidly changing environment is impacting the nature of work

Scarcity of data & analytics (D&A) skills

• Data is one of the most valuable organizational assets, and regardless of your industry, data remains the key to informed decision making. More than 75% of businesses are looking to adopt technologies like big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) in the next five years (World Economic Forum, 2023). As organizations pivot in response to industry disruptions and technological advancements, the nature of work is changing, and the demand for data expertise has grown.
• Despite an increasing need for data expertise, organizations still have trouble securing D&A roles due to inadequate upskilling programs, limited understanding of the skills required, and more (EY, 2022). Notably, scarce D&A skills have been critical. More workers will need at least a base level of D&A skills to adequately perform their jobs.

Organizations struggle to remain competitive when skills gaps aren't addressed

Organizations identify skills gaps as the key barriers preventing industry transformation:

60% of organizations identify skills gaps as the key barriers preventing business transformation (World Economic Forum, 2023)

43% of respondents agree the business area with the greatest need to address potential skills gaps is data analytics (McKinsey & Company, 2020)

Most organizations are not ready to address potential role disruptions and close skills gaps:

87% of surveyed companies say they currently experience skills gaps or expect them within a few years (McKinsey & Company, 2020)

28% say their organizations make effective decisions on how to close skills gaps (McKinsey & Company, 2020)

Neglecting soft skills development impedes CDOs/CDAOs from delivering value

According to BearingPoint's CDO survey, cultural challenges and limited data literacy are the main roadblocks to a CDO's success. To drill further into the problem and understand the root causes of the two main challenges, conduct a root cause analysis (RCA) using the Five Whys technique.

(Source: BearingPoint, 2020)

Five Whys RCA

Problem: Poor data literacy is the top challenge CDOs face when increasing the value of D&A. Why?

• People that lack data literacy find it difficult to embrace and trust the organization's data insights. Why?
• Data workers and the business team don't speak the same language. Why?
• No shared data definition or knowledge is established. Over-extensive data facts do not drive business outcomes. Why?
• Leaders fail to understand that data literacy is more than technical training, it is about encompassing all aspects of business, IT, and data. Why?
• A lack of leadership skills prevents leaders from recognizing these connections and the data team needing to develop soft skills.

Problem: Cultural challenge is one of the biggest obstacles to a CDO's success. Why?

• Decisions are made from gut instinct instead of data-driven insights, thus affecting business performance. Why?
• People within the organization do not believe that data drives operational excellence, so they resist change. Why?
• Companies overestimate the organization's level of data literacy and data maturity. Why?
• A lack of strategies in change management, continuous improvement & data literacy for data initiatives. Why?
• A lack of expertise/leaders possessing these relevant soft skills (e.g. change management, etc.).

As organizations strive to become more data-driven, most conversations around D&A emphasize hard skills. Soft skills like leadership and change management are equally crucial, and deficits there could be the root cause of the data team's inability to demonstrate improved business performance.

Data cannot be fully leveraged without a cohesive data strategy

Business strategy and data strategy are no longer separate entities.

• For any chief data & analytics officer (CDAO) or equivalent data leader, a robust and comprehensive data strategy is the number one tool for generating measurable business value from data. Data leaders should understand what skills are required to achieve these goals, consider the current skills gap, and build development programs to help employees improve those skills.
• Begin your skills development programs by ensuring you have a data strategy plan prepared. A data strategy should never be formulated independently from the business. Organizations with high data maturity will align such efforts to the needs of the business, making data a major part of the business strategy to achieve data centricity.
• Refer to Info-Tech's Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy blueprint to ensure data can be leveraged as a strategic asset of the organization.

Info-Tech Insight

The process of achieving data centricity requires alignment between the data and business teams, and that requires soft skills.

Follow Info-Tech's methodology to identify the roles and skills needed to execute a data strategy

1. Define Key Roles and Skills

   Digital Leadership Skills, Soft Skills, Technical Skills

   Key Output

   • Defined essential competencies, responsibilities for some common data roles

2. Uncover the Skills Gap

   Data Strategy Alignment, High-Level Data Maturity Assessment, Skills Gap Analysis

   Key Output

   • Data roles and skills aligned with your current data strategy
   • Identified current and target state of data skill sets

3. Build an Actionable Plan

   Initiative Priority, Skills Growth Feasibility, Hiring Feasibility

   Key Output

   • Identified action plan to address the risk of data skills deficiency

Info-Tech Insight

Skills gaps are a frequently named obstacle to realizing corporate goals for D&A. Soft skills and technical skills are complementary, and a D&A team needs both to perform effectively. Identify the essential skills and the gap with current skills that fit your organization's data strategy to ensure the right skill is available at the right time and to minimize applicable risks.

Research benefits

Member benefits

• Reduce time spent defining the target state of skill sets.
• Gain ability to reassess the feasibility of execution on your data strategy, including resources and timeline.
• Increase confidence in the data leader's ability to implement a successful skills development program that is aligned with the organization's data strategy, which correlates directly to successful business outcomes.

Business benefits

• Reduce time and cost spent hiring key data roles.
• Increase chance of retaining high-quality data professionals.
• Reduce time loss for delayed progress and rework of initiatives.
• Optimize quality of data initiative implementation.
• Improve data team productivity.

Insight summary

Overarching insight

Skills gaps are a frequently named obstacle to realizing corporate goals for D&A. Soft skills and technical skills are complementary, and a D&A team needs both to perform effectively. Identify the essential skills and the gap with current skills that fit your organization's data strategy to ensure the right skill is available at the right time and to minimize applicable risks.

Phase 1 insight

Technological advancements will inevitably require new technical skills, but the most in-demand skills go beyond mastering the newest technologies. Soft skills are essential to data roles as the global workforce navigates the changes of the last few years.

Phase 2 insight

Understanding and knowing your organization's data maturity level is a prerequisite to assessing your current skill and determining where you must align in the future.

Phase 3 insight

One of the misconceptions that organizations have includes viewing skills development as a one-time effort. This leads to underinvestment in data team skills, risk of falling behind on technological changes, and failure to connect with business partners. Employees must learn to continuously adapt to the changing circumstances of D&A.

While the program must be agile and dynamic to reflect technological improvements in the development of technical skills, the program should always be anchored in soft skills because data management is fundamentally about interaction, collaboration, and people.

Tactical insight

Seeking input and support across your business units can align stakeholders to focus on the right data analytics skills and build a data learning culture.

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

Guided Implementation

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

A typical GI is four to six calls over the course of two to three months.

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

Phase 1

Define Key Roles and Skills

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• 1.1 Review D&A Skill & Role List in Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

This phase involves the following participants:

• Data leads

Key resources for your data strategy: People

Having the right role is a key component for executing effective data strategy.

D&A Common Roles

• Data Steward
• Data Custodian
• Data Owner
• Data Architect
• Data Modeler
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Specialist
• Database Administrator
• Data Quality Analyst
• Security Architect
• Information Architect
• System Architect
• MDM Administrator
• Data Scientist
• Data Engineer
• Data Pipeline Developer
• Data Integration Architect
• Business Intelligence Architect
• Business Intelligence Analyst
• ML Validator

AI and ML Specialist is projected to be the fastest-growing occupation in the next five years (World Economic Forum, 2023).

While tech roles take an average of 62 days to fill, hiring a senior data scientist takes 70.5 days (Workable, 2019). Start your recruitment cycle early for this demand.

D&A Leader Roles

• Chief Data Officer (CDO)/Chief Data & Analytics Officer (CDAO)
• Data Governance Lead
• Data Management Lead
• Information Security Lead
• Data Quality Lead
• Data Product Manager
• Master Data Manager
• Content and Record Manager
• Data Literacy Manager

CDOs act as impactful change agents ensuring that the organization's data management disciplines are running effectively and meeting the business' data needs. Only 12.0% of the surveyed organizations reported having a CDO as of 2012. By 2022, this percentage had increased to 73.7% (NewVantage Partners, 2022).

Sixty-five percent of respondents said lack of data literacy is the top challenge CDOs face today (BearingPoint, 2020). It has become imperative for companies to consider building a data literacy program which will require a dedicated data literacy team.

Key resources for your data strategy: Skill sets

Distinguish between the three skills categories.

• Soft Skills

  Soft skills are described as power skills regarding how you work, such as teamwork, communication, and critical thinking.

• Digital Leadership Skills

  Not everyone working in the D&A field is expected to perform advanced analytical tasks. To thrive in increasingly data-rich environments, however, every data worker, including leaders, requires a basic technological understanding and skill sets such as AI, data literacy, and data ethics. These are digital leadership skills.

• Technical Skills

  Technical skills are the practical skills required to complete a specific task. For example, data scientists and data engineers require programming skills to handle and manage vast amounts of data.

Info-Tech Insight

Technological advancements will inevitably require new technical skills, but the most in-demand skills go beyond mastering the newest technologies. Soft skills are essential to data roles as the global workforce navigates the changes of the last few years.

Soft skills aren't just nice to have

They're a top asset in today's data workplace.

Leadership

• Data leaders with strong leadership abilities can influence the organization's strategic execution and direction, support data initiatives, and foster data cultures. Organizations that build and develop leadership potential are 4.2 times more likely to financially outperform those that do not (Udemy, 2022).

Business Acumen

• The process of deriving conclusions and insights from data is ultimately utilized to improve business decisions and solve business problems. Possessing business acumen helps provide the business context and perspectives for work within data analytics fields.

Critical Thinking

• Critical thinking allows data leaders at every level to objectively assess a problem before making judgment, consider all perspectives and opinions, and be able to make decisions knowing the ultimate impact on results.

Analytical Thinking

• Analytical thinking remains the most important skill for workers in 2023 (World Economic Forum, 2023). Data analytics expertise relies heavily on analytical thinking, which is the process of breaking information into basic principles to analyze and understand the logic and concepts.

Design Thinking & Empathy

• Design thinking skills help D&A professionals understand and prioritize the end-user experience to better inform results and assist the decision-making process. Organizations with high proficiency in design thinking are twice as likely to be high performing (McLean & Company, 2022).

Learning Focused

• The business and data analytics fields continue to evolve rapidly, and the skills, especially technical skills, must keep pace. Learning-focused D&A professionals continuously learn, expanding their knowledge and enhancing their techniques.

Change Management

• Change management is essential, especially for data leaders who act as change agents developing and enabling processes and who assist others with adjusting to changes with cultural and procedural factors. Organizations with high change management proficiency are 2.2 times more likely to be high performing (McLean & Company, 2022).

Resilience

• Being motivated and adaptable is essential when facing challenges and high-pressure situations. Organizations highly proficient in resilience are 1.8 times more likely to be high performing (McLean & Company, 2022).

Managing Risk & Governance Mindset

• Risk management ability is not limited to highly regulated institutions. All data workers must understand risks from the larger organizational perspective and have a holistic governance mindset while achieving their individual goals and making decisions.

Continuous Improvement

• Continuously collecting feedback and reflecting on it is the foundation of continuous improvement. To uncover and track the lessons learned and treat them as opportunities, data workers must be able to discover patterns and connections.

Teamwork & Collaboration

• Value delivery in a data-centric environment is a team effort, requiring collaboration across the business, IT, and data teams. D&A experts with strong collaborative abilities can successfully work with other teams to achieve shared objectives.

Communication & Active Listening

• This includes communicating with relevant stakeholders about timelines and expectations of data projects and associated technology and challenges, paying attention to data consumers, understanding their requirements and needs, and other areas of interest to the organization.

Technical skills for everyday excellence

Digital Leadership Skills

• Technological Literacy
• Data and AI Literacy
• Cloud Computing Literacy
• Data Ethics
• Data Translation

Data & Analytics Technical Competencies

• Data Mining
• Programming Languages (Python, SQL, R, etc.)
• Data Analysis and Statistics
• Computational and Algorithmic Thinking
• AI/ML Skills (Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, etc.)
• Data Visualization and Storytelling
• Data Profiling
• Data Modeling & Design
• Data Pipeline (ETL/ELT) Design & Management
• Database Design & Management
• Data Warehouse/Data Lake Design & Management

1.1 Review D&A Skill & Role List in the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

Tab 2. Skill & Role List

Objective: Review the library of skills and roles and customize them as needed to align with your organization's language and specific needs.

Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

Phase 2

Uncover the Skills Gap

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• 2.1 High-level assessment of your present data management maturity
• 2.2 Interview business and data leaders to clarify current skills availability
• 2.3 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to Identify your skills gaps

This phase involves the following participants:

• Data leads
• Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs)
• Key business stakeholders

Identify skills gaps across the organization

Gaps are not just about assigning people to a role, but whether people have the right skill sets to carry out tasks.

• Now that you have identified the essential skills and roles in the data workplace, move to Phase 2. This phase will help you understand the required level of competency, assess where the organization stands today, and identify gaps to close.
• Using the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool, start with areas that are given the highest priority through a high-level maturity assessment. From there, three levels of gaps will be found: whether people are assigned to a particular position, the right combination of D&A skill sets, and the right competency level for each skill.

• Lack of talent assigned to a position

• Lack of the right combination of D&A skill sets

• Lack of appropriate competency level

Info-Tech Insight

Understanding your organization's data maturity level is a prerequisite to assessing the skill sets you have today and determining where you need to align in the future.

2.1 High-level assessment of your present data management maturity

Identifying and fixing skills gaps takes time, money, and effort. Focus on bridging the gap in high-priority areas.

Input: Current state capabilities, Use cases (if applicable), Data culture diagnostic survey results (if applicable)
Output: High-level maturity assessment, Prioritized list of data management focused area
Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool (optional), Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
Participants: Data leads, Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs), Key business stakeholders

Objectives:

Prioritize these skills and roles based on your current maturity levels and what you intend to accomplish with your data strategy.

Steps:

1. (Optional Step) Refer to the Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy blueprint. You can assess your data maturity level using the following frameworks and methods:
   • Review current data strategy and craft use cases that represent high-value areas that must be addressed for their teams or functions.
   • Use the data culture assessment survey to determine your organization's data maturity level.
2. (Optional Step) Refer to the Create a Data Management Roadmap blueprint and Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool to dive deep into understanding and assessing capabilities and maturity levels of your organization's data management enablers and understanding your priority areas and specific gaps.
3. If you have completed Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool, fill out your maturity level scores for each of the data management practices within it - Tab 3 (Current-State Assessment). Skip Tab 4 (High-Level Maturity Assessment).
4. If you have not yet completed Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool, skip Tab 3 and continue with Tab 4. Assign values 1 to 3 for each capability and enabler.
5. You can examine your current-state data maturity from a high level in terms of low/mid/high maturity using either Tabs 3 or 4.
6. Suggested focus areas along the data journey:
   • Low Maturity = Data Strategy, Data Governance, Data Architecture
   • Mid Maturity = Data Literacy, Information Management, BI and Reporting, Data Operations Management, Data Quality Management, Data Security/Risk Management
   • High Maturity = MDM, Data Integration, Data Product and Services, Advanced Analytics (ML & AI Management).

Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

2.2 Interview business and data leaders to clarify current skills availability

1-2 hours per interview

Input: Sample questions targeting the activities, challenges, and opportunities of each unit
Output: Identified skills availability
Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
Participants: Data leads, Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs), Key business stakeholders

Instruction:

1. Conduct a deep-dive interview with each key data initiative stakeholder (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT/Business department leads) who can provide insights on the skill sets of their team members, soliciting feedback from business and data leaders about skills and observations of employees as they perform their daily tasks.
2. Populate a current level of competency for each skill in the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool in Tabs 5 and 6. Having determined your data maturity level, start with the prioritized data management components (e.g. if your organization sits at low data maturity level, start with identifying relevant positions and skills under data governance, data architecture, and data architecture elements).
3. More detailed instructions on how to utilize the workbook are at the next activity.

Key interview questions that will help you :

1. Do you have personnel assigned to the role? What are their primary activities? Do the personnel possess the soft and technical skills noted in the workbook? Are you satisfied with their performance? How would you evaluate their degree of competency on a scale of "vital, important, nice to have, or none"? The following aspects should be considered when making the evaluation:
   • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Business unit data will show where the organization is challenged and will help identify potential areas for development.
   • Project Management Office: Look at successful and failed projects for trends in team traits and competencies.
   • Performance Reviews: Look for common themes where employees excel or need to improve.
   • Focus Groups: Speak with a cross section of employees to understand their challenges.
2. What technology is currently used? Are there requirements for new technology to be bought and/or optimized in the future? Will the workforce need to increase their skill level to carry out these activities with the new technology in place?

Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

2.3 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to identify skills gaps

1-3 hours — Not everyone needs the same skill levels.

Input: Current skills competency, Stakeholder interview results and findings
Output: Gap identification and analysis
Materials: Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
Participants: Data leads

Instruction:

1. Select your organization's data maturity level in terms of Low/Mid/High in cell A6 for both Tab 5 (Soft Skills Assessment) and Tab 6 (Technical Skills Assessment) to reduce irrelevant rows.
2. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to determine whether the data role exists in the organization. If yes, assign a current-state value from “vital, important, nice to have, or none” for each skill in the assessment tool. Info-Tech has specified the desired/required target state of each skill set.
3. Once you've assigned the current-state values, the tool will automatically determine whether there is a gap in skill set.

Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

Phase 3

Build an Actionable Plan

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• 3.1 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to build your actionable roadmap

This phase involves the following participants:

• Data leads
• Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs)
• Key business stakeholders

Determine next steps and decision points

There are three types of internal skills development strategies

• There are three types of internal skills development strategies organizations can use to ensure the right people with the right abilities are placed in the right roles: reskill, upskill, and new hire.

1. Reskill

   Reskilling involves learning new skills for a different or newly defined position.

2. Upskill

   Upskilling involves building a higher level of competency in skills to improve the worker's performance in their current role.

3. New hire

   New hire involves hiring workers who have the essential skills to fill the open position.

Info-Tech Insight

One of the misconceptions that organizations have includes viewing skills development as a one-time effort. This leads to underinvestment in data team skills, risk of falling behind on technological changes, and failure to connect with business partners. Employees must learn to continuously adapt to the changing circumstances of D&A. While the program must be agile and dynamic to reflect technological improvements in the development of technical skills, the program should always be anchored in soft skills because data management is fundamentally about interaction, collaboration, and people.

How to determine when to upskill, reskill, or hire to meet your skills needs

Reskill

Reskilling often indicates a change in someone's career path, so this decision requires a goal aligned with both individuals and the organization to establish a mutually beneficial situation.

When making reskilling decisions, organizations should also consider the relevance of the skill for different positions. For example, data administrators and data architects have similar skill sets, so reskilling is appropriate for these employees.

Upskill

Upskilling tends to focus more on the soft skills necessary for more advanced positions. A data strategy lead, for example, might require design thinking training, which enables leaders to think from different perspectives.

Skill growth feasibility must also be considered. Some technical skills, particularly those involving cutting-edge technologies, require continual learning to maintain operational excellence. For example, a data scientist may require AI/ML skills training to incorporate use of modern automation technology.

New Hire

For open positions and skills that are too resource-intensive to reskill or upskill, it makes sense to recruit new employees. Consider, however, time and cost feasibility of hiring. Some positions (e.g. senior data scientist) take longer to fill. To minimize risks, coordinate with your HR department and begin recruiting early.

Data & Analytics skills training

There are various learning methods that help employees develop priority competencies to achieve reskilling or upskilling.

Specific training

The data team can collaborate with the human resources department to plan and develop internal training sessions aimed at specific skill sets.

This can also be accomplished through external training providers such as DCAM, which provides training courses on data management and analytics topics.

Formal education program

Colleges and universities can equip students with data analytics skills through formal education programs such as MBAs and undergraduate or graduate degrees in Data Science, Machine Learning, and other fields.

Certification

Investing time and effort to obtain certifications in the data & analytics field allows data workers to develop skills and gain recognition for continuous learning and self-improvement.

AWS Data Analytics and Tableau Data Scientist Certification are two popular data analytics certifications.

Online learning from general providers

Some companies offer online courses in various subjects. Coursera and DataCamp are two examples of popular providers.

Partner with a vendor

The organization can partner with a vendor who brings skills and talents that are not yet available within the organization. Employees can benefit from the collaboration process by familiarizing themselves with the project and enhancing their own skills.

Support from within your business

The data team can engage with other departments that have previously done skills development programs, such as Finance and Change & Communications, who may have relevant resources to help you improve your business acumen and change management skills.

Info-Tech Insight

Seeking input and support across your business units can align stakeholders to focus on the right data analytics skills and build a data learning culture.

Data & Analytics skills reinforcement

Don't assume learners will immediately comprehend new knowledge. Use different methods and approaches to reinforce their development.

Innovation Space

• Skills development is not a one-time event, but a continuous process during which innovation should be encouraged. A key aspect of being innovative is having a “fail fast” mentality, which means collecting feedback, recognizing when something isn't working, encouraging experimentation, and taking a different approach with the goal of achieving operational excellence.
• Human-centered design (HCD) also yields innovative outcomes with a people-first focus. When creating skills development programs for various target groups, organizations should integrate a human-centered approach.

Commercial Lens

• Exposing people to a commercial way of thinking can add long-term value by educating people to act in the business' best interest and raising awareness of what other business functions contribute. This includes concepts such as project management, return on investment (ROI), budget alignment, etc.

Checklists/Rubrics

• Employees should record what they learn so they can take the time to reflect. A checklist is an effective technique for establishing objectives, allowing measurement of skills development and progress.

Buddy Program

• A buddy program helps employees gain and reinforce knowledge and skills they have learned through mutual support and information exchange.

Align HR programs to support skills integration and talent recruitment

With a clear idea of skills needs and an executable strategy for training and reinforcing of concepts, HR programs and processes can help the data team foster a learning environment and establish a recruitment plan. The links below will direct you to blueprints produced by McLean & Company, a division of Info-Tech Research Group.

Workforce Planning

When integrating the skills of the future into workforce planning, determine the best approach for addressing the identified talent gaps – whether to build, buy, or borrow.

Integrate the future skills identified into the organization's workforce plan.

Talent Acquisition

In cases where employee development is not feasible, the organization's talent acquisition strategy must focus more on buying or borrowing talent. This will impact the TA process. For example, sourcing and screening must be updated to reflect new approaches and skills.

If you have a talent acquisition strategy, assess how to integrate the new roles/skills into recruiting.

Competencies/Succession Planning

Review current organizational core competencies to determine if they need to be modified. New skills will help inform critical roles and competencies required in succession talent pools.

If no competency framework exists, use McLean & Company's Develop a Comprehensive Competency Framework blueprint.

Compensation

Evaluate modified and new roles against the organization's compensation structure. Adjust them as necessary. Look at market data to understand compensation for new roles and skills.

Reassess your base pay structure according to market data for new roles and skills.

Learning and Development

L&D plays a huge role in closing the skills gap. Build L&D opportunities to support development of new skills in employees.

Design an Impactful Employee Development Program to build the skills employees need in the future.

3.1 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to build an actionable plan

1-3 hours

Input: Roles and skills required, Key decision points
Output: Actionable plan
Materials: Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
Participants: Data leads, Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs), Key business stakeholders

Instruction:

1. On Tab 7 (Next Steps & Decision Points), you will find a list of tasks that correspond to roles that where there is a skills gap.
2. Customize this list of tasks initiatives according to your needs.
3. The Gantt chart, which will be generated automatically after assigning start and finish dates for each activity, can be used to structure your plan and guarantee that all the main components of skills development are addressed.

Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

Related Info-Tech Research

Create a Data Management Roadmap

• This blueprint will help you design a data management practice that will allow your organization to use data as a strategic enabler.

Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy

• Put a strategy in place to ensure data is available, accessible, well-integrated, secured, of acceptable quality, and suitably visualized to fuel organization-wide decision making. Start treating data as strategic and corporate asset.

Foster Data-Driven Culture With Data Literacy

• By thoughtfully designing a data literacy training program appropriate to the audience's experience, maturity level, and learning style, organizations build a data-driven and engaged culture that helps them unlock their data's full potential and outperform other organizations.

Research Authors and Contributors

Authors:

Contributors:

Bibliography

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Agrawal, Sapana, et al. “Beyond hiring: How companies are reskilling to address talent gaps.” McKinsey & Company, 12 Feb. 2020. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Bika, Nikoletta. “Key hiring metrics: Useful benchmarks for tech roles.” Workable, 2019. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Chroust, Tomas. “Chief Data Officer – Leaders of data-driven enterprises.” BearingPoint, 2020. Accessed 20 June 2023.

“Data and AI Leadership Executive Survey 2022.” NewVantage Partners, Jan 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Dondi, Marco, et al. “Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work.” McKinsey & Company, June 2021. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Futschek, Gerald. “Algorithmic Thinking: The Key for Understanding Computer Science.” Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4226, 2006.

Howard, William, et al. “2022 HR Trends Report.” McLean & Company, 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

“Future of Jobs Report 2023.” World Economic Forum, May 2023. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Knight, Michelle. “What is Data Ethics?” Dataversity, 19 May 2021. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Little, Jim, et al. “The CIO Imperative: Is your technology moving fast enough to realize your ambitions?” EY, 22 Apr. 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

“MDM Roles and Responsibilities.” Profisee, April 2019. Accessed 20 June 2023.

“Reskilling and Upskilling: A Strategic Response to Changing Skill Demands.” TalentGuard, Oct. 2019. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Southekal, Prashanth. “The Five C's: Soft Skills That Every Data Analytics Professional Should Have.” Forbes, 17 Oct. 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

Domino – Maintain, Commit to, or Vacate?

Lotus Domino still lives, and you have options for migrating away from or remaining with the platform.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

“HCL announced that they have somewhere in the region of 15,000 Domino customers worldwide, and also claimed that that number is growing. They also said that 42% of their customers are already on v11 of Domino, and that in the year or so since that version was released, it’s been downloaded 78,000 times. All of which suggests that the Domino platform is, in fact, alive and well.”
– Nigel Cheshire in Team Studio

Your Challenge

You have a Domino/Notes footprint embedded within your business units and business processes. This is taxing your support organization; you are meeting resistance from the business, and you are now asked to help the organization migrate away from the Lotus Notes platform. The Lotus Notes platform was long used by technology and businesses as a multipurpose solution that, over the years, became embedded within core business applications and processes.

Common Obstacles

For organizations that are struggling to understand their options for the Domino platform, the depth of business process usage is typically the biggest operational obstacle. Migrating off the Domino platform is a difficult option for most organizations due to business process and application complexity. In addition, migrating clients have to resolve the challenges with more than one replaceable solution.

Info-Tech Approach

The most common tactic is for the organization to better understand their Domino migration options and adopt an application rationalization strategy for the Domino applications entrenched within the business. Options include retiring, replatforming, migrating, or staying with your Domino platform.

Review

Is “Lotus” Domino still alive?

Problem statement

The number of member engagements with customers regarding the Domino platform has, as you might imagine, dwindled in the past couple of years. While many members have exited the platform, there are still many members and organizations that have entered a long exit program, but with how embedded Domino is in business processes, the migration has slowed and been met with resistance. Some organizations had replatformed the applications but found that the replacement target state was inadequate and introduced friction because the new solution was not a low-code/business-user-driven environment. This resulted in returning the Domino platform to production and working through a strategy to maintain the environment.

This research is designed for:

• IT strategic direction decision-makers
• IT managers responsible for an existing Domino platform
• Organizations evaluating migration options for mission-critical applications running on Domino

This research will help you:

1. Evaluate migration options.
2. Assess the fit and purpose.
3. Consider strategies for overcoming potential challenges.
4. Determine the future of this platform for your organization.

The “everything may work” scenario

Adopt and expand

Believe it or not, Domino and Notes are still options to consider when determining a migration strategy. With HCL still committed to the platform, there are options organizations should seek to better understand rather than assuming SharePoint will solve all. In our research, we consider:

Importance to current business processes

• Importance of use
• Complexity in migrations
• Choosing a new platform

Available tools to facilitate

• Talent/access to skills
• Economies of scale/lower cost at scale
• Access to technology

Info-Tech Insight

With multiple options to consider, take the time to clearly understand the application rationalization process within your decision making.

• Archive/retire
• Application migration
• Application replatform
• Stay right where you are

Eliminate your bias – consider the advantages

“There is a lot of bias toward Domino; decisions are being made by individuals who know very little about Domino and more importantly, they do not know how it impacts business environment.”

– Rob Salerno, Founder & CTO, Rivet Technology Partners

Domino advantages include:

Modern Cloud & Application

• No-code/low-code technology

Business-Managed Application

• Business written and supported
• Embrace the business support model
• Enterprise class application

Leverage the Application Taxonomy & Build

• A rapid application development platform
• Develop skill with HCL training

HCL Domino is a supported and developed platform

Why consider HCL?

• Consider scheduling a Roadmap Session with HCL. This is an opportunity to leverage any value in the mission and brand of your organization to gain insights or support from HCL.
• Existing Domino customers are not the only entities seeking certainty with the platform. Software solution providers that support enterprise IT infrastructure ecosystems (backup, for example) will also be seeking clarity for the future of the platform. HCL will be managing these relationships through the channel/partner management programs, but our observations indicate that Domino integrations are scarce.
• HCL Domino should be well positioned feature-wise to support low-code/NoSQL demands for enterprises and citizen developers.

Visualize Your Application Roadmap

1. Focus on the application portfolio and crafting a roadmap for rationalization.
   • The process is intended to help you determine each application’s functional and technical adequacy for the business process that it supports.
2. Document your findings on respective application capability heatmaps.
   • This drives your organization to a determination of application dispositions and provides a tool to output various dispositions for you as a roadmap.
3. Sort the application portfolio into a disposition status (keep, replatform, retire, consolidate, etc.)
   • This information will be an input into any cloud migration or modernization as well as consolidation of the infrastructure, licenses, and support for them.

Our external support perspective

by Darin Stahl

Member Feedback

• Some members who have remaining Domino applications in production – while the retire, replatform, consolidate, or stay strategy is playing out – have concerns about the challenges with ongoing support and resources required for the platform. In those cases, some have engaged external services providers to augment staff or take over as managed services.
• While there could be existing support resources (in house or on retainer), the member might consider approaching an external provider who could help backstop the single resource or even provide some help with the exit strategies. At this point, the conversation would be helpful in any case. One of our members engaged an external provider in a Statement of Work for IBM Domino Administration focused on one-time events, Tier 1/Tier 2 support, and custom ad hoc requests.
• The augmentation with the managed services enabled the member to shift key internal resources to a focus on executing the exit strategies (replatform, retire, consolidate), since the business knowledge was key to that success.
• The member also very aggressively governed the Domino environment support needs to truly technical issues/maintenance of known and supported functionality rather than coding new features (and increasing risk and cost in a migration down the road) – in short, freezing new features and functionality unless required for legal compliance or health and safety.
• There obviously are other providers, but at this point Info-Tech no longer maintains a market view or scan of those related to Domino due to low member demand.

Domino database assessments

Consider the database.

• Domino database assessments should be informed through the lens of a multi-value database, like jBase, or an object system.
• The assessment of the databases, often led by relational database subject matter experts grounded in normalized databases, can be a struggle since Notes databases must be denormalized.

Key/Value		Column
Use case: Heavily accessed, rarely updated, large amounts of data Data Model: Values are stored in a hash table of keys. Fast access to small data values, but querying is slow Processor friendly Based on amazon's Dynamo paper Example: Project Voldemort used by LinkedIn		Use case: High availability, multiple data centers Data Model: Storage blocks of data are contained in columns Handles size well Based on Google's BigTable Example: Hadoop/Hbase used by Facebook and Yahoo
Document		Graph
Use case: Rapid development, Web and programmer friendly Data Model: Stores documents made up of tagged elements. Uses Key/Value collections Better query abilities than Key/Value databases. Inspired by Lotus Notes. Example: CouchDB used by BBC		Use case: Best at dealing with complexity and relationships/networks Data model: Nodes and relationships. Data is processed quickly Inspired by Euler and graph theory Can easily evolve schemas Example: Neo4j

Understand your options

Archive/Retire

Store the application data in a long-term repository with the means to locate and read it for regulatory and compliance purposes.

Migrate

Migrate to a new version of the application, facilitating the process of moving software applications from one computing environment to another.

Replatform

Replatforming is an option for transitioning an existing Domino application to a new modern platform (i.e. cloud) to leverage the benefits of a modern deployment model.

Stay

Review the current Domino platform roadmap and understand HCL’s support model. Keep the application within the Domino platform.

Archive/retire

Retire the application, storing the application data in a long-term repository.

Abstract

The most common approach is to build the required functionality in whatever new application/solution is selected, then archive the old data in PDFs and documents.

Typically this involves archiving the data and leveraging Microsoft SharePoint and the new collaborative solutions, likely in conjunction with other software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.

Advantages

• Reduce support cost.
• Consolidate applications.
• Reduce risk.
• Reduce compliance and security concerns.
• Improve business processes.

Considerations

• Application transformation
• eDiscovery costs
• Legal implications
• Compliance implications
• Business process dependencies

Info-Tech Insights

Be aware of the costs associated with archiving. The more you archive, the more it will cost you.

Application migration

Migrate to a new version of the application

Abstract

An application migration is the managed process of migrating or moving applications (software) from one infrastructure environment to another.

This can include migrating applications from one data center to another data center, from a data center to a cloud provider, or from a company’s on-premises system to a cloud provider’s infrastructure.

Advantages

• Reduce hardware costs.
• Leverage cloud technologies.
• Improve scalability.
• Improve disaster recovery.
• Improve application security.

Considerations

• Data extraction, starting from the document databases in NSF format and including security settings about users and groups granted to read and write single documents, which is a powerful feature of Lotus Domino documents.
• File extraction, starting from the document databases in NSF format, which can contain attachments and RTF documents and embedded files.
• Design of the final relational database structure; this activity should be carried out without taking into account the original structure of the data in Domino files or the data conversion and loading, from the extracted format to the final model.
• Design and development of the target-state custom applications based on the new data model and the new selected development platform.

Application replatform

Transition an existing Domino application to a new modern platform

Abstract

This type of arrangement is typically part of an application migration or transformation. In this model, client can “replatform” the application into an off-premises hosted provider platform. This would yield many benefits of cloud but in a different scaling capacity as experienced with commodity workloads (e.g. Windows, Linux) and the associated application.

Two challenges are particularly significant when migrating or replatforming Domino applications:

• The application functionality/value must be reproduced/replaced with not one but many applications, either through custom coding or a commercial-off-the-shelf/SaaS solution.
• Notes “databases” are not relational databases and will not migrate simply to an SQL database while retaining the same business value. Notes databases are essentially NoSQL repositories and are difficult to normalize.

Advantages

• Leverage cloud technologies.
• Improve scalability.
• Align to a SharePoint platform.
• Improve disaster recovery.
• Improve application security.

Considerations

• Application replatform resource effort
• Network bandwidth
• New platform terms and conditions
• Secure connectivity and communication
• New platform security and compliance
• Degree of complexity

Info-Tech Insights

There is a difference between a migration and a replatform application strategy. Determine which solution aligns to the application requirements.

Stay with HCL

Stay with HCL, understanding its future commitment to the platform.

Abstract

Following the announced acquisition of IBM Domino and up until around December 2019, HCL had published no future roadmap for the platform. The public-facing information/website at the time stated that HCL acquired “the product family and key lab services to deliver professional services.” Again, there was no mention or emphasis on upcoming new features for the platform. The product offering on their website at the time stated that HCL would leverage its services expertise to advise clients and push applications into four buckets:

1. Replatform
2. Retire
3. Move to cloud
4. Modernize

That public-facing messaging changed with release 11.0, which had references to IBM rebranded to HCL for the Notes and Domino product – along with fixes already inflight. More information can be found on HCL’s FAQ page.

Advantages

• Known environment
• Domino is a supported platform
• Domino is a developed platform
• No-code/low-code optimization
• Business developed applications
• Rapid application framework

Understand your tools

Many tools are available to help evaluate or migrate your Domino Platform. Here are a few common tools for you to consider.

• SWING Software
  • Lotus Notes application archiving with Seascape for Notes: Seascape for Notes and Lotus Notes migration
  • Lotus Notes to SharePoint Migration
• Rivit MigrateMe
• SkyBow Notes to SharePoint
• CIMtrek: CIMtrek SharePoint Migrator and Migrating Lotus Notes Applications to the Cloud Using the CIMtrek migration tools [PDF]
• 4WS.Platform

Notes Archiving & Notes to SharePoint

Summary of Vendor

“SWING Software delivers content transformation and archiving software to over 1,000 organizations worldwide. Our solutions uniquely combine key collaborative platforms and standard document formats, making document production, publishing, and archiving processes more efficient.”*

Tools

Lotus Notes Data Migration and Archiving: Preserve historical data outside of Notes and Domino

Lotus Note Migration: Replacing Lotus Notes. Boost your migration by detaching historical data from Lotus Notes and Domino.

Headquarters

Croatia

Best fit

• Application archive and retire
• Migration to SharePoint

* swingsoftware.com

Domino Migration to SharePoint

Summary of Vendor

“Providing leading solutions, resources, and expertise to help your organization transform its collaborative environment.”*

Tools

Notes Domino Migration Solutions: Rivit’s industry-leading solutions and hardened migration practice will help you eliminate Notes Domino once and for all.

Rivive Me: Migrate Notes Domino applications to an enterprise web application

Headquarters

Canada

Best fit

• Application Archive & Retire
• Migration to SharePoint

* rivit.ca

Lotus Notes to M365

Summary of Vendor

“More than 300 organizations across 40+ countries trust skybow to build no-code/no-compromise business applications & processes, and skybow’s community of customers, partners, and experts grows every day.”*

Tools

SkyBow Studio: The low-code platform fully integrated into Microsoft 365

Headquarters:

Switzerland

Best fit

• Application Archive & Retire
• Migration to SharePoint

* skybow.com | About skybow

Notes to SharePoint Migration

Summary of Vendor

“CIMtrek is a global software company headquartered in the UK. Our mission is to develop user-friendly, cost-effective technology solutions and services to help companies modernize their HCL Domino/Notes® application landscape and support their legacy COBOL applications.”*

Tools

CIMtrek SharePoint Migrator: Reduce the time and cost of migrating your IBM® Lotus Notes® applications to Office 365, SharePoint online, and SharePoint on premises.

Headquarters

United Kingdom

Best fit

• Application replatform
• Migration to SharePoint

* cimtrek.com | About CIMtrek

Domino replatform/Rapid application selection framework

Summary of Vendor

“4WS.Platform is a rapid application development tool used to quickly create multi-channel applications including web and mobile applications.”*

Tools

4WS.Platform is available in two editions: Community and Enterprise.
The Platform Enterprise Edition, allows access with an optional support pack.

4WS.Platform’s technical support provides support services to the users through support contracts and agreements.

The platform is a subscription support services for companies using the product which will allow customers to benefit from the knowledge of 4WS.Platform’s technical experts.

Headquarters

Italy

Best fit

• Application replatform

* 4wsplatform.org

Activity

Understand your Domino options

Application Rationalization Exercise

Info-Tech Insight

Application rationalization is the perfect exercise to fully understand your business-developed applications, their importance to business process, and the potential underlying financial impact.

This activity involves the following participants:

• IT strategic direction decision-makers.
• IT managers responsible for an existing Domino platform
• Organizations evaluating platforms for mission-critical applications.

Outcomes of this step:

• Completed Application Rationalization Tool

Application rationalization exercise

Use this Application Rationalization Tool to input the outcomes of your various application assessments

In the Application Entry tab:

• Input your application inventory or subset of apps you intend to rationalize, along with some basic information for your apps.

In the Business Value & TCO Comparison tab, determine rationalization priorities.

• Input your business value scores and total cost of ownership (TCO) of applications.
• Review the results of this analysis to determine which apps should require additional analysis and which dispositions should be prioritized.

In the Disposition Selection tab:

• Add to or adapt our list of dispositions as appropriate.

In the Rationalization Inputs tab:

• Add or adapt the disposition criteria of your application rationalization framework as appropriate.
• Input the results of your various assessments for each application.

In the Disposition Settings tab:

• Add or adapt settings that generate recommended dispositions based on your rationalization inputs.

In the Disposition Recommendations tab:

• Review and compare the rationalization results and confirm if dispositions are appropriate for your strategy.

In the Timeline Considerations tab:

• Enter the estimated timeline for when you execute your dispositions.

In the Portfolio Roadmap tab:

• Review and present your roadmap and rationalization results.

Follow the instructions to generate recommended dispositions and populate an application portfolio roadmap.

Info-Tech Insight

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

Related Info-Tech Research

Build an Application Rationalization Framework

Manage your application portfolio to minimize risk and maximize value.

Embrace Business-Managed Applications

Empower the business to implement their own applications with a trusted business-IT relationship.

Satisfy Digital End Users With Low- and No-Code

Extend IT, automation, and digital capabilities to the business with the right tools, good governance, and trusted organizational relationships.

Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence

Optimize your organization’s enterprise application capabilities with a refined and scalable methodology.

Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes With a Robust RFP Process

Leverage your vendor sourcing process to get better results.

Research Authors

Darin Stahl, Principal Research Advisor,
Info-Tech Research Group

Darin is a Principal Research Advisor within the Infrastructure practice, 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, 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) startups.

Research Contributors

Rob Salerno, Founder & CTO, Rivit Technology Partners

Rob is the Founder and Chief Technology Strategist for Rivit Technology Partners. Rivit is a system integrator that delivers unique IT solutions. Rivit is known for its REVIVE migration strategy which helps companies leave legacy platforms (such as Domino) or move between versions of software. Rivit is the developer of the DCOM Application Archiving solution.

Bibliography

Cheshire, Nigel. “Domino v12 Launch Keeps HCL Product Strategy On Track.” Team Studio, 19 July 2021. Web.

“Is LowCode/NoCode the best platform for you?” Rivit Technology Partners, 15 July 2021. Web.

McCracken, Harry. “Lotus: Farewell to a Once-Great Tech Brand.” TIME, 20 Nov. 2012. Web.

Sharwood, Simon. “Lotus Notes refuses to die, again, as HCL debuts Domino 12.” The Register, 8 June 2021. Web.

Woodie, Alex. “Domino 12 Comes to IBM i.” IT Jungle, 16 Aug. 2021. Web.

Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable

Considerations for implementing an institutional-focused cloud brokerage.

Your Challenge

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

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

Navigating the Problem

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

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

Info-Tech’s Approach

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

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

Info-Tech Insight

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

Project Overview

Understand what value you want your brokerage to deliver

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

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

Security and compliance are usually the highest priority

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

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

The real goal: frictionless intermediation and enablement

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

Understand the evolution: Info-Tech thought model

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

Info-Tech Insights

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

Basic user satisfaction means becoming a frictionless intermediary.

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

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

Define the role of a cloud broker

Where do brokers fit in the cloud model?

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

Balancing governance and agility

Info-Tech Insight

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

Model brokerage drivers and benefits

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

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

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

Info-Tech Insights

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

The brokerage landscape

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

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

Info-Tech Insight

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

Address the unique challenges of business-led IT in institutions

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

Turn brokerage pitfalls into opportunities

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

Info-Tech Insights

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

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

Value Definition

• Define your brokerage type and value addition

Capabilities Mapping

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

Measuring Value

• Define KPIs for both compliant delivery and frictionless intermediation

Provide Cloud Excellence

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

Define the categories for your brokerage’s benefit and value

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

Define the categories of brokerage value to add

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

Info-Tech Insights

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

Brokerage types and value addition

Info-Tech Insights

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

Start by delivering value in these common brokerage service categories

Security & Compliance

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

Cost Management

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

Data Management

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

Resilience & Reliability

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

Cloud-Native & DevOps Enablement

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

Design, Transformation, and Integration

• CDN Integration
• AI Tools Integration
• SaaS Customizations

Activity: Brokerage value design

Who are you and who are you building this for?

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

What requirements and pains do you need to address?

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

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

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

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

Understand the ecosystem you’ll require to deliver value

GCB

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

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

Info-Tech Insights

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

• Efficiency
• Compliance
• Frictionlessness
• Cloud Enablement

Delivering value may require an ecosystem

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

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

Base Partner/Platform

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

Build the ecosystem you need for your value proposition

Leverage partners and automation to bake compliance in.

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

Security & Config

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

Cost Management

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

Adoption & User Satisfaction

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

Speed of Evolution

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

Build your features and services lists

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

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

End User

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

Business

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

IT

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

Understand the stakeholders

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

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

Info-Tech Insights

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

Define the value added by each stakeholder in your value chain

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

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

Cost Governance → Efficiency

Security & Compliance → Compliance

Adoption & User Satisfaction → Frictionlessness

New Service Addition Responsiveness → Frictionlessness, Enablement

End-User Cloud Effectiveness → Enablement

Info-Tech Insights

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

“Enabling brokers” help embrace business-led IT

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

Business Empowerment

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

Changing Business Needs

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

Low Barrier to Entry

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

Democratization of IT

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

Technology-Savvy Business

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

Balance usability and compliance: accelerate cloud effectiveness

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

Manage the user experience

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

Be proactive and responsive in meeting changing needs

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

Think like a service provider

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

Provide cloud excellence functions

Enablement Broker

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

Gauge value with the right metrics

Focus your effort on measuring key metrics.

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

Activity Output

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

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

Appendix

Related blueprints and tools

Document Your Cloud Strategy

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

Define Your Digital Business Strategy

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

Embrace Business-Managed Applications

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

Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process

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

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Build a Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap

Align infrastructure investment to business-driven goals.

Analysts' Perspectives

Infrastructure roadmaps are an absolute necessity for all organizations. An organization's size often dictates the degree of complexity of the roadmap, but they all strive to paint the future picture of the organization's IT infrastructure.

Infrastructure roadmaps typically start with the current state of infrastructure and work on how to improve. That thinking must change! Start with the future vision, an unimpeded vision, as if there were no constraints. Now you can see where you want to be.

Look at your past to determine how you have been spending your infrastructure budget. If your past shows a trend of increased operational expenditures, that trend will likely continue. The same is true for capital spending and staffing numbers.

Now that you know where you want to go, and how you ended up where you are, look at the constraints you must deal with and make a plan. It's not as difficult as it may seem, and even the longest journey begins with one step.

Speaking of that first step, it should be to understand the business goals and align your roadmap with those same goals. Now you have a solid plan to develop a strategic infrastructure roadmap; enjoy the journey!

There are many reasons why you need to build a strategic IT infrastructure roadmap, but your primary objectives are to set the long-term direction, build a framework for decision making, create a foundation for operational planning, and be able to explain to the business what you are planning. It is a basis for accountability and sets out goals and priorities for the future.

Other than knowing where you are going there are four key benefits to building the roadmap.

1. It allows you to be strategic and transformative rather than tactical and reactive.
2. It gives you the ability to prioritize your tasks and projects in order to get them going.
3. It gives you the ability to align your projects to business outcomes.
4. Additionally, you can leverage your roadmap to justify your budget for resources and infrastructure.

When complete, you will be able to communicate to your fellow IT teams what you are doing and get an understanding of possible business- or IT-related roadblocks, but overall executing on your roadmap will demonstrate to the business your competencies and ability to succeed.

PJ Ryan
Research Director
Infrastructure & Operations Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

John Donovan
Principal Research Director
Infrastructure & Operations Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Build a Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap

Align infrastructure investment to business-driven goals.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

When it comes to building a strategic roadmap, getting a seat at the table is your first objective. Knowing what the business wants to do and understanding its future needs is a challenge for most IT organizations.

Challenges such as:

• Understanding the business vision
• Clear communications on business planning
• Insight into what the future state should look like

Common Obstacles

Fighting fires, keeping the lights on, patching, and overseeing legacy debt maintenance – these activities prevent your IT team from thinking strategically and looking beyond day-to-day operations. Issues include:

• Managing time well
• Building the right teams
• Setting priorities

Procrastinating when it comes to thinking about your future state will get you nowhere in a hurry.

Info-Tech's Approach

Look into your past IT spend and resources that are being utilized.

• Analyze all aspects of the operation, and resources required.
• Be realistic with your timelines.
• Work from the future state backward.

Build your roadmap by setting priorities, understanding risk and gaps both in finance and resources. Overall, your roadmap is never done, so don't worry if you get it wrong on the first pass.

Info-Tech Insight

Have a clear vision of what the future state is, and know that when creating an IT infrastructure roadmap, it is never done. This will give your IT team an understanding of priorities, goals, business vision, and risks associated with not planning. Understand what you are currently paying for and why.

Insight Summary

"Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now."
Source: Alan Lakein, Libquotes

Your strategic objectives are key to building a roadmap

Many organizations' day-to-day IT operations are tactical and reactive. This needs to change; the IT team needs to become strategic and proactive in its planning and execution. Forward thinking bridges the gap from your current state, to what the organization is, to what it wants to achieve. Your strategic objectives need to align to the business vision and goals and keep it running.

Your future state will determine your roadmap priorities

Identify what the business needs to meet its goals; this should be reflected in your roadmap priorities. Then identify the tasks and projects that can get you there. Business alignment is key, as these projects require prioritization. Strategic initiatives that align to business outcomes will be your foundation for planning on those priorities. If you do not align your initiatives, you will end up spinning your wheels. A good strategic roadmap will have all the elements of forward thinking and planning to execute with the right resources, right priorities, and right funding to make it happen.

Understand what you have been paying for the last few years

Measure the cost of "keeping the lights on" as a baseline for your budget that is earmarked and already spent. Determine if your current spend is holding back innovation due to:

1. The high cost of maintenance
2. Resources in operations doing low-value work due to the effort required to do tasks related to break/fix on aging hardware and software

A successful strategic roadmap will be determined when you have a good handle on your current spending patterns and planning for future needs that include resources, budget, and know-how. Without a plan and roadmap, that plan will not get business buy-in or funding.

Top challenges reported by Info-Tech members

Lack of strategic direction

• Infrastructure leadership must discover the business goals.

Time seepage

• Project time is constantly being tracked incorrectly.

Technical debt

• Aging equipment is not proactively cycled out with newer enabling technologies.

Case Study

The strategic IT roadmap allows Dura to stay at the forefront of automotive manufacturing.

INDUSTRY: Manufacturing
SOURCE: Performance Improvement Partners

Challenge

Following the acquisition of Dura, MiddleGround aimed to position Dura as a leader in the automotive industry, leveraging the company's established success spanning over a century.

However, prior limited investments in technology necessitated significant improvements for Dura to optimize its processes and take advantage of digital advancements.

Solution

MiddleGround joined forces with PIP to assess technology risks, expenses, and prospects, and develop a practical IT plan with solutions that fit MiddleGround's value-creation timeline.

By selecting the top 15 most important IT projects, the companies put together a feasible technology roadmap aimed at advancing Dura in the manufacturing sector.

Results

Armed with due diligence reports and a well-defined IT plan, MiddleGround and Dura have a strategic approach to maximizing value creation.

By focusing on key areas such as analysis, applications, infrastructure and the IT organization, Dura is effectively transforming its operations and shaping the future of the automotive manufacturing industry.

How well do you know your business strategy?

A mere 25% of managers
can list three of the company's
top five priorities.

Based on a study from MIT Sloan, shared understanding of strategic directives barely exists beyond the top tiers of leadership.

Take your time back

Unplanned incident response is a leading cause of the infrastructure time crunch, but so too are nonstandard service requests and service requests that should be projects.

Source: MIT Sloan

Inventory Assessment

Lifecycle

Refresh strategies are still based on truisms (every three years for servers, every seven years for LAN, etc.) more than risk-based approaches.

Opportunity Cost

Assets that were suitable to enable business goals need to be re-evaluated as those goals change.

See Info-Tech's Manage Your Technical Debt blueprint

Key IT strategy initiatives can be categorized in three ways

IT key initiative plan

Initiatives collectively support the business goals and corporate initiatives, and improve the delivery of IT services.

1. Business support
   • Support major business initiatives
   • Each corporate initiative is supported by a major IT project and each project has unique IT challenges that require IT support.
2. IT excellence
   • Reduce risk and improve IT operational excellence
   • These projects will increase IT process maturity and will systematically improve IT.
3. Innovation
   • Drive technology innovation
   • These projects will improve future innovation capabilities and decrease risk by increasing technology maturity.

Info-Tech Insight

A CIO has three roles: enable business productivity, run an effective IT shop, and drive technology innovation. Your key initiative plan must reflect these three mandates and how IT strives to fulfill them.

IT must accomplish many things

Manage
the lifecycle of aging equipment against current capacity and capability demands.

Curate
a portfolio of enabling technologies to meet future capacity and capability demands.

Initiate
a realistic schedule of initiatives that supports a diverse range of business goals.

Adapt
to executive feedback and changing business goals.

Primary and secondary infrastructure drivers

• Primary driver – The infrastructure component that is directly responsible for enabling change in the business metric.
• Secondary driver – The infrastructure component(s) that primary drivers rely on.

(Source: BMC)

Sample primary and secondary drivers

Info-Tech Insight

You may not be able to directly influence the primary drivers of the business, but your infrastructure can have a major impact as a secondary driver.

Info-Tech's approach

1. Align strategy and goals

• Establish the scope of your IT strategy by defining IT's mission and vision statements and guiding principles.

• Envision and define your future infrastructure and analyze what is holding you back.

• Establish a risk framework, identify initiatives, and build your strategic infrastructure roadmap.

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Mission and Vision Statement
Goal Alignment (Slide 28)

Construct your vision and mission aligned to the business.

Strategic Infrastructure Roadmap tool

Build initiatives and prioritize them. Build the roadmap.

Infrastructure Domain Study

What is stealing your time from getting projects done?

Initiative Templates Process Maps & Strategy

Build templates for initiates, build process map, and develop strategies.

Key Deliverable

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Info-Tech's methodology for an infrastructure strategy and roadmap

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop Overview

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

Phase 1

Align Strategy and Goals

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• How to build IT mission and vision statements
• How to elicit IT guiding principles
• How to finalize and communicate your IT strategy scope

This phase involves the following participants:

• CIO
• Senior IT Team

Step 1.1

Develop the Infrastructure Strategy

Activities

1.1.1 Review/validate the business context

1.1.2 Construct your mission and vision statements

1.1.3 Elicit your guiding principles and finalize IT strategy scope

This step requires the following inputs:

• Business Mission Statement
• Business Vision Statement
• Business Goals

This step involves the following participants:

• Roadmap team

Outcomes of this step

• IT mission statement
• IT vision statement
• Guiding principles

To complete this phase, you will need:

Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template

Use the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template to document the results from the following activities:

• Mission and Vision Statements
• Business impact
• Roadmap

IT must aim to support the organization's mission and vision

A mission statement

• Focuses on today and what an organization does to achieve the mission.
• Drives the company.
• Answers: What do we do? Who do we serve? How do we service them?

"A mission statement focuses on the purpose of the brand; the vision statement looks to the fulfillment of that purpose."

A vision statement

• Focuses on tomorrow and what an organization ultimately wants to become.
• Gives the company direction.
• Answers: What problems are we solving? Who and what are we changing?

"A vision statement provides a concrete way for stakeholders, especially employees, to understand the meaning and purpose of your business. However, unlike a mission statement – which describes the who, what, and why of your business – a vision statement describes the desired long-term results of your company's efforts."
Source: Business News Daily, 2020

Characteristics of mission and vision statements

A strong mission statement has the following characteristics:

• Articulates the IT function's purpose and reason for existence.
• Describes what the IT function does to achieve its vision.
• Defines the customers of the IT function.
• Is:
• Compelling
• Easy to grasp
• Sharply focused
• Concise

A strong vision statement has the following characteristics:

• Describes a desired future achievement.
• Focuses on ends, not means.
• Communicates promise.
• Is:
• Concise; no unnecessary words
• Compelling
• Achievable
• Measurable

Derive the IT mission and vision statements from the business

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

• Corporate websites
• Business strategy documents
• Business executives

Ensure there is alignment between the business and IT statements.

Note: Mission statements may remain the same unless the IT department's mandate is changing.

1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements

1 hour

Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

Step 1:

1. Gather the IT strategy creation team and revisit your business context inputs, specifically the corporate mission statement.
2. Begin by asking the participants:
1. What is our job as a team?
2. What's our goal? How do we align IT to our corporate mission?
3. What benefit are we bringing to the company and the world?
1. Ask them to share general thoughts in a check-in.

Step 2:

1. Share some examples of IT mission statements.
2. Example: IT provides innovative product solutions and leadership that drives growth and
   success.
3. Provide each participant with some time to write their own version of an IT mission statement.

Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

Input

• Business vision statement
• Business mission statement

Output

• IT mission statement
• IT vision statement

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Markers
• Whiteboard
• Paper
• Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• CIO
• Senior IT Team

1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

1 hour

Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

Step 3:

This step involves reviewing individual mission statements, combining them, and building one collective mission statement for the team.

1. Consider the following approach to build a unified mission statement:

Use the 20x20 rule for group decision-making. Give the group no more than 20 minutes to craft a collective team purpose with no more than 20 words.

1. As a facilitator, provide guidelines on how to write for the intended audience. Business stakeholders need business language.
2. Refer to the corporate mission statement periodically and ensure there is alignment.
3. Document your final mission statement in your ITRG Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template.

Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

Input

• Business vision statement
• Business mission statement

Output

• IT mission statement
• IT vision statement

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Markers
• Whiteboard
• Paper
• Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• CIO
• Senior IT Team

1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

1 hour

Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

Step 4:

1. Gather the IT strategy creation team and revisit your business context inputs, specifically the corporate vision statement.
2. Share one or more examples of vision statements.
3. Provide participants with sticky notes and writing materials and ask them to work individually for this step.
4. Ask participants to brainstorm:
1. What is the desired future state of the IT organization?
2. How should we work to attain the desired state?
3. How do we want IT to be perceived in the desired state?
5. Provide participants with guidelines to build descriptive, compelling, and achievable statements regarding their desired future state.
6. Regroup as a team and review participant answers.

Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

Input

• Business vision statement
• Business mission statement

Output

• IT mission statement
• IT vision statement

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Markers
• Whiteboard
• Paper
• Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• CIO
• Senior IT Team

1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

1 hour

Objective: Help teams define their purpose (why they exist) to build a mission statement (if one doesn't already exist).

Step 5:

1. Ask the team to post their notes on the wall.
2. Have the team group the words that have a similar meaning or feeling behind them; this will create themes.
3. When the group is done categorizing the statements into themes, ask if there's anything missing. Did they ensure alignment to the corporate vision statement? Are there any elements missing when considering alignment back to the corporate vision statement?

Step 6:

1. Consider each category as a component of your vision statement.
2. Review each category with participants; define what the behavior looks like when it is being met and what it looks like when it isn't.
3. As a facilitator, provide guidelines on word-smithing and finessing the language.
4. Refer to the corporate vision statement periodically and ensure there is alignment.
5. Document your final mission statement in your IT Strategy Presentation Template.

Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

Input

• Business vision statement
• Business mission statement

Output

• IT mission statement
• IT vision statement

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Markers
• Whiteboard
• Paper
• Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• CIO
• Senior IT Team

1.1.2 Construct mission and vision statements (cont'd)

Tips for online facilitation:

• Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows participants to use a large, zoomable canvas.
• Set up each topic at a different area of the board; spread them out just like you would do on the walls of a room.
• Invite participants to zoom in and visit each section and add their ideas as sticky notes once you reach that section of the exercise.
• If you're not using an online whiteboard, we'd recommend using a collaboration tool such as Google Docs or Teams Whiteboard to collect the information for each step under a separate heading. Invite everyone into the document but be very clear regarding editing rights.
• Pre-create your screen deck and screen share this with your participants through your videoconferencing software. We'd also recommend sharing this so participants can go through the deck again during the reflection steps.
• When facilitating group discussion, we'd recommend that participants use non-verbal means to indicate they'd like to speak. You can use tools like Teams' hand-raising tool, a reaction emoji, or have people put their hands up. The facilitator can then invite that person to talk.

Source: Hyper Island

Input

• Business vision statement
• Business mission statement

Output

• IT mission statement
• IT vision statement

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Markers
• Whiteboard
• Paper
• Collaboration/brainstorming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• CIO
• Senior IT Team

IT mission statements demonstrate IT's purpose

The IT mission statement specifies the function's purpose or reason for being. The mission should guide each day's activities and decisions. The mission statements use simple and concise terminology and speak loudly and clearly, generating enthusiasm for the organization.

Strong IT mission statements have the following characteristics:

• Articulate the IT function's purpose and reason for existence
• Describe what the IT function does to achieve its vision
• Define the customers of the IT function
• Are:
• Compelling
• Easy to grasp
• Sharply focused
• Inspirational
• Memorable
• Concise

Sample IT Mission Statements:

• To provide infrastructure, support, and innovation in the delivery of secure, enterprise-grade information technology products and services that enable and empower the workforce at [Company Name].
• To help fulfill organizational goals, the IT department is committed to empowering business stakeholders with technology and services that facilitate effective processes, collaboration, and communication.
• The mission of the information technology (IT) department is to build a solid, comprehensive technology infrastructure; to maintain an efficient, effective operations environment; and to deliver high-quality, timely services that support the business goals and objectives of ABC Inc.
• The IT department has operational, strategic, and fiscal responsibility for the innovation, implementation, and advancement of technology at ABC Inc. in three main areas: network administration and end-user support, instructional services, and information systems. The IT department provides leadership in long-range planning, implementation, and maintenance of information technology across the organization.
• The IT group is customer-centered and driven by its commitment to management and staff. It oversees services in computing, telecommunications, networking, administrative computing, and technology training.

Sample mission statements (cont'd)

• To collaborate and empower our stakeholders through an engaged team and operational agility and deliver innovative technology and services.
• To empower our stakeholders with innovative technology and services, through collaboration and agility.
• To collaborate and empower our stakeholder, by delivering innovative technology and services, with an engaged team and operational agility.
• To partner with departments and be technology leaders that will deliver innovative, secure, efficient, and cost-effective services for our citizens.
• As a client-centric strategic partner, provide excellence in IM and IT services through flexible business solutions for achieving positive user experience and satisfaction.
• Develop a high-performing global team that will plan and build a scalable, stable operating environment.
• Through communication and collaboration, empower stakeholders with innovative technology and services.
• Build a robust portfolio of technology services and solutions, enabling science-lead and business-driven success.
• Guided by value-driven decision making, high-performing teams and trusted partners deliver and continually improve secure, reliable, scalable, and reusable services that exceed customer expectations.
• Engage the business to grow capabilities and securely deliver efficient services to our users and clients.
• Engage the business to securely deliver efficient services and grow capabilities for our users and clients.

IT vision statements demonstrate what the IT organization aspires to be

The IT vision statement communicates a desired future state of the IT organization. The statement is expressed in the present tense. It seeks to articulate the desired role of IT and how IT will be perceived.

Strong IT vision statements have the following characteristics:

• Describe a desired future
• Focus on ends, not means
• Communicate promise
• Are:
• Concise; no unnecessary words
• Compelling
• Achievable
• Inspirational
• Memorable

Sample IT vision statements:

• To be a trusted advisor and partner in enabling business innovation and growth through an engaged IT workforce.
• The IT organization will strive to become a world-class value center that is a catalyst for innovation.
• IT is a cohesive, proactive, and disciplined team that delivers innovative technology solutions while demonstrating a strong customer-oriented mindset.
• Develop and maintain IT and an IT support environment that is secure, stable, and reliable within a dynamic environment.

Sample vision statements (cont'd)

• Alignment: To ensure that the IT organizational model and all related operational services and duties are properly aligned with all underlying business goals and objectives. Alignment reflects an IT operation "that makes sense," considering the business served, its interests and its operational imperatives.
• Engagement: To ensure that all IT vision stakeholders are fully engaged in technology-related planning and the operational parameters of the IT service portfolio. IT stakeholders include the IT performing organization (IT Department), company executives and end-users.
• Best Practices: To ensure that IT operates in a standardized fashion, relying on practical management standards and strategies properly sized to technology needs and organizational capabilities.
• Commitment to Customer Service: To ensure that IT services are provided in a timely, high-quality manner, designed to fill the operational needs of the front-line end-users, working within the boundaries established by business interests and technology best practices.

Quoted From ITtoolkit, 2020

Case Study

Acme Corp. was able to construct its IT mission and vison statements by aligning to its corporate mission and vision.

INDUSTRY: Professional Services
COMPANY: This case study is based on a real company but was anonymized for use in this research.

IT guiding principles set the boundaries for your strategy

Strategic guiding principles advise the IT organization on the boundaries of the strategy.

Guiding principles are a priori decisions that limit the scope of strategic thinking to what is acceptable organizationally, from budgetary, people, and partnership standpoints. Guiding principles can cover other dimensions, as well.

Organizational stakeholders are more likely to follow IT principles when a rationale is provided.

After defining the set of IT principles, ensure that they are all expanded upon with a rationale. The rationale ensures principles are more likely to be followed because they communicate why the principles are important and how they are to be used. Develop the rationale for each IT principle your organization has chosen.

IT guiding principles = IT strategy boundaries

Consider these four components when brainstorming guiding principles

Breadth

of the IT strategy can span across the eight perspectives: people, process, technology, data, process, sourcing, location, and timing.

Defining which of the eight perspectives is in scope for the IT strategy is crucial to ensuring the IT strategy will be comprehensive, relevant, and actionable.

Depth

of coverage refers to the level of detail the IT strategy will go into for each perspective. Info-Tech recommends that depth should go to the initiative level (i.e. individual projects).

Organizational coverage

will determine which part of the organization the IT strategy will cover.

Planning horizon

of the IT strategy will dictate when the target state should be reached and the length of the roadmap.

Consider these criteria when brainstorming guiding principle statements

Review ten universal IT principles to determine if your organization wishes to adopt them

1.1.3 Elicit guiding principles

1 hour

Objective: Generate ideas for guiding principle statements with silent sticky note writing.

1. Gather the IT strategy creation team and revisit your mission and vision statements.
2. Ask the group to brainstorm answers individually, silently writing their ideas on separate sticky notes. Provide the brainstorming criteria from the previous slide to all team members. Allow the team to put items on separate notes that can later be shuffled and sorted as distinct thoughts.
3. After a set amount of time, ask the members of the group to stick their notes to the whiteboard and quickly present them. Categorize all ideas into four major buckets: breadth, depth, organizational coverage, and planning horizon. Ideally, you want one guiding principle to describe each of the four components.
4. If there are missing guiding principles in any category or anyone's items inspire others to write more, they can stick those up on the wall too, after everyone has presented.
5. Discuss and finalize your IT guiding principles.
6. Document your guiding principles in the IT Strategy Presentation Template in Section 1.

Source: Hyper Island

Download the ITRG IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

Input

• Four components for eliciting guiding principles
• Mission and vision statements

Output

• IT guiding principles
• IT strategy scope

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard
• Paper
• Collaboration/brain-storming tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• CIO
• Senior IT Team

Guiding principle examples

• Alignment: Our IT decisions will align with [our organization's] strategic plan.
• Resources: We will allocate cyber-infrastructure resources based on providing the greatest value and benefit for [the community].
• User Focus: User needs will be a key component in all IT decisions.
• Collaboration: We will work within and across organizational structures to meet strategic goals and identify opportunities for innovation and improvement.
• Transparency: We will be transparent in our decision making and resource use.
• Innovation: We will value innovative and creative thinking.
• Data Stewardship: We will provide a secure but accessible data environment.
• IT Knowledge and Skills: We will value technology skills development for the IT community.
• Drive reduced costs and improved services
• Deploy packaged apps – do not develop – retain business process knowledge expertise – reduce apps portfolio
• Standardize/Consolidate infrastructure with key partners
• Use what we sell, and help sell
• Drive high-availability goals: No blunders
• Ensure hardened security and disaster recovery
• Broaden skills (hard and soft) across the workforce
• Improve business alignment and IT governance

Quoted From: Office of Information Technology, 2014; Future of CIO, 2013

Case Study

Acme Corp. elicited guiding principles that set the scope of its IT strategy for FY21.

INDUSTRY: Professional Services
COMPANY: Acme Corp.

The following guiding principles define the values that drive IT's strategy in FY23 and provide the criteria for our 12-month planning horizon.

• We will focus on big-ticket items during the next 12 months.
• We will keep the budget within 5%+/- YOY.
• We will insource over outsource.
• We will develop a cloud-first technology stack.

Finalize your IT strategy scope

Your mission and vision statements and your guiding principles should be the first things you communicate on your IT strategy document.

Why is this important?

• Communicating these elements shows how IT supports the corporate direction.
• The vision and mission statements will clearly articulate IT's aspirations and purpose.
• The guiding principles will clearly articulate how IT plans to support the business strategically.
• These elements set expectations with stakeholders for the rest of your strategy.

Input information into the IT Strategy Presentation Template.

Summary of Accomplishment

Established the scope of your IT strategy

• Constructed the IT mission statement to communicate the IT organization's reason for being.
• Constructed the IT vision statement to communicate the desired future state of the IT organization.
• Elicited IT's guiding principles to communicate the overall scope and time horizon for the strategy.

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

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

Step 1.2

Business Goal Alignment

Activities

1.2.1 Intake identification and analysis

1.2.2 Survey results analysis

1.2.3 Goal brainstorming

1.2.4 Goal association and analysis

This step requires the following inputs:

• Last year's accomplished project list
• Business unit input source list
• Goal list
• In-flight initiatives list

This step involves the following participants:

• Business leadership
• Project Management Office
• Service Desk
• Business Relationship Management
• Solution or Enterprise Architecture
• Roadmap team

Outcomes of this step

• Intake analysis
• Goal list
• Initiative-to-goal map

Identify who is expecting what from the infrastructure

"Typically, IT thinks in an IT first, business second, way: 'I have a list of problems and if I solve them, the business will benefit.' This is the wrong way of thinking. The business needs to be thought of first, then IT."

– Fred Chagnon, Infrastructure Director,
Info-Tech Research Group

Info-Tech Insight

If you're not soliciting input from or delivering on the needs of the various departments in your company, then who is? Be explicit and track how you communicate with each individual unit within your company.

Mature project portfolio management and enterprise architecture practices are no substitute for understanding your business clientele.

It may not be a democracy, but listening to everyone's voice is an essential step toward generating a useful roadmap.

Building good infrastructure requires an understanding of how it will be used. Explicit consultation with stakeholders maximizes a roadmap's usefulness and holds the enterprise accountable in future roadmap iterations as goals change.

Who are the customers for infrastructure?

Internal customer examples:

• Network Operations manager
• IT Systems manager
• Webmaster
• Security manager

External customer examples:

• Director of Sales
• Operations manager
• Applications manager
• Clients
• Partners and consultants
• Regulators/government

1.2.1 Intake identification and analysis

1 hour

The humble checklist is the single most effective tool to ensure we don't forget someone or something:

1. Have everyone write down their top five completed projects from last year – one project per sticky note.
2. Organize everyone's sticky notes on a whiteboard according to input source – did these projects come from the PMO? Directly from a BRM? Service request? VP or LoB management?
3. Make a MECE list of these sources on the left-hand side of a whiteboard.
4. On the right-hand side list all the departments or functional business units within the company.
5. Draw lines from right to left indicating which business units use which input source to request work.
6. Optional: Rate the efficacy of each input channel – what is the success rate of projects per channel in terms of time, budget, and functionality?

Discussion:

1. How clearly do projects and initiatives arrive at infrastructure to be acted on? Do they follow the predictable formal process with all the needed information or is it more ad hoc?
2. Can we validate that business units are using the correct input channel to request the appropriate work? Does infrastructure have to spend more time validating the requests of any one channel?
3. Can we identify business units that are underserved? How about overserved? Infrastructure initiatives tend to be near universal in effect – are we forgetting anyone?
4. Are all these methods passive (order taking), or is there a process for infrastructure to suggest an initiative or project?

Input

• Last year's accomplished project list

Output

• Work requested workflow and map

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard & markers

Participants

• Roadmap team

Case Study

Building IT governance and digital infrastructure for tech-enabled student experiences

INDUSTRY: Education
COMPANY: Collegis Education

Challenge

In 2019, Saint Francis University decided to expand its online program offering to reach students outside of its market.

It had to first transform its operations to deliver a high-quality, technology-enabled student experience on and off campus. The remote location of the campus posed power outages, Wi-Fi issues, and challenges in attracting and retaining the right staff to help the university achieve its goals.

It began working with an IT consulting firm to build a long-term strategic roadmap.

Solution

The consultant designed a strategic multi-year roadmap for digital transformation that would prioritize developing infrastructure to immediately improve the student experience and ultimately enable the university to scale its online programs. The consultant worked with school leadership to establish a virtual CIO to oversee the IT department's strategy and operations. The virtual CIO quickly became a key advisor to the president and board, identifying gaps between technology initiatives and enrollment and revenue targets. St. Francis staff also transitioned to the consultant's technology team, allowing the university to alleviate its talent acquisition and retention challenges.

Results

• $200,000 in funds reallocated to help with upgrades due to streamlined technology infrastructure
• Updated card access system for campus staff and students
• Active directory implementation for a secure and strong authentication technology
• An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) backup is installed to ensure power continues in the event of a power outage
• Upgrade to a reliable, campus-wide Wi-Fi network
• Behind-the-scenes upgrades like state-of-the-art data centers to stabilize aging technology for greater reliability

Track your annual activity by business unit – not by input source

A simple graph showing the breakdown of projects by business unit is an excellent visualization of who is getting the most from infrastructure services.

Show everyone in the organization that the best way to get anything done is by availing themselves of the roadmap process.

Enable technology staff to engage in business storytelling by documenting known goals in a framework

Without a goal framework

Technology-focused IT staff are notoriously disconnected from the business process and are therefore often unable to explain the outcomes of their projects in terms that are meaningful to the business.

With a goal framework

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

Info-Tech Best Practice

So many organizations we speak with don't have goals written down. This rarely means that the goals aren't known, rather that they're not clearly communicated.

When goals aren't clear, personal agendas can take precedence. This is what often leads to the disconnect between what the business wants and what IT is delivering.

1.2.2 Survey and results analysis

1 hour

Infrastructure succeeds by effectively scaling shared resources for the common good. Sometimes that is a matter of aggregating similarities, sometimes by recognizing where specialization is required.

1. Have every business unit provide their top three to five current goals or objectives for their department. Emphasize that you are requesting their operational objectives, not just the ones they think IT may be able to help them with.
2. Put each goal on a sticky note (optional: use a unique sticky note or marker color for each department) and place them on a whiteboard.
3. Group the sticky notes according to common themes.
4. Rank each grouping according to number of occurrences.

Discussion:

1. This is very democratic. Do certain departments' goals carry more weight more than others?
2. What is the current business prioritization process? Do the results of our activity match with the current published output of this process?
3. Consider each business goal in the context of infrastructure activity or technology feature or capability. As infrastructure is a lift function existing only to serve the business, it is important to understand our world in context.

Examples: The VP of Operations is looking to reduce office rental costs over the next three years. The VP of Sales is focused on increasing the number of face-to-face customer interactions. Both can potentially be served by IT activities and technologies that increase mobility.

Input

• Business unit input source list

Output

• Prioritized list of business goals

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard & markers

Participants

• Roadmap team

1.2.3 Goal brainstorming – Affinity diagramming exercise

1 hour

Clarify how well you understand what the business wants.

1. Ask each participant to consider: "What are the top three priorities of the company [this period]?" They should consider not what they think the priorities should be, but their understanding of what business leadership's priorities actually are.
2. Have each participant write down their three priorities on sticky notes – one per note.
3. Select a moderator from the group – not the infrastructure leader or the CIO. The moderator will begin by placing (and explaining) their sticky notes on the whiteboard.
4. Have each participant place and explain their sticky notes on the whiteboard.
5. The moderator will assist each participant in grouping sticky notes together based on theme.
6. Groups that become overly large may be broken into smaller, more precise themes.
7. Once everyone has placed their sticky notes, and the groups have been arranged and rearranged, you should have a visual representation of infrastructure's understanding of the business' priorities.
8. Let the infrastructure leader and/or CIO place their sticky notes last.

Discussion:

Is there a lot of agreement within the group? What does it mean if there are 10 or 15 groups with equal numbers of sticky notes? What does it mean if there are a few top groups and dozens of small outliers?

How does the group's understanding compare with that of the Director and/or CIO?

What mechanisms are in place for the business to communicate their goals to infrastructure? Are they effective? Does the team take the time to reimagine those goals and internalize them?

What does it mean if infrastructure's understanding differs from the business?

Input

• Business unit input source list

Output

• Prioritized list of business goals

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard & markers

Participants

• Roadmap team

Additional Activity

Now that infrastructure has a consensus on what it thinks the business' goals are, suggest a meeting with leadership to validate this understanding. Once the first picture is drawn, a 30-minute meeting can help clear up any misconceptions.

Build your own framework or start with these three root value drivers

With a framework of cascading goals in place, a roadmap is a Rosetta Stone. Being able to map activities back to governance objectives allows you to demonstrate value regardless of the audience you are addressing.

(Info-Tech, Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy 2022)

1.2.4 Goal association exercise and analysis

1 hour

Wherever possible use the language of your customers to avoid confusion, but at least ensure that everyone in infrastructure is using a common language.

1. Take your business strategy or IT strategy or survey response (Activity 1.2.3) or Info-Tech's fundamental goals list (strategic agility, improved cash flow, innovate product, safety, standardize end-user experience) and write them across the top of a whiteboard.
2. Have everyone write, on a sticky note, their current in-flight initiatives – one per sticky note.
3. Have each participant then place each of their sticky notes on the whiteboard and draw a line from the initiative to the goal it supports.
4. The rest of the group should challenge any relationships that seem unsupported or questionable.

Discussion:

1. How many goals are you supporting? Are there too many? Are you doing enough to support the right goals?
2. Is there a shared understanding of the business goals among the infrastructure staff? Or, do questions about meaning keep coming up?
3. Do you have initiatives that are difficult to express in terms of business goals? Do you have a lot of them or just a few?

Input

• Goal list
• In-flight initiatives list

Output

• Initiatives-to-goals map

Materials

• Whiteboard & markers

Participants

• Roadmap team

Summary of Accomplishment

Review performance from last fiscal year.

• Analyzed and communicated the benefits and value realized from IT's strategic initiatives in the past fiscal year.
• Analyzed and prioritized diagnostic data insights to communicate IT success stories.
• Elicited important retrospective information such as KPIs, financials, etc. to build IT's credibility as a strategic business partner.

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

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

Phase 2

Envision Future and Analyze Constraints

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Determine from a greenfield perspective what the future state looks like.
• Do SWOT analysis on technology you may plan to use in the future.
• Complete a time study.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Roadmap team

Step 2.1

Define the future state

Activities

2.1.1 Define your future infrastructure vision

2.1.2 Document desired future state

2.1.3 Develop a new technology identification process

2.1.4 Conduct a SWOT analysis

This step requires the following inputs:

• Emerging technology interest

This step involves the following participants:

• Roadmap team
• External SMEs

Outcomes of this step

• Technology discovery process
• Technology assessment process
• Future state vision document

Future state discussion

"Very few of us are lucky enough to be one of the first few employees in a new organization. Those of you who get to plan the infrastructure with a blank slate and can focus all of your efforts on doing things right the first time."

BMC, 2018

"A company's future state is ultimately defined as the greater vision for the business. It's where you want to be, your long-term goal in terms of the ever-changing state of technology and how that applies to your present-day business."
"Without a definitive future state, a company will often find themselves lacking direction, making it harder to make pivotal decisions, causing misalignment amongst executives, and ultimately hindering the progression and growth of a company's mission."
Source: Third Stage Consulting

"When working with digital technologies, it is imperative to consider how such technologies can enhance the solution. The future state should communicate the vision of how digital technologies will enhance the solutions, deliver value, and enable further development toward even greater value creation."
Source: F. Milani

Info-Tech Insight

Define your infrastructure roadmap as if you had a blank slate – no constraints, no technical debt, and no financial limitations. Imagine your future infrastructure and let that vision drive your roadmap.

Expertise is not innate; it requires effort and research

Evaluating new enterprise technology is a process of defining it, analyzing it, and sourcing it.

• Understand what a technology is in order to have a common frame of reference for discussion. Just as important, understand what it is not.
• Conduct an internal and external analysis of the technology including an adoption case study.
• Provide an overview of the vendor landscape, identifying the leading players in the market and how they differentiate their offerings.

This is not intended to be a thesis grade research project, nor an onerous duty. Most infrastructure practitioners came to the field because of an innate excitement about technology! Harness that excitement and give them four to eight hours to indulge themselves.

An output of approximately four slides per technology candidate should be sufficient to decided if moving to PoC or pilot is warranted.

Including this material in the roadmap helps you control the technology conversation with your audience.

Info-Tech Best Practices

Don't start from scratch. Recall the original sources from your technology watchlist. Leverage vendors and analyst firms (such as Info-Tech) to give the broad context, letting you focus instead on the specifics relevant to your business.

Channel emerging technologies to ensure the rising tide floats all boats rather than capsizing your business

Adopting the wrong new technology can be even more dangerous than failing to adopt any new technology.

Implementing every new promising technology would cost prodigious amounts of money and time. Know the costs before choosing what to invest in.

The risk of a new technology failing is acceptable. The risk of that failure disrupting adjacent core functions is unacceptable. Vet potential technologies to ensure they can be safely integrated.

Best practices for new technologies are nonexistent, standards are in flux, and use cases are fuzzy. Be aware of the unforeseen that will negatively affect your chances of a successful implementation.

"Like early pioneers crossing the American plains, first movers have to create their own wagon trails, but later movers can follow in the ruts."
Harper Business, 2014

Info-Tech Insight

The right technology for someone else can easily be the wrong technology for your business.

Even with a mature Enterprise Architecture practice, wrong technology bets can happen. Minimize the chance of this occurrence by making selection an infrastructure-wide activity. Leverage the practical knowledge of the day-to-day operators.

2.1.1 Create your future infrastructure vision

1 hour

Objective: Help teams define their future infrastructure state (assuming zero constraints or limitations).

1. Ask each participant to ponder the question: "How would the infrastructure look if there were no limitations?" They should consider all aspects of their infrastructure but keep in mind the infrastructure vision and mission statements from phase one, as well as the business goals.
2. Have each participant write down their ideas on sticky notes – one per note.
3. Select a moderator and a scribe from the group – not the infrastructure leader or the CIO. The moderator will begin by placing (and explaining) their sticky notes on the whiteboard. The scribe will summarize the results in short statements at the end.
4. Have each participant place and explain their sticky notes on the whiteboard.
5. The moderator will assist each participant in grouping sticky notes together based on theme.
6. Once everyone has placed their sticky notes and groups have been arranged and rearranged, you should have a visual representation of infrastructure's understanding of the business' priorities.
7. Let the infrastructure leader and/or CIO place their sticky notes last.

Discussion:

1. Assume a blank slate as a starting point. No technical debt or financial constraints; nothing holding you back.
2. Can SaaS, PaaS, or other cloud-based offerings play a role in this future utopia?
3. Do vendors play a larger or smaller role in your future infrastructure vision?

Download the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template and document your mission and vision statements in Section 1.

Input

• Thoughts and ideas about how the future infrastructure should look.

Output

• Future state vision

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard & markers

Participants

• Roadmap team

2.1.1 Document your future state vision (cont'd)

Objective: Help teams define their future infrastructure state (assuming zero constraints or limitations).

1 hour

Steps:

8. The scribe will take the groups of suggestions and summarize them in a statement or two, briefly describing the infrastructure in that group.
9. The statements should be recorded on Tab 2 of the Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Tool.

Discussion:

• Should the points be listed in any specific order?
• Include all suggestions in the summary. Remember this is a blank slate with no constraints, and no idea is higher or lower in weight at this stage.

Download Info-Tech's Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Tool and document your future state vision in the Infrastructure Future State tab.

Input

• Thoughts and ideas about how the future infrastructure should look.

Output

• Future state vision

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard & markers

Participants

• Roadmap team

2.1.2 Identification and association exercise

1 hour

Formalize what is likely an ad hoc process.

1. Brainstorm with the group a list of external sources they are currently using to stay abreast of the market.
2. Organize this list on the left-hand side of a whiteboard, in vendor and vendor-neutral groups.
   1. For each item in the list ask a series of questions:
   2. Is this a push or pull source?
   3. Is this source suited to individual or group consumption?
   4. What is the frequency of this source?
3. What is the cost of this source to the company?
4. On the right-hand side of the whiteboard brainstorm a list of internal mechanisms for sharing new technology information. Ask about the audience, distribution mode, and frequency for each of those mechanisms.
5. Map which of the external sources make it over to internal distribution.

Discussion:

1. Are we getting the most value out of our high-cost conferences? Does that information make it from the attendees to the rest of the team?
2. Do we share information only within our domains? Or across the whole infrastructure practice?
3. Do we have sufficient diversity of sources? Are we in danger of believing one vendor's particular market interpretation?
4. How do we select new technologies to explore further? Make it fun – upvotes, for example.

Input

• Team knowledge
• Conference notes
• Expense reports

Output

• Internal socialization process
• Tech briefings & repository

Materials

• Whiteboard & markers

Participants

• Roadmap team

Info-Tech Best Practices

It is impractical for everyone to present their tech briefing at the monthly meeting. But you want to avoid a one-to-many exercise. Keep the presenter a secret until called on. Those who do not present live can still contribute their material to the technology watchlist database.

Analyze new technologies for your future state

Four to eight hours of research per technology can uncover a wealth of relevant information and prepare the infrastructure team for a robust discussion. Key research elements include:

• Précis: A single page or slide that describes the technology, outlines some of the vendors, and explores the value proposition.
• SWOT Analysis:
• Strengths and weaknesses: What does the technology inherently do well (e.g. lots of features) and what does it do poorly (e.g. steep learning curve)?
• Opportunities and threats: What capabilities can the technology enable (e.g. build PCs faster, remote sensing)? Why would we not want to exploit this technology (e.g. market volatility, M&As)

Download the IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap Report Template slides 21, 22, 23 for sample output.

Position infrastructure as the go-to source for information about new technology

One way or another, tech always seems to finds its way into infrastructure's lap. Better to stay in front and act as stewards rather than cleanup crew.

Effective treatment options

1. Targeted regular communication with a technology portfolio analysis customized to the specific goals of the business.
2. Ongoing PoC and piloting efforts with detailed results reporting.

While no permanent cure exists, regular treatment makes this chronic syndrome manageable.

Keep your roadmap horizon in mind

Technology doesn't have to be bleeding edge. New-to-you can have plenty of value.

You want to present a curated landscape of technologies, demonstrating that you are actively maintaining expertise in your chosen field.

Most enterprise IT shops buy rather than develop their technology, which means they want to focus effort on what is market available. The outcome is that infrastructure sponsors and delivers new technologies whose capabilities and features will help the business achieve its goals on this roadmap.

If you want to think more like a business disruptor or innovator, we suggest working through the blueprint Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology.
Explore technology five to ten years into the future!

Info-Tech Insight

The ROI of any individual effort is difficult to justify – in aggregate, however, the enterprise always wins!
Money spent on Google Glass in 2013 seemed like vanity. Certainly, this wasn't enterprise-ready technology. But those early experiences positioned some visionary firms to quickly take advantage of augmented reality in 2018. Creative research tends to pay off in unexpected and unpredictable ways.
.

2.1.3 Working session, presentation, and feedback

1 hour

Complete a SWOT analysis with future state technology.

The best research hasn't been done in isolation since the days of da Vinci.

1. Divide the participants into small groups of at least four people.
2. Further split those groups into two teams – the red team and the white team.
3. Assign a technology candidate from the last exercise to each group. Ideally the group should have some initial familiarity with the technology and/or space.
4. The red team from each group will focus on the weaknesses and threats of the technology. The white team will focus on the strengths and opportunities of the technology.
5. Set a timer and spend the next 30-40 minutes completing the SWOT analysis.
6. Have each group present their analysis to the larger team. Encourage conversation and debate. Capture and refine the understanding of the analysis.
7. Reset with the next technology candidate. Have the participants switch teams within their groups.
8. Continue until you've exhausted your technology candidates.